Rank formerly Moni founded in 2021 by Femi Iromini, is a Y-combinator backed fintech startup with a mission to digitalize Africa community savings systems to ensure social trust through cluster leading models. It boast of strong investors base which include Magic fund, Predictive VC, 186Ventures and Uncovered funds. And has over 57,000 small businesses receiving loans through its cluster model platform
As a strategy for market expansion, Rank formerly Moni is looking beyond lending, but to deepen its cultural non-informal system by digitizing Africa traditional community savings of thrift contribution and thus the acquisition of Ajomoney and zazzau microfinance bank for regulatory basis to accept deposits, connect to NIBBS to become positioned as a finance service provider.
However, Rank did not disclose the value of the acquisition. It is noted that Zazzau MFB, a kaduna base microfinance bank is a central bank of Nigeria tier 2 listed microfinance bank with a minimum paid-up capital of 50 million naira (CBN)
Ajomoney founded by Ibrahim Adepoju and Chinyere Ochem in 2021 is a neo-banking SaaS, financial technology company digitizing rotating savings and credit association with a registered data-base of more than 15000 users leveraging on its users credit score to match its users to rotating saving groups: Ajomoney has AjoStore, AjoPay among other digital products and has gotten investment from tekedia capital in 2022
Rank’s decision to acquire these two emerging companies is strategic and bold. Rank now has the capacity to function as a microfinance bank and as a digital lending platform with Ajomoney that has strong digital presence.
With these acquisitions, there will be market expansion, talent/technology retention and increased shareholder value through synergy that will cause accelerated growth.
The successful integration of the MFB’s regulatory compliance with Ajomoney’s digital reach will determine the true value creation. This transaction serves as a blueprint for how FinTechs are leveraging M&A to navigate the complex Nigerian regulatory environment
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