Hervest launches to boosts financial inclusion access for women
Hervest, a women-focused financial technology company has launched in Nigeria as the country’s first Fintech platform to enable women participate in key financial services including savings, fund transfers and impact-investment.
The Nigerian based Fintech Company bears a mission to improve women’s lives through greater access to and use of financial services.
According to Solape Akinpelu, founder/ceo of Hervest, the company was launched to solve women’s problems, particularly increasing women’s financial inclusion in Nigeria. “We built Hervest through a gender lens, beyond culturally limiting prisms for women to build healthy money habits and achieve financial wellness,” Solape said.
To further shed light on the timeliness of the company’s solution which addresses Nigerian women’s access to financial services, Solape revealed that Nigeria remains on the financial exclusion priority list.
“Globally, over one billion women are financially excluded but that’s not the news. The news is that Nigeria is the only West African country on the exclusion priority list alongside comparator countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, Mexico, Egypt, India and Bangladesh,” She disclosed.
“In Nigeria alone, 36 percent of women are financially excluded compared to 24 percent for men,” she added.
Hervest operates a tripronged approach that revolves around: aggregation of investment into diverse financial market instruments; project financing of female smallholder farmers (staple crops, export crops, grain banking); and digitalization of extension services to female small-holder farmers through partnerships with major stakeholders.
The company offers competitive investment returns that allow women to earn between 8 to 25 percent annualized returns on its platform.
“Our approach at Hervest strengthens the capacity of the formally included woman in making decisive investments in diverse financial markets, while at the same time strengthening female small-scale farmers who mostly lack access to capital and market by deploying an off-taking model,” Solape explained.
Solape further disclosed that the social enterprise has resolved to trudge on and drive desired change in the society. In her words: “We are focused on the numbers, not in a fixed way but with a growth mindset. We are focused on impact, change, sustainability and higher adoption amongst women from the boardroom to the farmland, for the women agenda and the society at large.”