ABA Editorial · Mar 28, 2026 · 13 min read
B2B supply chain finance is one of the most promising African fintech categories because it addresses a genuine credit gap with defensible unit economics. OmniPay in Nigeria maintains non-performing loans below 0.5 percent on over USD 800 million annual transactions. Pezesha raised USD 11 million in early 2025 for its B2B lending infrastructure. This guide walks through how to price and structure a supply chain finance product that works in African market conditions.
B2B supply chain finance, the category that includes invoice financing, receivables discounting, inventory credit, and working capital lending to small and medium-sized businesses, is one of the clearest commercial opportunities in African fintech. The IFC estimates the African SME credit gap at over USD 330 billion. Traditional banks serve the top of that gap. Informal lenders serve the bottom at predatory rates. The middle is where disciplined B2B supply chain finance operators can build durable businesses. OmniPay, the fintech engine inside OmniRetail, disbursed over USD 800 million in 2024 transactions and maintains non-performing loans below 0.5 percent, which is an order of magnitude better than typical consumer lending. Pezesha raised USD 11 million in February 2025 led by Women's World Banking Capital Partners II to scale its B2B lending infrastructure. This guide walks through how to think about pricing and structuring a supply chain finance product that can actually achieve these economics rather than chasing growth into losses.
The structural reason supply chain finance has better unit economics than generic SME lending is visibility. A generic SME lender underwrites credit based on the borrower's self-reported financials, incomplete banking history, and limited collateral. A supply chain finance operator, by contrast, underwrites credit based on the borrower's transaction history on a specific commerce platform, verified invoices from known counterparties, and observable repayment patterns on prior credit cycles. The information advantage translates directly into lower default rates, which translates into better unit economics.
The implication is that supply chain finance only works if you have the underlying commerce visibility. If you are trying to offer supply chain finance to SMEs whose transaction history you cannot observe, you do not actually have supply chain finance. You have generic SME lending with marketing that pretends otherwise.
The temptation when launching a supply chain finance product is to serve every SME in a category from day one. Resist it. The operators who have reached sustainable economics in African supply chain finance almost always started with a narrow, specific supply chain: a particular category of goods, a particular geographic area, a particular distributor relationship, or a particular platform integration. Starting narrow lets you build underwriting intuition before scaling, and it lets you observe repayment behavior in controlled conditions before committing capital broadly.
OmniRetail's path is a good example. The company started with fast-moving consumer goods distribution in Nigeria, integrated deeply with specific manufacturers including Guinness, CHI, and Dufil Prima Foods, and built credit products on top of the transaction flow it could observe. This focus is what made the sub-0.5 percent NPL performance possible. Operators who tried to serve every SME in every category typically could not match it.
African SME credit pricing is complicated by several factors that do not apply in developed markets. Local cost of funds is high. Currency movements affect the effective cost of any dollar-denominated capital you raise to on-lend. Operational cost per loan is high relative to loan size. Regulatory costs are rising. Unexpected credit losses from macroeconomic shocks are more frequent than historical averages suggest.
Pricing should account for all of these factors explicitly. A useful framework is to decompose the rate you charge into five components: cost of capital (your own borrowing cost), expected credit loss (the percentage of the loan book you realistically expect to lose), operational cost per loan (divided by the loan amount), regulatory and compliance cost (as an overhead rate), and target margin. If any of these components is significantly underestimated, your pricing is too low and you will discover the problem after you have built a loan book you cannot support.
Supply chain finance borrowers are SMEs operating with tight working capital. They do not have time or expertise to negotiate complex loan documentation. The products that work at scale are the ones that feel less like bank credit and more like extended supplier terms. This means minimal paperwork, fast decisions, clear repayment schedules tied to the borrower's existing cash flow cycles, and repayment mechanisms that do not require active action from the borrower (automatic deduction from incoming transaction flows works well when the underlying commerce platform supports it).
The frictionless experience is not just a customer service choice. It is a credit risk control. A borrower who has to take active steps to repay is more likely to miss a payment than a borrower whose repayment is automatic. Product design and credit risk are the same problem at the supply chain finance level.
Supply chain finance operators typically fund their loan books through a combination of equity capital, debt facilities from specialist lenders, and sometimes securitization structures that sell tranches of the loan book to institutional investors. Each funding source has different cost, different covenant restrictions, and different scalability properties.
The mistake to avoid is funding a long-duration supply chain finance book with short-duration capital. If your loans typically repay over 60 to 90 days but your debt facility has a 30-day rollover requirement, you are one bad rollover conversation away from a liquidity crisis that forces you to unwind performing loans at discounted rates. Match durations carefully from the start.
Even the best-performing African supply chain finance operators experience occasional credit loss events that exceed their baseline projections. Economic shocks, specific counterparty failures, and fraud incidents all happen. Operators who built loss reserves before they needed them absorb these events without disruption. Operators who did not often spiral into insolvency because they cannot fund both the loss itself and the ongoing operations.
Stress testing means modeling your loan book under scenarios significantly worse than your base case: double the expected NPL rate, 30 percent currency depreciation, loss of your largest counterparty relationship, sudden withdrawal of your primary debt facility. If any of these scenarios would be fatal to your business, you need either more reserves or less concentration before you grow further.
Supply chain finance is a specialist discipline that combines credit risk, treasury management, legal structuring, and operational integration with underlying commerce platforms. Few founders have deep experience across all four dimensions. ABA's Solutions & Services marketplace includes credit risk specialists, debt finance advisors, trade finance consultants, and fintech legal firms with direct experience of African supply chain finance structuring.
Important notice: This guide is provided as general information and orientation only. It is not legal, regulatory, tax, or financial advice. Credit underwriting practices, regulatory treatment of supply chain finance, and market conditions vary significantly across African jurisdictions and change frequently. Before launching a supply chain finance product, readers must consult qualified legal counsel, credit risk specialists, and regulatory advisors in their target market. Need verified guidance or hands-on support? ABA's Solutions & Services marketplace connects businesses with vetted professional services providers across Africa, including credit risk consultants, trade finance advisors, and specialist fintech legal firms. ABA and its contributors accept no liability for actions taken on the basis of this guide.