An Interview with QuickCheck’s CEO, Fabiano Di Tomaso

QuickCheck just launched their new loan app and refreshed their brand by creating a new website. They are making new strides to improve the overall customer experience. We caught up with the CEO of QuickCheck Nigeria, Fabiano Di Tomaso and he shared the QuickCheck Journey with us:

What is Quickcheck’s story? How did it all begin?
Luis Rodrigues, CTO, and Product at QuickCheck, built and published a mobile app over the weekend in 2017, to validate whether such a solution of offering loans from a smartphone was viable to help to solve the problem of access to credit in Nigeria. The response was overwhelming and we had to stop because handling all the requests manually was not possible. We then invested in building our own credit scoring technology. Today we have a team of 6 people working just on that, on what we believe is the core for such a business.

Who are your clients and what are the market dynamics in general?
In Nigeria, according to https://www.efina.org.ng/ only 4% of the adult population has access to credit through formal financial institutions. There are 3 credit bureaus but covering a marginal part of the population, in the country you pay fees like rent, doctor, upfront, and there are no credit cards. We are closing this gap! With the role of educating people about financial instruments and the risks related to credit. The majority of our customer base are millennials, either micro-entrepreneurs who want to buy inventory and grow their own business or employed people who cannot reach the end of the month with their salary because of an emergency or extra fees such as school tuition, wedding, utility bill,…

Where does Quickcheck stand right now? What have you achieved so far?
We bootstrapped and built our own technology, focusing on creating a sustainable business, not just growth at all costs. In the last 4 months, we pushed down the accelerator, resulting in average growth of 40% month-on-month basis. While experiencing this exponential growth, our top priority is to keep the default rate under control, which helps to create positive unit economics.

How do you measure your impact?
Paraphrasing a representative of CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) during a round-table a couple of months ago: digital lenders like QuickCheck are succeeding in a consumer segment where banks and microfinance institutions are still struggling – we have a competitive advantage given by technology, customers appreciate our speed and hassle-free access to credit → no paper, no queues, no collateral no guarantors, just your smartphone and QuickCheck app, which is often not the case with traditional financial institutions.

What do you see as your biggest strength?
We came to Nigeria in 2016: as pioneers, we believe we got a deep knowledge of its unique market dynamics. In this type of business, there are 2 key points that drive your performance: 1. how good you are at listening and selecting customers (credit scoring algorithm) 2. how good you are at collecting when customers do not manage to pay on time (credit recovery process and education about credit). We invest a lot in these 2 areas. There is a lot of hard skills involved but it is only thanks to the exceptional people we hire (we got quite a hard recruitment process ; ) that we can be proud of what we have achieved so far.

What challenges do you face as a business and what does it take to address those challenges in the country? How do you plan to grow and what are your goals for the upcoming months?
There is so much more that can be done in educating people about the risk of getting credit. We are promoting an active collaboration among institutions and actors similar to us on the market, in order to address topics aimed at protecting consumers, such as credit reporting, which can be improved. In the upcoming months, we expect to keep the exponential momentum while closing a couple of strategic partnerships, which will get us even closer to our customers. At the same time, we strongly believe in product innovation and therefore investing in the exploration of complimentary services.

How do you see the Quickcheck’s role in shaping a startup environment in Nigeria?
As a Seedstars investment, we believe in double-faced businesses: economically sustainable and socially impactful at the same time – this is QuickCheck, aiming at a meaningful financial inclusion of Nigerians, by enabling consumers’ participation in the economy through our digital financial services.

For People interested in downloading the app, what do they have to do?
If you live in Nigeria, need quick cash to grow your inventory or settle emergencies and have an android device, all you have to do is.

Step 1: Download the QuickCheck loan app for free
Step 2: Sign up to create an account
Step 3: Apply for a loan and instantly
Step 4: QuickCheck will run a credit scoring using its own algorithm. No collateral needed
Step 5: If eligible, the cash loan will be disbursed to your account within minutes

If you are not eligible, please wait 2 weeks and apply again

The app has a new look, so does the entirety of the QuickCheck brand identity. We will be watching to see the execution of the new strategies QuickCheck has up their sleeves. Visit QuickCheck’s website, Instagram, and Facebook to experience the new look. Most importantly, apply for a loan now.