GTBank’s parent company, GTCO, has unveiled a new product called SquadCo within its HabariPay subsidiary.  The Central Bank of Nigeria gave the approval according to Premium Times: “Payments are central to the development of financial services globally and represent a key growth area for the group. With HabariPay, we have successfully created another pathway towards enhancing the service experience for our customers and creating more value for our stakeholders,”” said CEO Segun Agbaje. 

As I noted in Feb 2022, GTBank is going through a 3rd metamorphosis, and unification of everything is going to be part of this future.  It needs to get it right because MTN Nigeria has disintermediated many domains of financial services and has positioned itself to capture significant value. That explains why the market cap of MTN Nigeria is larger than all banks, insurers and other financial institutions combined in Nigeria.

The banks of the future will be pure play technology companies which offer banking services. Telecom firms and fintechs have positioned themselves already for that future. GTBank and other banks are working hard to insert themselves at scale. Simply, they want to play at the edges of the smiling curve.

In November 2018 when I wrote ‘GTBank’s Everything “Habari” Banking – Raps, Sings, Styles, Shops, Pays and More’, I saw a grand unification but also cautioned that “It may make the local banking giant lose an identity”. GTBank was playing the duality element where products are also platforms; that plan did not work out well. But with HabariPay’s SquadCo injection, GTBank has a chance to capture value using the one oasis and double play strategies. 

The banking main subsidiary is the one oasis and HabariPay can be part of a play. Great strategy; it comes down to execution on the powers of (native) digital entrepreneurs. And call it an irony: when a bank goes fintech, it says bye bye to “nice” fees because fintech is nothing but disintermediation of banking services with optimized services.

This week, GTCO, Nigeria’s second biggest lender by market value, launched a fintech unit named SquadCo, which eases the path for it to offer services and products including, e-commerce, payment gateway and Soft POS. SquadCo is a product of HabariPay.

Rival Access Holdings completed its evolution to a holding company in April, a move that will enable it to branch out into payments and other financial services while Sterling Bank is on track to adopt a similar structure.

“Our vision is an Africa where every payment is digital, and we hope to achieve this by increasingly leveraging technology to improve access to financial services for individuals and empower businesses across Africa with the right digital tools to thrive,” Mr Agbaje said.

Early in February, GTCO announced purchase of Investment One Funds Management Limited and Investment One Pension Managers Limited as the group diversified into pension and asset management at a time earnings from its core banking business were becoming inadequate to sustain profit growth.

Tekedia Capital invests in technology-anchored early stage startups and companies. Our opportunity antenna and grassroot connections with innovators enable us to see patterns as they develop.  We invite you to partner with us as we nurture and build category-king companies in Africa and beyond, and in the process advance citizens, communities and nations. At Tekedia Capital, we fund the foundations of the NEXT African economy. Click here and learn more.

He is a master of design thinking and innovation. He helps organizations translate business frictions into components, and how through Design Thinking, they can create winning solutions in markets. Aderinola Oloruntoye of SAP, a global technology giant, will teach us in Week 2, at Tekedia Live.

Tekedia Institute is the best business school for the mastery of entrepreneurial capitalism in Africa. Our faculty members are business leaders and practitioners in markets who understand the mechanics of business.

Tekedia Mini-MBA begins on Monday, June 6. Come here and learn how to design – and how to innovate, from our “Dean”, Mr. Oloruntoye.

Update: Our Design Thinking and Innovation Faculty is offering Free Digital Transformation Business Case Development for 5 Digital Transformation Program Leaders/Managers or Companies so they can prioritize and deliver their Digital Initiatives with Stakeholder Value at the center. He will be live on June 14 during a live class session and will provide more insights.

We’re very excited that he is offering this to the new edition of Tekedia Institute Mini-MBA; last time he did the same, a governor of Anambra State hired one of our learners to develop the innovation ecosystem project. The learner submitted his class project to the state and the governor saw it and hired him! And the new Prof Soludo government has retained the learner.

On the selection, we do not know the best way to do the selection since I expect dozens of members to be interested. But let us meet in the class and work out the best way.

We have started scheduling our Faculty for Tekedia Mini-MBA live Zoom sessions. Eromosele Omomhenle F.IMS , a Senior Manager, Global ISV Alliances and Partner Development at Microsoft global headquarters in Redmond, USA, will anchor a session on Business Strategy & Execution.  Tekedia Institute Mini-MBA begins on Monday, June 6. Register today.

Let me congratulate Touch and Pay Technologies Ltd (YC W22) for the recognition by Built in Africa. TAP is one of the fastest growing companies in the continent and the category-king on microtransactions (say 10 cents to $10). About three years ago, it was processing N5 million per month; today, it is hitting close to N5 billion ($10 million) per month. The total customer base is now close to 2 million and more than 20% use the solution daily.

At Tekedia Capital, we admire innovators and agents of change. Congrats Olamide. Michael, Ogochukwu and Kabir.

TAP is expanding rapidly into Africa and is open to work with governments and institutions. Reach out. With TAP, revenue is assured and its technology is industry-leading.