Ride Now, Pay Later Unlocks Growth in Africa’s Ride-Hailing Sector

A new partnership between Bolt and CredPal is bringing ride now, pay later to Nigeria.

The deal between the Estonian mobility company and Lagos-based buy now, pay later (BNPL) startup is aimed at enabling users to defer ride payments for a month.

The service will be embedded into the Bolt app as a payment option called Ride-On, available to registered CredPal users.

For Bolt, the partnership gives the firm an easy way to offer credit to riders, with CredPal taking care of the underwriting process that ensures that Bolt or its drivers aren’t exposed to any risk of nonpayment.

Meanwhile, CredPal gets to extend its BNPL offering to an area that can be a major expense for many Nigerians, for whom alternative credit sources are increasingly popular.

The latest collaboration reflects Bolt’s continued focus on African markets, where it has directed the majority of its expansion efforts outside of Europe.

The company’s rival, Uber, has also been targeting African cities, surpassing a key milestone of 1 billion trips across the region last year.

What’s more, alongside the two international giants, smaller, local eTaxi firms have also sprung up. In Nigeria alone, LoadMoto, LagosRide, OgaTaxi and SmartCab are all hoping to disrupt the space with their own digital app-based ride-hailing services.

And in this competitive market, flexible payment options like Ride-On could give Bolt an important edge.

That being said, Uber is no stranger to BNPL either and has integrated Zip as a payment option for both ride-hailing and food delivery in Australia.

Considering that there is already a precedent for Uber-BNPL linkups, further partnerships could follow as ride now, pay later gathers steam in Africa.

A Necessity for African Consumers

In an interview with PYMNTS, CredPal’s co-founder and CEO Fehintolu Olaogun said that BNPL is not a luxury, but rather a lifeline for many African consumers.

“For the African consumer, BNPL isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s a basic necessity,” he pointed out, adding that “people actually want to make purchases, but they cannot buy because they have to always pay in full, which is a huge, huge problem for them.”

As Olaogun further explained, the growth of BNPL in Nigeria has happened in tandem with a general societal transformation that includes increased openness to buying things online as well as a change in the kind of goods and services people want.

In the end, “people want to increase their quality of life, and BNPL is just what they need to be able to afford these things and pay over time,” he noted.

And it is likely to be an upward trend as more and more consumers embrace BNPL.

From an initial focus on BNPL staples like electronics and fashion, the firm has expanded to providing loans for flights, vehicle repairs and solar panels before extending its services to the ride-hailing sector via the Bolt deal.

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