Payments platform Remita has announced the launch of its all-in-one app, marking a shift in focus from just payments to an all-encompassing financial solution platform. The company announced this during the ongoing Nigeria Fintech Week, noting that the new app is the hub of financial services.
According to the company, the new app doesn’t just allow users to make payments alone, they can also buy stocks and shares, take loans, pay for utilities, buy government bonds, make transfers and transactions from Nigeria to several African countries, and a host of other things.
It also lets users manage multiple financial technology apps right there on its platform, making it a truly all-in-one app.
Speaking at the launch, Remita MD, Deremi Atanda, said the development is showcasing the next move for the company and bringing its solution to the world.
“The majority of people who have worked with us over the years have known us by the web expression, but today we are happy to present the Remita Mobile App, and that’s the next evolution of the Remita experience. We’re stepping out boldly into the consumer space, and this is well beyond payments. This is well beyond payments. This is a transformation of lifestyle. This is the expansion of access to financial services. This is ease,” the MD said.
Thousands of users in Beta: What Remita mobile app is about
Speaking about the app itself, Deremi Atanda said it is a product of 20 years of helping everyday people make payments and learning what people want in the process. And after 20 years of having its own regulator as a customer, the company has matured through the years and built the resilience and market understanding to better serve consumers.
As such, the Remita app is a product that changes how people manage their finances.
“And the first bit of it is, for the first time at scale, what organisations or enterprises experience—being able to see all your bank accounts on a single app. That’s the first thing. That every Nigerian, irrespective of where they bank or keep their funds, can begin to manage their funds from a single place,” he said.
He said this is something that only organisations experienced until now that Remita has brought to the everyday person. He noted that this was made possible because of partnerships with financial institutions, as the company owes its success to the great trust and belief of the financial ecosystem, and that’s one thing that the app is bringing to the market.
“Irrespective of the bank where your accounts are, you’ll be able to see them, monitor your balances, and transact. It represents the collaboration of the entire industry. And we say to ourselves, while other people innovate around products, we innovate the ecosystem: bring everybody together to ensure that the interests of the customers are achieved,” he said.
Once users are able to manage their funds from a single place, they can do more than make payments. Thus, the new mobile app will also be democratising credit by giving users access to several loan platforms and enabling them to compare them in real time through its Loans Market feature. Conversely, the loan platforms will also have access to evaluate users correctly through a single platform.
The Remita app also provides a platform for users to invest in stocks and shares. It also helps users to pay bills and buy airline tickets from different accounts in one place.
“So you don’t need to hop across different apps. You can use your different bank accounts to achieve different objectives from the same place. That’s one of the things that we call financial management in a box,” the MD said.
Beyond local payments, the Remita app also provides users with a platform through which they can make transfers into any African bank account. This was made possible in conjunction with the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS). This means that, right from the Remita app, users will be able to debit any of their local bank accounts securely, based on the relationships they have with their banks, and transfer to anyone in Africa.
The Remita app is offering users a platform for the intelligent management of their money. Leveraging artificial intelligence, the app can track budgets, track expenses, give you signals and alerts, and provide action points after intelligently analysing trends. The app could also be used to set up recurring payments into different accounts and wallets, eliminating the need for physical reminders. And if a user is not meeting up with those payments, the app intelligently advises them and compares their previous periods with the current one.
“So what we’re saying is: financial services from a single place. Leveraging the power of partnership in the ecosystem, leveraging the trust that we’ve earned over the years, and ensuring that truly financial and economic inclusion becomes a reality, an everyday reality, for everyday Nigerians,” Mr Atanda said.
He noted that the company currently processes in excess of 100 trillion every year, largely driven by corporate payments. But now that it is going into the consumer space, that transaction value is about to soar.
“We believe that in the next six months, we’re going to see significant adoption in terms of transactions, not just instant transfers locally, but Pan-African transactions. We also see adoption that’s going to drive services that people have not known before, now that they have easy access to. One of those will be micro-pension. Another one will be credit for people who are already verified. A number of people are still having challenges accessing credit easily, but by virtue of access to intelligence on your data, Remita is making credit available to everyday Nigerians everywhere,” he said.
He noted that the app has been in the beta stage for a while and has already accrued thousands of early adopters despite not running adverts and promotions.
Read also: FIRS appoints Remita, Telepac, others as service providers
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