The Intertwined Growth Of Verto And Its Founder

Our inaugural Africa Smart Banking Summit (2024) was held at JW Mariott Nairobi. It gave me the opportunity to moderate a panel discussion on cross-border transactions. This discussion not only opened my eyes to the headache of sending money across borders in Africa, but it also made me wonder how the continent can have improvements in this space. Speaking to Ola Oyetayo, the CEO and Co-Founder of Verto granted me further insights into the plight of companies looking to pay their suppliers abroad and in Pan-African countries. Together with his Co-Founder, Anthony Oduu, Ola set off on a journey to solve this complex problem around cross-border payments with Verto.

Emerging markets are a space where traditional financial channels can be a maze of slow processes, hidden fees, and frustrating limitations. In it, a company like Verto is practically a messiah. Driven by a desire to empower businesses and dismantle financial barriers, Oyetayo and Oduu built Verto from the ground up. We delve deep into Verto’s story, exploring the company’s vision for a more connected financial landscape, the innovative solutions they offer, and the impact they’re having on businesses. Buckle up for a revolutionary journey that moves money across borders.

Let’s begin by knowing you first. Who is Ola? How would you describe yourself?

I consider myself a lifelong optimist and someone that is also always open to new ideas and open-minded in general. I am a Nigerian who has been living in the UK for close to 20 years now, starting here with time in finance and then realising the huge challenge with businesses in emerging markets such as Africa to do cross-border payments. That is how I started Verto with Anthony.

How did you navigate your career to eventually land in the cross-border transactions space?

Initially, I had always thought I would spend time in a full-time finance career, and I actually trained as an accountant. I started working in finance in the city here in UK, but at some point, I felt that there was probably something more that I could be doing. I was being well paid and had a decent lifestyle, but I always had this entrepreneurial itch. Then a few friends started reaching out to me because they had African businesses and were struggling to pay suppliers abroad. I looked into it, realised there was a lot of friction in that space, and it was just the right time in my life where I could take a chance to start a business venturing into that area. I remember speaking with Anthony. He also felt there was a big opportunity to help solve something that was a significant pain point. I would say that my transition into the cross-border transactions space was just based on my pick on the opportunity available and entrepreneurial instincts to actualise on it by providing the solution. Working with Anthony, who is very tech-focused, was quite good as well because he was able to kind of provide tech solutions for something that is a significant problem. I’m the CEO while he’s the Chief Product cum Chief Technology Officer.

You’ve mentioned speaking to Africa friends who were encountering challenges paying their suppliers abroad. Would you say that that is what inspired you to get into cross-border transactions and start a company dedicated to that field?

It was a confluence of things. In life, most people always feel like they’re here for a reason and purpose. One of the best things that can happen to any human being is actually finding out what your life’s purpose is. The confluence of events that worked for me was essentially being in a position where I’d be thinking about what I wanted to kind of spend the rest of my life doing. Given my finance background and my experience as an African immigrant in a developed country with a very robust financial ecosystem. Learning about the fact that there were businesses in my continent that don’t access global financial institutions for various reasons was just a perfect opportunity for me to spend time and decide on solving this challenge and making it my life’s work. Generally, I would say that it was just a matter of right idea, right place, and right time. Everything just fell into place.

How would you describe Verto as a company?

Verto is a global financial technology business that helps businesses primarily in emerging markets, like Africa, do cross-border payments. Essentially, this cross-border payment solution is helping a business that has an international supply chain pay for good and services or receive payments for goods and services from other customers or businesses across the world.

Do you have solutions to help individuals transfer money across borders as well, or do you solely focus on businesses?

That’s one of our key differentiators. We only focus on businesses. I feel that the individual remittance space at the moment is actually the very well set. There’s a lot of great technology that has gone into that space and tons of great companies are solving the issues there. The gap that we see and are focused on is the business angle, providing solutions for businesses. How a business in Nairobi in Kenya can make payment to a business in Nigeria in a very seamless way. This is where you are making payments using a method that is familiar to you and the company receiving the money does so in a method familiar to them as well.

I moderated a panel on cross-border remittances during the Africa Smart Banking Summit earlier this year. Something that came up a lot in that discussion was the issue of different regulations across different countries and the irregular exchange rates. Personally, how would you attempt to solve these problems?

