One Finance Limited (OneFi), a consumer lending platform provider, acquired Amplified Payments Ltd (Amplify), a Lagos, Nigeria-based fintech company that builds and facilitates payment solutions and digital financial transactions for an undisclosed sum.
The acquisition will enable OneFi to boost its financial services offering, as the company adds Amplify’s assets, tradements and flagship products, AmplifyPay and mTransfers, to its portfolio.
Co-founded in 2015 by Segun Adeyemi and Maxwell Obi, who first met as Entrepreneurs-in-Training at MEST Africa’s Entrepreneurial Training Program in Accra, Ghana, Amplify has become one of Nigeria’s leading online recurring payment processors, supporting over 1,000 merchants and facilitating digital transactions for four of the country’s largest banks.
The company’s core products are:– AmplifyPay – a payment gateway specialising in recurring transactions – and – mTransfers – a keyboard banking solution that enables consumers to conduct bill and P2P payments in any chat app. Amplify’s client base includes GTBank, Zenith Bank, Whogohost, Credit Direct Ltd, Cloud Cover Distribution, Fidelity Bank, Sterling Bank, amongst others.
As a result of the acquisition, Amplify co-founder and CTO, Maxwell Obi, will join the OneFi team to oversee the payments direction of the company, whilst co-founder and CEO, Segun Adeyemi, will depart as he pursues new ventures.
Launched in 2016 by Nigerian finance entrepreneurs Chijioke and Ngozi Dozie, OneFi provides Paylater, a consumer-facing lending platform which gives access to free loans without the need for human intervention or bias in decision making. Through its app, which has been downloaded over one million times, Paylater has deployed over $50M across 750,000 loans, approving over 1,500 loans a day at an average of $80 per loan.
In late 2018, the company became the first African fintech platform to secure a credit rating. The acquisition of Amplify will see the platform pivot to a one-stop-shop offering additional products such as savings, bill payments and credit reporting.
