Meet ImaliPay, the financial platform empowering millions of gig economy workers across Africa

By Gaia Lamperti

While the pandemic caused noticeable job losses and damaged youth employment globally, it also presented an opportunity to explore informal employment via digital platforms which, especially in emerging markets, often turned out to become the main source of income.

The mobile industry has been a key driver of these opportunities, particularly favouring youth employment in Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the world’s youngest regions with over 60% of its population below 25 years old. Yet, gig work on digital platforms is not designed to efficiently pay salaries, offer social care, loans, credit checks or other basic protections to its workforce.

Nairobi-based, one-stop-shop financial services platform ImaliPay is tackling the challenges linked to informal employment by deploying flexible finance and enabling its customers and partners to generate more revenue from their everyday gigs. The company offers tailored credit, BNPL services, savings and insurance products to Africa’s gig economy workers and platforms via a single channel (i.e App, WhatsApp) or APIs.

Founded in Nigeria by tech entrepreneurs Tatenda Furusa and Oluwasanmi Akinmusire, ImaliPay quickly expanded to 3 countries within 12 months and it now operates in Kenya and South Africa as well. “We went for the three biggest economies in Africa, which are also the most digitised and have the most gig economy workers,” Co-founder and CEO Tatenda Furusa told IBS Intelligence when we visited the company in their Nairobi office.

The VC-backed FinTech, which boasts among its partners courier service Glovo, online job portal Jobvine and e-ride-hailing apps SafeBoda and Bolt, has a Pan-African vision and aims to drive financial inclusion for the continent’s ever-growing gig economy workforce.

“Most of the financial services provided today are not designed with the gig workers in mind and our aim at ImaliPay is to build an ecosystem where gig workers can create a safety net around their work through savings, credit, and insurance that drives their productivity and economic empowerment,” Sanmi Akinmusire, Co-founder and COO of ImaliPay, said.

A challenge that, in truth, is global, as the flexible economy is expected to grow 17.4% annually, representing $455 billion in global activity by the end of 2023. But the difficulties that gig workers face daily, remain pretty much the same everywhere and across sectors.

“We are looking to play in the white-collar and blue-collar freelance space to eventually become a platform that any gig worker can plug into seamlessly,” Furusa commented. “From online teachers to designers and self-employed artisans, the list goes on. Our goal really is to be a one-stop-shop financial services platform for Africa’s great gig economy.”

ImaliPay counts plenty of success stories already, like that of Uber driver Peter Wang’Endo, who after using the platform’s fuel credit feature has been able to accept extra rides and work more serenely and comfortably. Or, in the case of Boda rider Olawoye Adewale, the platform has also helped him to save money, manage finances and purchase a new mobile phone.

“A vital part of this story is to enable the ease of making and receiving payments for our customers,” ImaliPay’s Group Partnerships Manager Alexandria Akena said. On this front, last week the company announced its partnership with Cellulant, one of the continent’s major players in the Payments sphere, to further drive access to financial services via quicker payment rails.

The partnership will greatly improve and ease money transfers for freelancers changing the way gig workers experience making and receiving payments. “Our partnership with Cellulant is an important step in our journey to improve the financial health of gig workers on the continent by leveraging Cellulant’s payment infrastructure to offer our customers an easy way to make and receive payments,” commented CEO Furusa.

But the company has big ambitions and there is more to come, as Partnerships Manager Akena confirms. “In less than a year, our pool of partners has increased by 10X, literally, we’re not just thinking about growth in that measure but actually achieving that target. The buy-in and participation from our partners is a show of good faith to ImaliPay’s vision and serves as a commitment to walk this journey with us.”

The company has grown exponentially during the past year, with a 900% growth in revenue, also thanks to the push toward informal employment caused by the pandemic. “We’ve honestly barely scratched the surface,” Furusa concluded. “While we’ve made huge strides, success for us means seizing the opportunity that aligns with the needs of our customers, we stay close to our customers. ImaliPay’s growth trajectory can be attributed to cultivating a discipline of continuous iteration around the needs of our customers and solving for those needs. Our mission remains the same and that’s to financially empower millions of gig workers across Africa.”