There are three to four friction points for seamless cross-border transactions across the continent. That is the aim of Verto. One is liquidity, where most African currencies are reasonably illiquid against foreign bonds. This is why there’s always a lot of demand for hard currency such as American dollars, euros or pounds versus the supply that we have for African currencies. The other challenge is price discovery. There’s a lot of volatility in African currencies so sometimes these currencies are not freely traded so it’s hard to determine the value of a currency. The last bit is settlement of these payments where it is more expensive and takes longer to move value across the continent. The idea behind Verto is to provide a tech-enabled platform that can actually help businesses navigate and overcome these challenges to ensure transfer of value.

In working to improve the situation in cross-border transactions in Africa, have you pursued any partnerships? How important are partnerships in ensuring success in any sector?

Great question. With what we do, partnerships are extremely critical and important. We wouldn’t be able to get to where we are without them. Take us, for example. We can help businesses collect, convert, and hold 49 different currencies and help them make cross-border payments to 179 countries across the world. Obviously, we don’t have that reach to do all that ourselves, so we rely on partners to be able to get to markets we are unable to get to by ourselves. Partnerships are critical. We collaborate with regulators and partner with a lot of financial institutions including banks. We also partner with other technology businesses to leverage their technologies to offer better services. Being able to partner with folks that can help us make sure that our customers are well serviced is very vital. No business is an island. You will always need to work with others to offer the best services.

What has been the growth of Verto like since its inception and what has majorly contributed to its growth?

We’ve been very lucky since we started in late 2018. On an analysis basis, we’ve probably grown three times every year. This is basically the growing transaction value, the amount of money that we push through our platform every year that has tripled each year, which is very good. We’ve also gone from a team of just me and Anthony about 143 staff across six different countries. We are an incredibly diverse international organisation as well and I also mentioned the fact that we now help businesses collect, convert, and hold about 49 different currencies across 179 countries. The growth has been nothing short of phenomenal. What has really contributed to this is just us serving our customers. Our mission is to help them simplify their cross-border payments. You know this is something that they should not be thinking about as business owners. Which is this – how do you receive all paid value across borders and do this in a seamless way using technology? The fact that this is such a pertinent challenge that businesses in markets such as Africa face is one of the reasons why we’ve been successful and have witnessed the growth that we’ve seen so far within the business.

In running any start-up, I’m sure you have encountered challenges along the journey. What are some of the challenges you have encountered? How did you resolve them?

There are lots of challenges as you have rightfully alluded to and its something that we are still facing right now. In the early days, it was really about something as simple as getting banking partners. I spent some time in finance and thought I had a decent network. I went to some of my previous employers and told them that I had started this fintech, moving money into places like Africa. I thought I would get a warm reception and get an account with them. However, they kind of laughed me out of the room because this region is deemed high risk. Nowadays, the challenges are dealing with the business at scale, moving in terms of value across the world. Things like being on top of your regulatory obligations across different markets, anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing frameworks that you have to put in place, staying on top of cybersecurity, and maintaining a team coach as the business grows as well as growing individual skills. It’s also the kind of work that keeps the job interesting as well.

What are your future projections?

We aim to be the primary non-bank financial institution that is publicly listed doing cross-border payments in emerging markets such as Africa. I feel that is a journey and a destination that we will definitely get to in five years’ time. I also believe that it is an achievable target. Currently, we are keeping our heads down and doing the work to make sure that we get there.

Now, focusing on you. What do you like doing when not running the start-up?

I have two toddlers, a 4-year-old and 2-year-old, and I think my son might be the world’s most active 4-year-old. He definitely keeps me super busy. Half the time I’m running around trying to keep tabs on my kids. Apart from that, I really enjoy reading and playing golf. I don’t play as much as I used to, but golfing is a huge passion of mine. Basically, my free time revolves around these, as well as travelling, reading, and golfing.

Where do you aspire to be in five years?

At this stage, my progress is linked to Verto’s progress. If Verto aims to be the primary non-bank financial institution that is publicly listed, then I will probably be the first African to have a business listed publicly preferably in the United States. That would be a great personal milestone.

What is the one thing that people don’t know about you?

Well, that’s a great question. I am intensely curious about current affairs. I spend a lot of time reading newspapers and different publications daily to keep myself to tabs with what is happening around the world. It used to be a passion of mine when I was younger, and I was happy to debate about world affairs and geopolitics. These days, I keep my opinions to myself, but I like to be in the know about what is happening.