Over 2,000 oil palm farmers in Cross River and Akwa Ibom states of Nigeria now have access to digitised fund disbursement via embedded, customised accounts, provisioned by OnePipe.
Making this known in a statement on Monday, OnePipe, a digital gateway enabling financial services, also noted a partnership deal with Releaf, a raw material procurement and logistics platform.
According to the statement, the embedded customised accounts for the farmers are provisioned leveraging OnePipe’s partner bank’s Application Programming Interfaces.
“They are opened and operated via USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) and PWA (Progressive Web App) channels and branded as Releaf Wallet for ease of adoption by the farmers. As full-utility accounts, farmers can receive inflow from any bank/channel and can transfer funds to any Nigerian bank account; they can also access readily available services such as airtime top-up (self and third party), savings/investments and various loan options.
“The loan options are configured such that consistent usage of the Releaf wallet by the farmers results in a correspondingly increasing credit line,” OnePipe stated.
It noted that the partnership provides opportunities for thousands of rural farmers across Nigeria’s South-South region.
The Founder and Chief Plumber of OnePipe, Ope Adeoye, also described the partnership as an opportunity to co-create value with Releaf.
“Releaf is reviving agricultural infrastructure and crafting a sustainable path to prosperity for farmers who previously did not have commensurate return for their labour,” he said.
The Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer for Releaf, Uzoma Ayogu, added, “Since inception, Releaf has empowered over 1,000 farmers to supply over 10 million kilogrammes of quality crops to various food factories.
“While disbursements to our farmers have been largely cash-based, we now have access to digitised fund disbursement via embedded, customised accounts, provisioned by OnePipe, to drive financial inclusion of previously financially excluded farmers in the digital economy.”
Ayogu noted that the partnership had made it possible to provide increased funding to farmers in a more seamless, scalable, and safe manner.
“We are also exploring other products like insurance and other services leveraging OnePipe’s infrastructure and strategic partnerships with an array of financial institutions.”
