Carmachain, startup furnishing lenders with borrowers’ data, hits 80 million profiles

Fintech start-up Carmachain, which launched two years ago as an online marketplace feeding digital lenders with the individual customer information they need to bridge the data gap among the underserved, has touched 80 million in consumer profiles, the company said.

Having debuted in Lagos in 2020, Carmachain now has engagement with more than a score of organisations on its partnership list including digital banks, utility providers, cooperative/microfinance platforms, telecom operators, payment processors among others.

“Credit organizations starve for data in Nigeria and getting data of underbanked is even more challenging,” CEO and Founder Ted Martynov said in a statement seen by PREMIUM TIMES.

“Our recent milestone emphasises the importance of how inclusive data can drive social impact and with our technology protocol providing data on a peer-to-peer basis we ensure that data exchanges are encrypted, safe and secure.”

Carmachain furnishes firms on its clientele with data aggregated from different consumers having dealings with such organisations by way of a peer-to-peer technology that allows unrestricted access to the consumer database.

The idea is that in providing a platform that in linking those service providers directly to troves of consumer data, issues around Know Your Customer, address verification, profiling and the likes, which has bogged down Nigeria’s unwieldy financial services industry for years will be substantially addressed.

READ ALSO: Buhari to inaugurate N16 billion new NDDC office

And the potential of the companies for seamless service delivery will find release.

UK-based Timbo Drayson, who helped Google deploy web mapping app Google Maps in the Middle East and Africa, launched a slight similar product named OkHi, with focus address verification and smart addressing months back in the country.

Carmachain counts CNBC Africa, Tech in Africa, SmartPreneur, Innovation Village and Disrupt Africa among its partners, according to the information on its website.

The fintech firm hopes to leverage its offerings to turn the tide in Africa’s most populous nation, where more than one of every three adults lack access to formal financial services, according to a 2020 survey by EFInA, which tracks the progress of inclusiveness in the country.

Carmachain has stated a vaulting ambition to capture 1.7 billion people in its inclusion drive around the world and is extending its gaze to key markets in Africa, which it plans to foray into in the next one year.