Nigeria’s Bento Expands Further into Africa

Nigeria’s digital payroll and human resource management platform, Bento is expanding into other African countries like Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda while maintaining plans to start operations in six other markets in Africa within the next one year.

For the next expansion phase, Bento is targeting Egypt, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Angola and Ethiopia for further expansion by the end of next year.

Bento is accessing the payroll and Human Resource management market in Africa that has usually relied on laborious analogue processes to distribute payment. The start-up, which was founded in 2019, is assisting businesses to automate the payment of their salaries and other statutory remittances, which include taxes and pensions.

The co-founder and CEO of Bento, Ebun Okubanjo lamented about other companies making use of the analogue processes to manage their workforce, citing it as frustrating but exciting for Bento. Okubanjo stated that employers do not have access to customised, world-class payroll and HRM (Human Resource Management) tools, and the employees cannot access third-party tools to make their lives easier. Okubanjo then said that the company is building the operating system that will have a solid impact on the African continent even for the generations to come.

Bento stated that its platform is leveraging data to expand credit solutions to third parties (or employees) and other services such as unemployment insurance, investments and savings.

The start-up’s main credit engine which was built in partnership with Tarya of Israel, makes sure of the payment of instant loans. In Nigeria, Bento currently serves more than 900 businesses, including healthcare and financial service companies like Hygeia and Tangerine Africa, and Y Combinator-supported start-ups Paystack, Kobo360, Branch and LORI Systems.

The second co-founder and COO of Bento, Chidozie David Okonkwo said that the company is starting off with payroll and HRM, but also moving very quickly towards Salary 2.0 where the company will “redefine the intersection of work and life and transform how people earn, spend and borrow money on the continent.”