Africa’s Newest Neobanks Make Unusual Bet On Customers Overseas

Dreams came true for Chinwe Osuji when she arrived in Sweden in September last year. Having bagged a scholarship at Örebro University months before to study Chemistry in Environmental Forensics in a Master’s programme, she had mentally escaped her home country, Nigeria, for Sweden so many times and spent hours longingly imagining how she’d settle in while counting down the days impatiently.

However, just a few days after Osuji completed Project Japa (the Yoruba word for “run fast” which is popular in Nigeria as the colloquial term for an ongoing phenomenon that has locals leaving the country in droves due to the persistent dysfunction and going after of work/study opportunities abroad), she found that all her daydreaming didn’t feature how much of an adjustment she would have to make when it comes to the small matter of accessing financial services as a Nigerian who is now resident in Scandinavia.

“Opening a bank account here is a very difficult task. As a foreigner, you have to...