On Monday afternoon, TechCabal published a story about Brass, a Nigerian fintech that provides business banking to small businesses. Our reporting, which has now been called into question by the company’s founder, was based on an hour-long conversation with the founder and follow-up questions sent via email.
Per our standards, we understood the gravity of this story and took great pains to share a balanced and nuanced story. We stand by our reporting and remain committed to building a reputable publication that captures the stories of the people and businesses shaping the tech landscape in Africa.
While we don’t typically publish transcripts of our conversations with interview subjects, we will make an exception in this instance. Our email correspondence with the CEO of Brass can be found at the bottom of this article.
In an hour-long conversation, Sola Akindolu expressed a desire to be helpful with TechCabal’s reporting. He, however, emphasised the need to be cautious due to the sensitive nature of the fintech industry.
He mentioned that fintechs are struggling due to a combination of factors, including a delay in securing Series A funding, and explained that these issues are not unique to Brass but are symptomatic of broader challenges within the fintech sector.
We paused to clarify if his fintech’s current struggles were similarly a funding issue, and he said this:
“It is, for the most part, generally.”
Find the full, unedited transcript of our conversation with Sola Akindolu below. The transcript starts here:
Sola: So the first question I would like to ask is more like, what exactly is the goal of this reporting? Or what you guys are trying to do?
Ngozi: Muyiwa, would you like to answer that?
Muyiwa: Yes, absolutely. I think because now more than ever, we’re, we’re constantly asking questions about what is newsworthy or not.
We’re constantly fielding questions about what is newsworthy or not. I find those questions pretty interesting.
I don’t say this in a bad way. I think it reveals, like, sort of, like the hypocritical nature of people. It’s very interesting that we understand the news when it’s not about our companies because we understand the need for people to know these things—the need for customers, the need for investors, the need for just onlookers to understand or know things, right?
But when really hits closer to home, we are always like, why do you need to talk about that? So the goal of this is pretty simple.
I’m going to be very, very, I’ll speak very plainly here.
We started receiving emails, text messages, DMs. The number of reporters in our newsroom, who had gotten these messages from your customers who had said, oh, oh, we can’t take money out.
We’re having trouble taking money out of the company, and the company is not speaking to us. endlessly, right? I think we were very, very, very within our rights to have written that story, right, because it was an issue that affected customers. And this would have allowed us to also examine the promise of business banking, right?
The promise of business banking, what some of the challenges are, and stuff like that, disruptors in that market are doing and how they’re doing so.
So these stories like you said, it’s just it’s beyond reporting on that event, but also as a way to do a pulse check on what’s going on in the sector. So that’s, it’s that this is the news because it affected your customers, quite a lot of people on the one hand, and another reason great news is that it allows us also know what I know is happening around
Sola: Don’t get me wrong, I’m sorry for interrupting. I’m not trying to say this is not news.
I’m not trying to dispute the newsworthiness of it.
What I’m trying to understand is exactly what the goal is more like, I’m not trying to, like there’s a way you tell news where you’re like, I’m just trying to understand the goal.
I’m not saying it’s not newsworthy, or whatever the case may be people would have reached out and all of those types of things. When things are not looking good, people sort of complain in every form, make a complaint, right? They will talk to the press, they will talk to do file, you know, like people just try to air their grievances somehow.
So I am just trying to ask you guys like, what exactly you guys are trying to do.
Like I said, I’ll be very helpful. I think there’s just so much one can actually unwrap from all of this. I have spoken at length with Ngozi over the phone twice already.
So I’m not sort of like we are going through a lot of a lot of work internally to ensure that we steer the ship and we’ve done so much work.
We’ve been building this really hard for the last three years. So you can imagine this is my life’s work. So I’m very like, I’m very, I’m trying to make sure that I carry I steer the boat and I bring it back to the original position.
So what I’m just trying to do is more like understand your perspective, I’m not disputing that what you need to do is not what I don’t know. And I’m not. I’m not very I’m not. I understand it. That’s my point.
But I’m just trying to kind of like get what you guys are trying to drive, what kind of story are you trying to tell? Are you trying to tell the story from a brass perspective, or from an industry level or from an industry category level, do you understand? Because this problem is not, it’s not specific to us alone.
And I can answer like, I don’t want to go into whatever. I don’t know what others are facing. I can only speak for myself, but I can take the idea that if it’s biting me in my leg, it’s also biting other guys’ legs, like I’m not an idiot.
Do you understand, I’m not an idiot, obviously so I know that something is you know, like, so I just want to understand your own goal and what you guys are trying to do. So that sort of like allows me to be able to understand how we respond, basically.
Muyiwa: Two things we’re trying to achieve here: first to do proper nuanced reporting on what happened, right.
There’s the news factor of people are not able to get their deposits out since since October. The company did not speak to them. That’s on the one factor.
But what we really want to understand, like you said, is the deeper industry issue of like, how exactly did this happen? What happened here? How is the business trying to ensure that this doesn’t happen? Again, like you said, we’re speaking to, Ngozi will tell you, because we’re speaking to another business in your space that had like, similar issues? Right. So we’re trying to also understand on the whole, where is the promise of disrupting business banking? What specific challenges is it running into? Right? And how are the players thinking of it? Right? And what exactly are the issues? You know, not in a generic “oh it’s business.”
Sola: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I get that. I think generally, you know, also speaking as plainly as possible
Yeah, a lot of there are a lot of reasons why this is happening. And, this is me speaking clearly. And I think we’re on record, right? There are a lot of reasons why this is happening.
