Onyeka Adibeli is the Co-founder of Oradian, a financial inclusion company enabling financial institutions to deliver financial services with ease.
Oradian offers a flagship toolset for digital transformation called Instafin. Instafin was developed to address the challenges faced by microfinance institutions (MFIs), microfinance banks (MFBs) and cooperative societies operating in the most remote and hard-to-reach areas of the world, especially across Africa.
In this press interview at the 2018 Annual Microfinance Conference hosted by the National Association of Microfinance Banks (NAMB), Onyeka explained how the solution provided safety nets for financial institutions in the Northern parts of Nigeria, especially during the most pronounced days of insurgencies.
“Even in the high point of insurgency, we were able to deliver financial technology to Development Exchange Centre (DEC) operating out of Bauchi State in the northern part of Nigeria”, Adibeli explained.
Within a few years of launching, Oradian has attracted so much attention, what are the driving forces behind you and your partners?
Our driving force is our mission; to boost financial inclusion by enabling institutions to grow and serve more clients. So, we focus on providing microfinance institutions with a core banking system that makes it possible for them to keep up in an industry that is constantly evolving with digital financial services.
We are developing a system to address the current challenges and the main challenge we have identified has to do with flexibility and affordability. We are assiduously developing a system that can operate with the third-party services in a cost-efficient manner. The system is offered through subscription model, to address issues related to enormous upfront investment.
One of the things that would help microfinance institutions make headway is ubiquitous software; can you describe how Oradian’s Core Banking System operates?
Our cloud-based Core Banking System, Instafin, is a tool that assists financial institutions in providing services such as managing loans and savings, integrated accounting, as well as detailed reporting and business intelligence modules that run fully seated on the system. With all this, financial institutions can operate independently of Oradian, because they are fully enabled to pull out all the necessary reports required.
How do you deploy for banks; is it an off-the-shelf solution or do you work with the banks to understand their pain points before deploying?
For every institution that signs up to the platform, we work with them to set up the system. It’s a door-in relationship with parameters; not a decision aiming at compromises. The system is built with all necessary requirements to benefit financial institutions, and so, what we need is to get the parameters right.
Let’s talk about financial inclusion. All the available statistics show that the country and region needs to do better to onboard more financially excluded people. What is your view on this?
Our focus is to support financial institutions by enabling them to provide services in the most hard-to-reach environments. We assist them in reaching locations where other technology providers are found necessary. Complaints from microfinance institutions show that other providers are not willing to offer their services in these remote areas, which would solve a range of difficulties. So, in the long run, the beneficiaries are financially included because the service points get closer to them through microfinance banks and institutions being able to provide their services in these locations.
Based on all the matters that were discussed at the 2018 Annual Microfinance Conference, what is your take?
I wish to put an emphasis on the point raised by the guest speaker Prof. Kingsley Moghalu regarding targeting; MFBs are not exactly targeting the right clients. Often they’re focused on cities rather than the rural areas where there’s a high number of financially excluded people. These locations are seen as the most difficult environments to operate in, and this is where Oradian has found its strength – operating in the most remote and hard-to-reach environments.
Oradian’s promise:
My final word is that Oradian’s flagship product, our cloud-based Core Banking System, Instafin, is developed to operate in the most hard-to-reach and remote environments – where other technologies are not willing to buy in. Oradian is the partner reaching out to the financially excluded!
(*NB: This interview was originally published by TechEconomy.ng)