Share this page!

David Alade Profile picture
Twitter logo
5 Oct, 39 tweets, 10 min read
Understanding the LAPO business model and financing structure.

It may be a model worthwhile for other ventures.

cc: @asemota
1. Background
2. LAPO isn't tech freak but largely driven by a community model
3. How LAPO operates: keeping cost to the minimum possible
4. They have real customers who make business use of the money and not for ”owanbe” (party)
5. Customers feel extremely obligated to service their loans
6. They know the culture and designed a system alongside that
7. Speculating that they might one day become a bank
Adding to the speculation, they now have a MFB license
8. They are already doing vertical integration with an advance into healthcare
9. LAPO raised a bond that was oversubscribed by N200m
10. Can they be better if they adopt more technology?
11. Their market may not understand technology but they can educate the market if the numbers are fine
12. But can the low tech be a question of market requirements?
13. LAPO may need to look beyond the current customer segment when thinking about tech adoption
14. There's been a tech attempt
15. LAPO business is intriguing to all as people keep thinking on their behalf.

Here Victor Asemota provided them with an alternative financing structure
16. Insider View - they have good numbers as well
17. LAPO chose debt financing over equity. They might have the best decision
**might have MADE the best decision
18. It is not the first time we talk about LAPO on Twitter. Here's for more depth

cc: @asemota
19. Concerned about their aggressive credit recovery model. But they are bigger than that.
20. @Uzoma_Sparkle who leads a similar business in Nigeria has a concern about there agent to loan ratio though. Basically, what labour cost is required to scale the especially since they are labour intensive and ”anti-tech”
21. Their loan recovery process is also quite uncharacteristic
Still on debt recovery
22. Concern about tech must be understood though. It's more front end driven
23. I've seen someone doing similar and doing it great as well in Ile-Ife
24. Since 2018, @asemota has chosen to take a bet on LAPO and they've only gotten better since then.
Still on 2018 bet by Big Chief
25. We are back from 2018. LAPO runs on Flexcube, core banking application.
26. LAPO might understand the market more than we know. Going the Agent Model has always been lauded as a proven way to conduct business in this part of the world.
27. The MD is not so far much removed from the experience as he occasionally still finds time to join the recovery agent.

28. A bit of history for the uninitiated.

LAPO is older than a lot of our contemporary banks that are usually referred to as "New Generation Banks"

LAPO started in the late 1980s in response to SAP under IBB.
It started as a Pro Poor Non government organization.

It was not until 2010 that they got a MFB licence.

In 2015, IFC injected 2 billion naira in the company. Equivalent of $5 million.
In 2010, LAPO MFB obtained approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to operate a regulated microfinance bank and was licensed as a national microfinance bank in 2012 to undertake microfinance banking activities in Nigeria.
More than 90% of their client are women.

Part of LAPO’s goals is to include a larger proportion of women into their financial scope; this is because women form a greater percentage of the financially excluded, and this is why 92% of the client base is women.
The full meaning of LAPO is Lift Above Poverty Organization.
29. Maybe we are looking at technology differently than LAPO

A statement from the official website says "LAPO remains committed to being an industry leader with cutting edge technology for sustainable operations"

And this - lapo-nigeria.org/content/lapo-l… is a version of "needed" tech.
30. A compelling opinion on what might have made LAPO a huge success

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with David Alade

David Alade Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @DavidAlade__

David Alade Profile picture
4 Oct
“People ignore sponsored tweets. People skip Youtube ads. People don’t notice Google ads. Like with viruses, we grew resistant. The new marketing is based on trust. And it takes years to build trust.”

—Orange Book
This travelled so fast...

Among other things that I do, I write a newsletter called @MindWBoundary. The goal is to help everyone build a mind that can help them navigate the world masterfully.

You can subscribe here davidalade.substack.com
I think the idea behind the tweet above is not to say it doesn’t work.

Rather it’s to say people will do anything to avoid it. More so because many ads aren’t relevant to you.

That I check the price of a phone for instance doesn’t mean I want to buy the phone
Read 5 tweets
David Alade Profile picture
2 Oct
Okay, this is also the case for varying reasons including mimetic behaviour of humans.

The mimetic theory says we get our desires from society. We want it because others have it. That creates a form of scarcity and invariably chaos.

Scarcity is the way human interpret value.
If it's scarce, it must be valuable. Forgetting or not noting that it is only scare because we all want the same thing.

But it's what keeps the economic wheel rolling so there's no ending.
Success at one thing creates that illusion of scarcity as well. Suddenly, everyone wants YOUR success or wants to be associated with YOUR success if they've concluded they can't have YOUR success.
Read 5 tweets
David Alade Profile picture
2 Oct
Success compounds

Have you noticed that it's much easier to get ”another” success once you get the first one?

Your goal is to move from your zero (no success) to one (first success). Then the universe will show you her abundance.

It's the way of life. Play along.
Getting a second job is easier than the first.

Raising the second round of funding in easier than the first.

Getting your next 10,000 customers is easier than the first 1,000

Selling your next 10 products is easier than selling the first.
Your goal is to doggedly focus on the having the first success. Moving from zero (no success) to one (first success).

The universe is abundantly rich, but it needs you to speak her language.

I just revealed the language to you.
Read 5 tweets
David Alade Profile picture
2 Oct
There's this energy that comes from perceiving things are fine with you and there's the other draining that comes from perceiving things aren't working for you.
What I've learnt is that we all feel both. It doesn't matter what high you are on, you will at one point feel things are against you and no matter the low you maybe, a time will come when you feel you are getting out of the low.
Managing both experiences well is the ultimate level self awareness.

Except you are self aware and understand both experiences are fickle and only a matter of your thinking, you are bound to make some wrong decisions.
Read 4 tweets
David Alade Profile picture
1 Oct
Popularity brings an awesome responsibility on you that requires intelligence to navigate.

Once you are popular, the media expect you to have an opinion about ”everything” which is nonsense.

What's more alarming is if you expect yourself to have an opinion about everything.
”I don't know” is a better mark of intelligence.

That's what I should probably say about Burna Boy’s interview.

The media is optimized for something that may not align with you. Be wise.

I won't be surprised if people start to quote Laycoon on economic & governance matters.
Context -
Read 4 tweets
David Alade Profile picture
1 Oct
Two things I believe everyone should have at least some working knowledge about are: Finance and Health.
At one point or the other, you have to make decisions about those two things. While you can get some help about, the decision making still lies on you.

Working knowledge on them will help you.
Health

You can't escape it. You need to be healthy and maintain healthy habit to get by in life.

You can't cultivate unhealthy habit and not expect repercussion.
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get email notifications when new thread is out from this Author!

Check out other threads from this Author!

Read all threads by @DavidAlade__