Bloc acquires Orchestrate

Bloc, Nigeria’s full-service FinTech and Banking as a Service (F/BaaS) infrastructure provider, announces its acquisition of Getwallets, the wallets-as-a-service provider that has now pivoted to become a payments orchestration company, Orchestrate.

The strategic acquisition will enable Bloc to focus its core product strategy on delivering seamless BaaS & banking services while Orchestrate leads its FinTech Infrastructure with its proprietary payments orchestration API.

Bloc’s 100% acquisition of Getwallets is a combined cash and equities deal with the revamped newcomer to the Bloc family remaining a standalone entity still led by CEO & founder, Jerry Enebeli.

Bloc, with its CBN-issued Payments Solution Service Providers and Microfinance banking licences, specialises in providing proprietary and aggregated APIs that allow businesses to offer banking and financial services to their customers while also handling most of the regulatory and compliance requirements on their behalf.

Its stack of F/BaaS products and services empowers businesses to embed seamless digital financial services in their platform. Since 2021, Bloc has transitioned from offering solutions for utility payments to its current iteration as a full-service FaaS infrastructure provider.

Bloc has processed more than $30 million in the past year through its bill payments API alone. The company also recently launched its SuperAgency tool which allows licensed companies to offer agency banking services. Getwallets was founded in 2021 by Jerry Enebeli and Yewande Odumosu to offer an integrated payment and wallet framework allowing payment providers a more unified structure for their customers.

Its pivot to a broader payments infrastructure company means, as Orchestrate, it can provide businesses instant access to multiple payment methods and providers globally through a single integration [currently available in Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, South Africa & the USA, with plans to extend support to more foreign payment providers and currencies in the near future].

Related Article: Inside Getwallets’ pivot to Orchestrate, a payments infrastructure company

Bloc’s acquisition of Orchestrate boosts the group’s capacity to offer FinTech infrastructure such as online payments, subscription management, BNPL payment infrastructure, virtual wallets, bill payments, invoicing, etc, in its FinTech-as-a-Service suite of APIs.

Edmund Olotu, founder of Bloc, said: "Part of our vision has always been to empower businesses of all sizes to offer seamless payment solutions to their customers, which is essential not just to the experience of the end-user but also to the sector’s growth.

"Jerry and his team have built an incredible platform that is a great fit with what we were looking to add to our suite of services so it made sense to acquire their proven expertise rather than building our own platform from scratch. This is an exciting evolution for both businesses as we look to grow and build even more solutions that ultimately support the growth of African tech businesses in the coming years." Oluto added.

New research shows fintechs in Africa accounted for roughly $3 billion, or two-thirds of all the funding obtained by startups throughout the continent last year. This was also more than double the $1.35 billion in investments raised in 2020 and three times the amount raised in 2019.

In a statement shared with Benjamindada.com, Jerry Enebeli, founder and CEO of Orchestrate said that "we are thrilled to bring our technology and know-how to the already incredible Bloc team. It was clear that our business growth goals aligned and that we could mutually benefit from combining our talent, resources and expertise to create a unique infrastructure that can power African fintech. We’re looking forward to working together to close the fragmented gaps in cross-platform payments and powering many more businesses to scale their markets, whether in Africa or globally.”

Bloc and Orchestrate intend to simplify FinTech infrastructure for these businesses to enable faster, seamless service for their customers and ultimately empower growth in the ecosystem.