Based on materials from the website - By Empowa
In Nigeria, cooperatives play a fundamental role in the country's informal financial ecosystem. In an environment of underdeveloped banking sector, which deprives millions of people of access to affordable financial services, cooperatives have become a grassroots solution for savings and lending at the community level. It is estimated that there are over 100,000 cooperatives operating across the country, each functioning as a mechanism for collective savings to meet the financial needs of their members.
These needs vary widely—from the ability to make collective purchases of essential goods, such as rice, to supporting important life events, such as weddings. It is important to note that for Empowa, an increasing number of such cooperatives specialize in housing finance, helping cooperative members collectively save funds for purchasing homes or renting with an option to buy. In the absence of formal financing, housing cooperatives provide their members with a pathway to reliable and affordable housing by pooling resources and distributing funding within trusted networks.
Despite their significance, most cooperatives still operate manually, using manual systems: keeping documentation on paper, offline communication, and limited transparency. This not only reduces efficiency but also creates challenges with financial reporting, data accuracy, and compliance with regulations. However, the situation is beginning to change. The Nigerian government is proposing a bill that will require all cooperatives to digitize their operations—this shift opens up relevant and significant opportunities for solutions like Empowa.
In recent months, the Empowa team has been working closely with local partners to determine the best way to enter the Nigerian market, taking into account both economic realities and community needs. A recent visit by Glenn and the team to Abuja marked the completion of this preparatory work and the official start of Empowa's strategic expansion in Nigeria.
This partnership was officially formalized at the National Conference of Housing Cooperatives, where Empowa served as a sponsor and speaker. The event brought together numerous housing cooperatives from across Nigeria to discuss issues of digitization, regulation, and housing solutions. EmpowaPay was presented as a digital solution that cooperatives can use for:
Collecting and managing member savings.
Registering financial transactions on the blockchain.
Tracking progress in achieving housing goals.
Streamlining financing, attracting additional funding, and managing lease agreements with an option to buy.
Feedback from cooperatives has been overwhelmingly positive. There is a clear demand for modern, transparent digital tools, and EmpowaPay is positioned as the recommended solution for cooperatives seeking to meet digitization requirements, potentially reaching hundreds of thousands of end users across the country.
This is an important milestone in advancing Empowa's mission and enhancing token utility. Through this partnership:
EmpowaPay becomes a gateway platform for housing cooperatives, allowing them to digitize data, collect savings, and facilitate access to housing finance. Each transaction processed through EmpowaPay will include a fee that goes to Empowa, which will be used to purchase EMP tokens on the open market, creating natural demand and enhancing the token's utility.
Empowa is exploring the possibility of listing on a Nigerian centralized exchange, which will simplify the conversion of naira to EMP and accelerate adoption.
The platform will also incentivize and enable cooperatives and their members to acquire EMP as collateral in the housing savings process—a model that could further integrate EMP into local housing ecosystems.
It is important to note that Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa with over 250 million residents, experiencing rapid urbanization and one of the fastest-growing populations in the world. The unmet need for affordable housing finance in the country is enormous, and now Empowa has the opportunity to scale its operations on the ground.
In addition to developing partnerships, the team also visited two long-standing development partners, Millard Fuller and The Affordable Housing Company, to inspect projects they have built or are currently building. Both developers are already using EmpowaPay to collect data and are well-positioned to be among the first to benefit from cooperative financing for tenants.