Releaf partners OnePipe to improve Productivity for South-South Farmers in Nigeria

More than 2,000 oil palm farmers in Akwa Ibom and Cross River states now have access to digitized financial services, thanks to the collaborations between a raw material procurement and logistics platform, Releaf which makes it easy for the movement of crops from farm to factory and a digital gateway enabling financial services, OnePipe. More than 65 percent of Nigerians are outside the financial service envelope with millions underbanked or unbanked.

The attainment of the financial inclusion targets in Nigeria has been threatened by the combination of the widening digital divide in the underserved and rural areas and the COVID-19 disruptions.

The collaboration between OnePipe and Releaf is a welcomed initiative to the National Financial Strategy and provides opportunities for thousands of rural farmers across the South-South region of Nigeria.

Uzoma Ayogu, The co-founder and Chief Technology Officer speaking on the collaboration said;

“Since the initiation, Releaf has empowered more than 1,000 farmers to supply more than 10 million kilograms of quality crops to various food factories. While the disbursements of our farmers have been mostly cash-based, we can now access digitized disbursement of funds through embedded, customized accounts provided by OnePipe to assist the financial inclusion of farmers that were previously included financially in the digital economy. In that regard, we can provide enhanced finances to farmers in a more scalable, safe, and seamless manner. We continue to explore other products like insurance and other services making use of OnePipe’s strategic partnership and infrastructure with an array of Financial Institutions.” 

The embedded customized accounts for farmers are provided by making use of OnePipe’s partner bank APIs. They are opened and operated through PWA (Progressive Web App) and USSD channels and branded as Releaf Wallet for ease of adoption by farmers.

As full utility accounts, farmers can receive funds from any channel/bank and transfer funds to any Nigerian bank account. They also have access to services that are readily available like airtime top-up (self and third party), investments /savings, and various loan options.

The loan options are configured such that consistent usage of the Releaf wallet by the farmers results in a correspondingly increasing credit line.

According to him, “working with Releaf was inevitable as the company’s vision to transform Africa’s agricultural future by making decentralized food processing scaleable coincides with OnePipe’s social mandate to drive financial inclusion through technology for all – including the 700M+ smallholder farmers on the continent.”

Ope Adeoye, OnePipe’s Founder and Chief Plumber described the collaboration with Releaf as “an exciting opportunity to co-create value with Releaf.

Releaf is reviving agricultural infrastructure and crafting a sustainable path to prosperity for farmers who didn’t have previous commensurate return for their labor”

OnePipe’s platform provides a single gateway that combines financial services from leaders in the industry and uniquely combines them to develop new brand propositions to assist organizations in reducing marketing time by embedding financial services within their products.

OnePipe, is at the inception of the integrated financial movement in Sub Saharan Africa and has helped organizations like Releaf to provide seamless digital financial services to their partners.

Also, as regards the partnership with Releaf, OnePipe is working with main players in the Retail, Asset Management, and FMCG space to initiate embedded finance within their existing offerings.