Today p2p lending service Lendico is launching in South Africa, the first non-European market for Lendico. The start-up is launching through Africa Internet Holdings (AIH) – an e-commerce development platform supported by Rocket Internet, Millicom International and MTN. AIH co-founder Jeremy Hodara said South Africa matches the 3 criteria Lendico looks for in new markets:
- The country needs good financial infrastructure, with all the necessary components in place
- There needs to be an expanding online population, with adequate Internet penetration
- There needs to be a demand for personal loans
(Sources: Lendico, BusinessTech.co.za)
Welcome to Africa Lendico. My advice is try to work with local institutions and local experts. Many P2P coming to Africa bring with them a western mentality and tendency that look at Africans as statistics with no choices. This results to poor performance as demonstrated by the poor performance of most European originated P2P platforms in Africa.