Access Bank strengthens Fintech arm, acquires Woven Finance

Nigeria’s biggest lender Access Holdings is seizing at every chance to accomplish its end of emerging Africa’s “gateway to the world,” having completed at least five bank acquisitions within Africa in less than two years with few more in the pipeline.

And it now expects to take dominance in the payments market across the continent, where its customers now number 60 million as it is set to acquire Woven Finance through Hydrogen, a fintech company owned and run by Access Bank.

According to an according to an email shared with customers on Wednesday, the finance technology firm funded by Trium, a venture group by Coronation Group, after a thorough analysis of the current market dynamics and their impact on its business model, Woven Finance has resolved to cease its payment services operations in the first quarter of 2024.

Woven Finance, founded in 2020 by Adedeji Olowe, was set out to demystify digital payments. During the course of operations, It sold itself to business owners by offering a virtual account with which they could collect payments, eliminating common problems like reconciliation and settlements.

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The company’s founder, Olowe, also ran Trium, the technology venture fund for the Coronation Group. The Coronation Group, which includes companies like Coronation Merchant Bank and Coronation Insurance (formerly WAPIC), became part of Access Bank after the acquisition of Intercontinental Bank.

But in 2011, a directive from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) forced banks to divest their non-banking businesses or restructure into holding companies. At the time, Access Bank–which adopted a holding company structure in 2022–chose to spin off the Coronation Group.

After scaling regulators hurdle, Access Bank got a license in September 2022 to start a fintech arm christened Hydrogen Payment Services Company Limited, which handles the group’s switching business and process payments among the broader plan to build a sustainable financial inclusion powerhouse.

With Woven Finance plans to transfer its services to Hydrogen in the first quarter of 2024,  Access Bank will now be able to compete more effectively in the fintech space, particularly against competitors like GTCO’s fintech, Squad.

Hydrogen is positioned as a platform to drive virtually all of the digital transactions accruing to the group from across subsidiaries from banking to pensions as well as insurance, facilitating cash flow and aiding settlement.

Meanwhile, it remains unclear the exact dynamics that led Woven Finance to discontinue operations, one theory is that increasing competition from established fintechs and other bank-led fintechs like Squad, Zest and Hydrogen may have prompted the decision.