Paylater rebrands as “Carbon”

Nigeria’s consumer lending firm relaunched as “Carbon”, in its deliberate transition to a fully-fledged digital financial services platform.

Carbon will now offer bill payments, fund transfers and savings products, in addition to loans. Also. the firm introduced brand new products such as free credit reports and a wallet for its customers to perform discounted transactions.

Speaking on the relaunch, the company’s co-founder and CEO Chijioke Dozie said: “It was very deliberate – most of our customers only know us as Paylater which conjures up images of credit, but we have grown as a company to offer so much more.”

The name choice was also deliberate. Carbon is one of the most essential elements for human life, it is found in all life forms and is extremely versatile. Carbon the company also aims to go everywhere with its customers and become an essential part of their lives and fulfill their needs.

“We know what our customers’ pain points and needs are when it comes to banking in Africa and we are building financial products around them,” Dozie added.

As part of its transition, the firm will also move into providing health insurance for its customers as it looks to lessen the burdens Nigerians currently face in accessing and paying for it. The firm is also working with a virtual Visa card for customers to handle transactions.

The CEO Ngozi Dozie added: “We’re in a competitive space but whoever serves the customer best will reap the rewards. That’s been the thinking behind our product evolution, whether it’s our Bloom account targeted at female entrepreneurs or the partnerships we’ve been working on in the healthcare sector. The focus is on being attentive to what our customers want and need”.

He noted further; the rebrand brings to a close a busy few months for Carbon, after they acquired payments company Amplify, cementing their move into multiple strands of financial services. Carbon also secured a $5mn investment from fintech platform Lendable highlighting a bubble of activity for the company and in 2018, became the first African fintech platform to secure a Credit Rating.

You can get the updated Carbon mobile app which is now available for download on the Google Play Store.