By Nnasom David

Paratus, founded by Kanayo Frank Kemuwa, has expanded from micro-lending and digital asset-related services into a broader financial technology ecosystem driven by customer demand, compliance and product development.

The company’s lending arm, Paratus Banca, operates within Nigeria’s regulatory framework and has served more than 2,500 retail clients through micro-lending, salary-based lending, gadget asset finance, and student travel finance and remittance services.

The company said a significant number of its customers have returned for additional services, helping shape the development of new products.

One of the notable developments came from growing requests for international school-fee payments. In response, Paratus Banca established relationships with licensed money transfer businesses in Europe and the United Kingdom to facilitate structured remittances.

“These requests showed us that technology, operations, customer demand and cross-border systems have to work together,” Kemuwa said.

He said the experience demonstrated the need to approach financial technology as an interconnected system rather than treating individual components separately.

As the customer base grew, Paratus also identified increasing demand for the use of digital assets to settle obligations, access related credit and convert digital assets into fiat currency.

Kemuwa subsequently created Paratus Digi as a separate technology-focused structure for the digital asset side of the business, keeping it distinct from the company’s traditional lending operations.

The opening of applications for Cohort 2 of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Regulatory Sandbox provided the company with an environment to test the model.

The Paratus Digi app is currently undergoing internal testing by the quality assurance team, which is assessing its functionality, performance, user experience and operational workflows ahead of subsequent stages of development.

“Strong products need structured technical validation before wider deployment,” Kemuwa said. “Compliance should sit beside the build from the beginning, not after the product is already finished.”

During the development phase, Kemuwa temporarily stepped away from paid employment to pursue a Master of Research programme in the United Kingdom in line with his visa conditions.

He has, however, remained active in a strategic, product and advisory capacity within the Paratus ecosystem.

His professional background includes compliance, regulatory technology, digital banking systems, governance and emerging technologies.

“Building useful technology is only part of the work,” he said. “You also need the controls, governance and regulatory understanding that make growth sustainable.”

Kemuwa said Paratus Digi represents the next stage of a journey that started with everyday credit needs before expanding into cross-border payments and digital assets.

He said the company’s goal is to develop technical infrastructure and regulatory awareness alongside its products as it continues to build solutions for the evolving digital economy.