BFREE, a Nigerian fintech, aims to improve consumers’ financial health by providing a tech-enabled credit management solution that makes collection processes more flexible, reliable, and user-friendly.
BFREE’s platform uses a mix of self-servicing solutions, contact automation, and human operations, as well as machine learning algorithms to cluster and forecast customer behavior, to incentivize customers who have fallen behind on their credit repayments to clear their balances in a sustainable manner.
Lenders benefit from higher repayment rates, and borrowers benefit from a better customer experience.
Beta.Ventures, based in Nigeria, led the seed round, which also included Launch Africa Ventures and GreenHouse Capital.
“All of us co-founders used to work in big Nigerian digital lending fintechs, and collections were always a challenge. Traditional collections firms, on the one hand, are not very flexible and have no flexibility and accountability in their processes. On the other hand, traditional call centers are more flexible but less reliable, and they still have loopholes for misconduct.So we looked at the collection process to see if we could redesign it from the ground up to address these issues,” said COO Chukwudi Enyi.
“No legal customer takes out a loan with the intention of defaulting on it; however, life does not always go as planned. When it comes to the main reasons why consumers are unable to pay their unpaid balances, it’s easy to see that loss of income and direct or indirect health emergencies are among the most common. We help these customers with their personal budgeting and then put them on a personalized repayment plan that suits their discretionary income.” CPO Moses stated.
“We are very excited to help develop the first ethical credit management business on the continent,” Beta Ventures’ Ike Eze said of the investment. Credit collection that is both efficient and user-friendly is an essential part of the credit value chain.
“As a leading pan-African early-stage VC fund focused on venture-building through our global network of over 100 strategic C-suite advisors, mentors, and investors, we realized we could bring tremendous value to BFREE in their geographic expansion plans,” said Baljinder Sharma of Launch Africa. BFREE is now focusing on East Africa, where we see tremendous potential for their solution and an area where we can assist them in expanding.”
“We are thrilled to have such enthusiastic investors on board. BFREE’s COO, Chukwudiebele Enyi, said, “We are now using this funding to scale our product and development team and to pilot the Kenyan market.”
“We emphasize all of our product development to assist customers in a state of financial emergency,” CPO Moses Nmor said. This is truly what drives us as a team. Finally, millions of African customers are in personal debt, and no one is focusing on assisting them in getting back on their feet. We’re changing that with BFREE.”
BFREE was established in the summer of 2020 by Chukwudi Enyi, Moses Nmor, and Julian Flosbach. Lenders benefit from higher repayment rates, and borrowers benefit from a better customer experience, the company operates over 300,000 clients for the majority of Nigeria’s leading lenders.