Nigeria’s leading digital financial services company, Carbon, has released it’s 2019 financial statements audited by KPMG, detailing its product growth and $17.5mm in revenue.
Carbon began operations in 2012 and within the space of six years, it grew revenue steadily, reaching an all-time high of $17.5mm in full-year 2019. In the same year, Carbon expanded its product offerings to the Kenyan market and it’s disbursement volumes have grown from N13bn (2018) to N23.1bn.
The increase in loans disbursed translated to over N6.3 billion generated in revenue. This is a 68.8% year-on-year (YOY) growth compared to the $3.73 billion made in 2018.
Formerly called Paylater, Carbon pioneered instant lending in Nigeria and was the first mobile app to provide access to credit digitally and without requesting individuals to present the documents and collateral traditionally associated with accessing loans.
Expenses and Profits
The company’s expenses also grew exponentially. Its expenses rose from N3.457 billion in 2018 to over N5.56 billion in 2019. This is a 60.9% increase in cost.
Profit before tax stood at ₦223.2 million, representing a growth of 49.64% over N149.1 million achieved as of December 31, 2019. Carbon’s huge expenses resulted in just about N112.6 million in profit after tax. This was 23.47% lower than the 147.2 million generated in 2018.
Loans Top-ups
In 2019, the company launched a loan top-up feature that allowed customers with active loans to access additional credit when needed. At the end of the full-year Carbon had recorded over 25 thousand loans top-up.
Earlier this year, Carbon introduced its iOS app and USSD (*1303#) service. It also announced its Disrupt Fund, a $100,000 Pan-African fund to address the lack of capital for African tech startups.
Savings on Carbon
To help their customer make money, Carbon introduced a one-time investment feature that allowed them to create an investment plan with as low as N100. At the end of 2019, Carbon users had invested a total of N2.8 billion.
Free Bill Payments
By giving customers free bill payments along with cheaper transfers and fast transaction, more customers used the Carbon app for their payment services. This resulted in the number of transaction on the app increasing 23 times more than that of 2018.
Cash Rewards
Apart from its cheaper transfer rates, Carbon’s cash reward feature attracted more users to the platform. The feature rewards customers who repaid loans on time with cash.
The feature was so huge a success that more than N130 million was returned within the first 3 months of its launch.
“The company will continue to share it’s audited financials annually, thus upholding a culture of transparency and accountability,” says Ngozi Dozie, Founder of Carbon.
So far this year, Carbon has introduced multiple new features for its customer base including Carbon Express: a keyboard allowing users to make payments from any social app, periodic investments, free bank transfers, monthly wallet interest, and more.
Carbon also plans to introduce debit cards, a reward program for loyal customers and SME accounts for entrepreneurs, in the months to come.
You can find the full annual report here
