Payday, a fintech firm based in Nigeria, is considering selling the company just half a year after securing $3 million in funding. This news took on a spot on Twitter’s trending table and has drawn several reactions from users of the platform. 

The Fintech Company – Payday

Payday was founded in 2021 by Favour Ori who is currently the CEO. Right from its inception, the company has provided global payment solutions that allow Africans to send and receive money around the world. Users can open USD, GBP, EUR, and other international accounts for free and complete transactions using the payday MasterCard. Less than three weeks after its launch, the technology company garnered more than $1 million in transactions and has consistently introduced payment solutions that have proven valuable to people in Africa. 

Fast forward to March 2023, PayDay secured another funding, $3 million this time, through a seed round led by Moniepoint and Team Apt Nigeria. Other participants included Techstars, Angels Touch, HoaQ, DFS Lab’s Stellar Africa Fund, Ingressive Capital Fund II, as well as Dare Okoudjou, the Chief of MFS Africa, and Tola Onayemi, the CEO of Norebase.

Why is Payday in the News? 

The entire situation commenced with users expressing concerns about their accounts being limited and their inability to access their funds, which Payday addressed 

Ten days later, the company provided another update, stating that they had resolved the issue. However, users were still experiencing difficulties accessing their accounts.

Nevertheless, Payday verified that the limitation was imposed after certain customers reported losses due to fraudulent activities. Sequel to all of these happenings, some revelations began to surface concerning the company and its CEO. In a tweet, a former employee of the company claimed that Favour Ori, the CEO of the company, is a terrible individual, and the extent of the damage he has caused is not fully known. He also stated that he left PayDay a long time ago. 

Within the comments of the tweet, another person shared their unfavorable encounter with the fintech company. They mentioned facing inconsistent transfer fees, varying conversion fees, and, to make matters worse, their account was flagged. While those outside the company had much to comment on, those within the organization had even more revelations to share. 

According to information gathered online, Payday employees claimed that their salaries were reduced three months after the company raised $3 million. The reason provided was that the company intended to operate exclusively in Nigeria and, as a result, needed to pay its staff in the local currency, Naira. However, this didn’t happen as expected; instead, the salaries experienced a significant and abrupt decrease. What further fueled the anger of PayDay employees was the CEO, Favour, paying himself a monthly sum of $15,000 while they grappled with the salary reductions, a situation they deemed highly unjust. 

Per Techcabal, the information about the company’s potential sale was disclosed by Favour, the CEO himself. Moniepoint is reportedly the prospective buyer, although the deal has not yet been finalized.

What are people saying? 

This whole hullabaloo has triggered numerous responses on social media, Twitter especially.  A Twitter user said; 

 “So PayDay is a side hustle for both founders with one earning $15k/month without hitting key performance metrics. Sounds like a sure way to line his pocket first. Founder also makes impulsive decisions which leads to financial losses for customers. All I see here is bad management.” 

Another user tweeted; 

“Building a Fintech startup isn’t easy. Why the sale though? Are investors pulling out of the African Fintech space?” 

There was yet another user, shocked that a fintech startup could be someone’s side hustle. 

Favour Ori’s Side of the Story

Yesterday, September 21, 2023, Favour Ori, the founder and CEO of the fintech startup took to his Twitter page to disclose that the past few months have been challenging for the team at Payday but the moments have served as a test to their commitment to fulfilling their promise of being a seamless route through which African can transact globally. 

He also admitted that the company had struggled with issues relating to virtual card services but it has been sorted. Furthermore, he revealed that the system security of the company was improved which led to account restrictions that happened. He also acknowledged making changes in the salaries of the staff members, which he claimed was to improve the efficiency of the company. 

He deemed it fit to let the public know that he had personally invested $100k before any funding happened and he had gone without salary for months. Likewise, he mentioned that the reported figure of salary that had been flying around had continued for less than three months before being reduced. As the leader of the company, he stated that he would continue to take responsibility for both their achievements and the difficulties they encountered.