A surge of platforms enabling digital sales and procurement is altering the way African businesses do business, leading to a more efficient trading system overall and assisting in the elimination of frictions that have long hampered traditional supply chains.
These platforms are increasingly becoming more than just intermediaries linking consumers and sellers; they are perfectly positioned to provide payment and credit services to African businesses.
Tunde Kara, CEO and co-founder of restaurant procurement platform Vendease, explained that the transition from pure marketplace to payment processor became necessary after the platform reached a certain size.
“When you construct your vertical thoroughly enough, the horizontal platform of payments practically becomes unavoidable,” he says.
He noted that the Vendease team understood within the first year of operation that it would need to develop its own payment system since suppliers were not being paid on time, which was causing delays in deliveries.
Kara stated that once the firm had grown into payments, creating a buy now, pay later (BNPL) option that allowed restaurants to buy products on credit was a natural next step to further promote industry growth. “There’s more cash for them to play with in terms of creating their enterprises,” he said of BNPL.
The introduction of credit has been a spur for payment digitalization for Wasoko, another African B2B platform, according to the company’s founder and CEO, Daniel Yu, in an interview.
Although Wasoko’s informal and small- to medium-sized company (SMB) clients often opt to pay cash upon delivery in frequent upfront transactions, Yu highlighted that digital repayment is one of the prerequisites for getting BNPL loans.
“Through value-added services, we’re discovering methods to drive payment digitalization and assist stores in moving into digital payments ecosystems,” he said.
