Partnering with Prospa to give every business a bank account in 5 minutes
Successfully running a business in Nigeria is challenging for entrepreneurs. There are several hurdles and obstacles they have to overcome to start and scale their business.
Many entrepreneurs are plagued with having great business ideas but lacking the capital they need to implement these ideas. Those who can raise capital must learn how to properly manage their cash flow, generate revenue and profits by continually making sales, and create a proper system of operations that will enable sustainable growth.
While all these are challenging enough, yet another critical factor to building a successful enterprise in Nigeria is getting registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). This is the only way to have a legally recognized business, be eligible for loans, and be able to open a business bank account.
As with many other things, the obstacles to getting a business registered discourages many entrepreneurs from either starting at all or taking their business seriously. Among other documents, they have to provide a memorandum and articles of association, receipt of payment of stamp duties, consent of the first directors of their company, and a statement of compliance by a legal practitioner.
This long list of requirements outrightly eliminates them from owning a business bank account through which they can manage their business finances properly and ensure success.
Prospa was launched in 2019 to offer SME business owners an alternative to traditional banking and tools to make it easier to conduct business in Nigeria. To create a bank account, businesses are required to be legally registered with the CAC. Prospa took this upon themselves and since launch, has helped over 100k business owners on their platform to register their business and open a bank account in 5 minutes.
Besides providing a bank account and business registration, entrepreneurs on the Prospa platform also have access to invoicing tools, inventory management, employee and vendor management, an e-commerce store, and payroll features—all that’s needed to launch and scale an SME business.
To protect itself and its users against fraudulent activities and comply with government regulations, fintech platforms like Prospa are required to implement a KYC and identity verification procedure for their users. This challenge is not unique to Prospa but is common to companies in the financial services industry, and Nigeria’s lack of a universal identity database makes it difficult to overcome.
More importantly, for Prospa to fulfil its brand promise; allowing businesses to create an account in 5 minutes, this KYC and identity verification procedure needed to be fast, seamless and secure. That’s when they turned to Dojah.
How Prospa Builds with Dojah
With Dojah, Prospa could perform KYC verification by simply leveraging our BVN Validation API, which allows them to verify that the user details matches the provided BVN.
To get verified on the platform, Prospa users provide their Bank Verification Number (BVN). Our BVN Validation API then allows Prospa to securely access basic user information— name, phone number, and date of birth—while instantly receiving a confidence value to ascertain how much the returned BVN data matches the original user details.
This is a seamless flow that ensures Prospa onboards credible users, implements regulatory KYC obligations and keeps their platform secure.
Why Choose Dojah?
Dojah is the complete API pack for user onboarding, identity verification, KYC services, and real-time messaging. We power identity verification for over 400 businesses and have verified more than 4 million identities across Africa’s major economies.
With a single integration, you can access multiple APIs to onboard credible users while keeping your platform secure and compliant.
If like Prospa, you’re looking to automate KYC/KYB validation for your business, reach out to our sales team at sales@dojah.io. Or explore our API documentation.
