Payscribe, a Nigerian business, has restarted as a side project after three years, with a renewed focus on digitising cash payments and offering daily critical financial services at the user’s fingertips.
Payscribe, which debuted in May 2019, was initially a side project of entrepreneur Sokoya Philip, who envisioned a cashless Nigeria one day. He only joined the company full-time last year, relaunching it as an all-in-one digital financial services marketplace with a focus on assisting consumers in managing their finances.
The software enables users to save a particular amount of each transaction and earn interest, track their expenses and create budgets, send and receive money, and set up payment plans.
According to Philip, the overall potential market for cashless payments, savings and budgeting, and bill payments is enormous. Meanwhile, with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) implementing a cashless strategy and lowering cash withdrawal restrictions, demand for digital financial services in Nigeria is expanding.
“Payscribe’s products and services have already positioned it to help increase financial inclusion by providing an alternative to traditional banking services,” Philip told Disrupt Africa.
The bootstrapped startup has benefitted from this demand, and its founder focusing on it full-time, and has seen its user base grow by 45 per cent in 12 months.
“There has been a good uptake in our services,” Philip said. “We have partnered with many merchants with thousands of customers to provide daily essential financial services on their application,” he said.
“Our plan now is to strengthen the product marketing, build partnerships and reputation, and establish a competitive position in the market in order to meet our long-term goal of becoming the leading digital financial service provider in Nigeria.”
For Payscribe, which monetises via money transfer fees, commissions, and a one-time subscription charge for Pro users, the next step is to keep building out its platform.
“Our expansion plan for development is to introduce a dollar savings service, Payscribe for Business. This is on our roadmap in 2023,” Philip said. “Growth on Payscribe has been steady, with revenue doubling every month with an average MRR of five per cent.”
