Overview

Twelve worked with CheckOff Credit (a micro-lending company) to provide the community access to its private short term debt notes.

These private short-term debt notes enable micro-lending companies like CheckOff to raise funds and on-lend to consumers and SMEs. CheckOff lends to private sector and public sector workers.

CheckOff’s short-term debt notes require a minimum investment amount of N1 million, returning an average interest of 27% pa on these notes. These factors make them high risk in nature.

Investing at different investment windows within a period of 26 months, the members of the community invested a total of $1.3m in private short-term debt notes from CheckOff Credit.

Investment Details

Investment Thesis

Small businesses operating in Nigeria have a hard time sourcing for working capital to grow their businesses. They are typically not qualified to approach the capital market and banks charge them a premium on loans as they are considered high risk entities. Private short-term debt notes provide an avenue for these businesses to raise funds directly from qualified investors without going through the capital market or banks.

Qualified Investors get the opportunity to earn cashflow with their investing activities. With a monthly return from these debt notes, investors can reinvest in other assets and expand their portfolio.

Consumer lending in Nigeria has grown significantly in the past few years. In a bid to grow the lending activities of commercial banks, the CBN in 2019 raised the loan to deposit ratio to a minimum of 65%. With the penalty of having uninvested funds seized by the central bank, commercial banks were forced to start lending to the real sector of the economy. This led to a 37% rise in consumer lending in Nigeria to N2 trillion in 2020.

This has also led to the influx of loan sharks who take advantage of their borrowers. At Twelve, we work with credible micro-lending companies who go through our due diligence process before they are introduced on educational webinars with members who make the financial decisions themselves.

Investment Outcome

CheckOff Credit started its business with the Money Lender’s certificate from Lagos State. In December 2021, the company received an Approval in Principle (AIP) from the Central Bank of Nigeria for its operating license of a finance company. CheckOff Credit also appointed KPMG as their Auditors few months after receiving the Approval in Principle from CBN.

With $1.3 million invested at different investment windows over a period of 20 months at an average annual ROI of 27%, Members of the community have earned an average of $360,967 in ROI from Check Off.

Our investing activities have been beneficial to Check Off as the company has grown significantly since we partnered with them. At Twelve, we believe in impact investing, and we work with companies we believe are contributing to economic growth and provide more jobs in the local economy.