Ex Interswitch manager launches startup that empowers ecommerce merchants

After spending over 4 years as Consumer Solutions and VAS Manager at Interswitch, Abraham Ezeadiebuo decided to launch his own FinTech company Safeonline where he is serving as product head. He spoke to TechCity on the startup, the intrigues of Nigeria’s most rapidly evolving tech sub-sector, and the company’s recently launched seamless payment platform that would boost accountability for merchants.

What is the name of the company, who are involved in the company and what is your tag line?

The company is Safeonline Limited incorporated in 2015. Currently involves myself and freelance developers from Russian and India. Our tag line is empowering merchants and we mean it literally because our revenue model is tied strictly to merchants making successful deliveries; we incurring losses when they don’t because we are refunding the customer funds back in full.

The fintech space in Nigeria has undergone several rapid developments in recent years, what do you think is responsible for this and what do you think is going to happen in the next 5 years?

The rapid changes aim to push maturation of our eCommerce space to mimic that of developed countries where recurring billing and repeat purchases is seamless because consumers have no concerns saving their card details with merchants.

While consumer adoption of payment for digital goods and services has picked up eCommerce merchants still not benefitting from this uptake even though consumers are using the same payment method “debit cards” for these digital services “airtime, bitcoins, cable subscription e,t,c” and until the recourse to the consumer’s meets a favourable standard that beneficial to them the stalemate will still persist.

What problem is your company trying to solve?

Two problems it is aiming to resolve: Address high level of consumer mistrust with eCommerce merchants giving the consumers the luxury to validate goods before committing payments. And put retail online merchants on a level playing field with their brick and mortar counterparts enforcing a prepay model which ensures payments are secured before delivery.

Why is the issue important?

Bulk of retail online merchants “SMEs” still do not reap the full benefits of operating online because they have to manage processes driving the cost of operations higher with no measurable return for it “Not everyone has the financial clout of the Jumias and Kongas” which is not sustainable in the long run.

Also as it stands offline a more attractive option to a consumer to purchase goods because of the ability to validate the purchase before parting away with funds.

How are you solving it?

We are giving merchant tools that will support a prepay model across all the customer-touch points via which they interact with their end users online.

Who can benefit from it?

Online merchants can now give consumers the pay on delivery option with the added assurance they can recoup their delivery costs even if consumers opt not pay for their goods.

Who is also doing what you are doing, how are you doing it better?

To the best of our knowledge as of the time of this writing we are aware of no one that is providing this locally.

We have made it easy providing a web service that a merchant can use to determine how long funds should be held to support delivery, whether cancellation fees should be applied for every transaction at the point a consumer is debited to secure payment.

What is your strategy for profits?

We plan on earning transaction fees for every successful delivery a merchant makes when a consumer commits payment.

Who are your investors, how much have you raised and how much revenues have been generated?

We have no external investors; self-funded. We have raised enough to support our GTM drive from sale of personal assets but have not generated any revenue as of yet.

What are your plans going forward?

We plan on adding couriers responsible for the movement of goods to support an ecosystem that will enable a merchant automate its value delivery process with independent courier operators.