Digital sales and procurement platforms are transforming how African businesses conduct business, fostering a more effective trade environment overall and reducing frictions that have long plagued traditional supply chains.
These platforms are increasingly serving as more than simply intermediaries between buyers and sellers; they are also well-positioned to offer payment and credit services to African businesses.
Tunde Kara, CEO and co-founder of restaurant procurement platform Vendease, said that adding payment became required as the company developed to a particular level about the transition from pure marketplace to payment processor.
The horizontal platform of payments “almost becomes unavoidable for you to grasp” when you construct your vertical sufficiently thoroughly, he claimed.
He said, “Within the first year of launch, the Vendease team realised that it would need to develop its own payment system as suppliers weren’t getting paid on time, which was delaying deliveries.
After the business entered the payments market, according to Kara, developing a buy now, pay later (BNPL) solution that allowed restaurants to make purchases on credit was a logical next step to promote industry growth. He said that with BNPL, “people have more cash to play with in terms of expanding their enterprises.”
