Lidya a Nigerian fintech platform that lends money to SMEs recently expanded its operation across Europe.
After securing an office in the United States, Lidya has expanded to the Czech Republic and Poland.
Lidya’s launch in Europe was led by Libor Vanicek, the former head of retail banking for ING Bank in Czech Republic and Tomasz Sekalski, the former CEO of Idea Money, in Poland.
Both Libor and Tomasz and would be serving as the country directors for Lidya in Czech Republic and Poland, respectively.
As a fintech platform, Lidya offers small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) loans through online registration.
Once the loan application gets verified it is granted within 24 hours.
In its first year running, the Nigerian money lending platform dispersed $2 million worth of loans and saw it expand to $10 million in the second year of its operation.
As of July 2019, Lidya has disbursed not less than 10, 000 loans to 2000 businesses in Nigeria.
Founded by Tunde Kehinde and Ercin Eksin, Lidya has raised up to $10 million from Alitheia Capital, Accion Venture Lab, Bamboo Capital Partners and Omidyar Network.
On the European expansion, Kehinde said, “We see a big opportunity to expand into the region given our technology, history of execution and uniquely talented team.
We plan to disburse 1 billion euros to small businesses in Poland and the Czech Republic and over the next five years and are excited to have Tomasz and Libor, two seasoned executives with deep experience in the market lead our expansion into the region.”
According to Eksin, Lidya is a world-class business assisting SMEs access the credit needed to grow.
“Our technology is proven in Nigeria where we have helped thousands of businesses to create wealth and employment. Improving access to credit for SMEs is a global problem and we have ambitious international expansion plans to meet this challenge.
Through Lidya, we have the opportunity to empower the growth of SMEs in Africa, Europe and around the world. SMEs create the most number of jobs and significantly contribute to GDP. We are on a mission to support the creation of 100 million jobs in fast-growing economies.”
The Co-Founders believes that some regions in the Central and Eastern parts of Europe house the fastest emerging economies in the world.
M-Pesa a Kenyan based tech start-up has expanded across the world while South Africa’s ShowMax launched in Poland.
Featured Image: DisruptAfrica
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