Ziroopay Raises $11.4M, Provides POS Solutions For Retailers In Nigeria

Developer of mobile POS payment systems designed to facilitate mobile payments, Ziroopay has raised $11.4 million to scale its mobile POS solutions for retailers across Nigeria. The app which is designed for small business owners has a built in system that bypasses the Internet and transmits credit card data via universally available secure connections, allowing merchants to receive card payments.

The app also helps to solve the issue of poor Internet service, which enables vendors to still operate in areas where internet connectivity is poor or non-existent in order to satisfy customers’ needs. In Nigeria, there is a constant increased rate of POS terminals in the country. According to statistics, the number of POS terminals in the country increased from 150,000 in 2017 to 543,000 in April 2021. POS terminals are often used in the country to process card payments at retail locations as well as for agency banking purposes, a branchless banking system where agents act like human ATMs.

Due to the problems small businesses in the country are often faced with, Ziroopay has come to help eradicate such problems to ensure that small businesses have improved efficiency by offering more reliable payments. According to Omoniyi Olawale, CEO of Ziroopay, he disclosed that he decided to form the company after he experienced the frustration associated with making payments in Nigeria, compared to Finland where he once lived, which has a smooth and easy process.

The creation of the ziroopay app has however made it easy for customers to pay for services, where they also get to experience the convenience of modern shopping. The app is built in a way that helps business owners track their business from wherever they are, and also helps to generate reports and export sales, accounting for them in Excel files. There is also the inclusion of visual analytics which helps business owners to understand how well their business is doing, as well as provides them with the information on products that yields the most sales.

However, ZirooPay tells merchants who use the platform not to look elsewhere, as Its mobile application enables small businesses in the retail, agency banking, hospitality, and services sectors to perform similar tasks such as tracking sales and managing business operations. According to the CEO, in his words, “Think of everything you can do with a cash register found in a supermarket. Use Android applications and mobile point-of-sale card readers to bring the same functionality to small businesses. More than 70% of users have moved away from paper-based accounting and have become dependent on in-app sales accounting within three months of onboarding.”

As Nigeria’s point-of-sale providers, especially FinTech, which is focused on agency banking, a fintech segment that is a major driver of financial inclusion, ZirooPay envisions the potential for dominating the open retail space.

Indeed this app will help business owners solve cumbersome business problems. According to the company, over 15,000 merchants currently use its POS terminals and mobile application. These merchants are reported to have processed $500 million, a 5,000% increase within three years across 10 million transactions. As a Nigerian who often uses the card payment option when shopping, I am sometimes faced with the issue of failed transactions, which can really be frustrating. Most of the failed transactions are usually caused by a poor internet connection or poor bank service.

I applaud this laudable project by Ziroopay because it will help small business owners in eradicating card payment problems as well as provide customers ease of convenience when shopping. According to the company, they have recorded a 95% transaction success rate against the less than 50%.