But for the most part, it’s more like most of the companies that you’ve seen today, that started in the 2020 batch. Right?
They’re like in the fintech category, they are overdue for a new round, quote and unquote. That is big. That is a big thing that you should also find out if you look back way back from 2016. Most of the companies that did their Series A after 2016, 2017, those companies that came out in that batch, those fintechs, raised their Series A two years later or less.
Have you realized the ones that came out in 2020, fintechs have not really done any Series A?
Yeah, none of them in the class of 2020, I’ve actually done a Series A, and it’s been four years running.
And that is going to have an impact so it’s not a case of like the promise of business banking is not good.
It’s just a case of like, there are a lot of forces, most of the companies that are in this category are facing and not just in business banking, in general. Fintech.
You saw one one company that actually pivoted to something else, I don’t want to call their name.
But generally, there’s a general thing where many of these companies need, they’re overdue for a new round of financing, where we parse the numbers and they’re very overdue.
And so what is going on is like they are just generally thin, they’re kind of like, they’re actually like in that place where that kind of events must happen whether they like it or not, do you understand?
If this had happened to any other fintech, you would have experienced literally the same thing. Do you understand? It doesn’t matter how, it is just what it is, is like, you run on you run on gas.
If your gas is running thin, your gas is running.
Like no matter how, no matter how no matter how, what’s the word I’m looking for? No matter your skill, as a driver, no matter your intention as a driver, do you understand?
If you are due to do something two years ago, and you’ve not done it, you are currently kind of tired, you’ll start feeling that the car and the speed are deteriorating and the only way about it is that you must take that action, whether you like it or not. And you have to involve the people that can actually help you to take that action, which is one of the things where I’m trying to like to get across to you.
So the class of 2020 fintechs, very rarely any of them have done a Series A, that’s the first thing you need to know you can actually, you are a reporter yourself, you can actually do like a bit of research like all these guys that came out in 2020, 2019/2020, how many of them have actually announced a Series A.
Is it their fault? Is it that they’ve not been doing a great job? Is it like they are not due for it?
But you know, the venture market has actually had an impact. But what does that have to do? So, is this now a business banking problem? Or is this a case of like fintechs, typically that are shooting for these types of things, they need capitalization, and they can only run for so long on their own.
But I’m just talking right now, I’m just trying to give you some insight, some general, like you need to ask yourself, 2016 Class, 2015 class, in 2019 you saw them raise a Series A. This is 2024. Right? You’ve not heard any Series A announcements.
Muyiwa: So is this solely a funding issue?
Sola Akindolu : It is. It is, for the most part, generally. Let me let me be clear with you. Like there’s no way. See, I don’t want to talk too much.
Muyiwa: No talk, the thing is we have established good faith.
Sola : I am trying to establish a lot of good faith here. Because I was told to be very careful. I was like, hey, just collect your questions. I’m like, You know what, let me just establish the good faith here.
Muyiwa: But like I said, if we wanted to do bad-faith reporting, we would have done a report and we would have moved on.
Sola: So it’s expensive to run this type of business. To run any fintech here, generally. You know, you can try to say you want to disrupt the next bank, the question is, it’s going to still cost you a lot of money. It is going to cost a lot of working capital. Do you understand? So if you raise $1.2, $1.5 million as a fintech at any time. Two years later, you need to go back knocking and try to get 5 to $10 million.
And if at a time you were due for that kind of injection and the market went upside down on you, you can probably still sort of like stretch yourself. And if in the middle of that, Nigeria’s dollar crashes.
How much can you really do? Dollar turns from 400 Naira to 1,500. Now you can’t even raise Naira liquidity because everybody has converted their Naira to dollars. Do you understand?
So when I see people drag, even competition, you know, I kind of like I feel bad for them because I also understand what they must be going through. Because I am feeling the heat, I’m feeling the pressure right? So it’s just a case of like I know what you’re going through. But even me I have my own on top of my head. Do you understand?
Sola: The question is more around the fact of what can the industry do better. What can be done? Do you understand? I think, I think for anyone that has spent…I need to see your face Muyiwa. I am so sorry about this. I like
Muyiwa: So the problem is that I’m using two monitors.
Sola: Like I like to talk to people so that I am in your face. Ngozi is not talking, so if Ngozi was on right now, I would have been looking at Ngozi’s face. I like looking at people so that I can have a conversation out. So for me, it’s like is a case of.. what was I…
Sola: Generally speaking, is that the industry, especially for us that are doing financial technology. Right, we are going through a tough period generally. Are you following?
The bigger boys are going through theirs. The bigger boys who have raised 10s 20s 30s millions, they’re going through there as they’ve invested millions of dollars in buying POS terminals at 400 naira and now dollar is 1500. Are you following?
Dollar is 1500 and they can only sell those terminals for like, they can only lease it out for $10 but they spent hundred dollars on it already. You get?
You know the mid-stage, semi big boys. There’s the big boys and the semi-big boys there’s guys like us and there’s guys that are still lower. The semi-big boys, they have to find a way to see if they will ever be able to do another round.
Because now, a Series B companies is reporting the revenue of a seed company. Because of the changes of the dollar and it’s not like did anything wrong. If last year, you’re making $1 million. This January, the revenue is not $30,000.
Muyiwa: Specific to your sector, what are the biggest costs?
Sola: The biggest cost is more like, you need to have constantly have…Sorry, someone is texting me.
One second. On it’s my mom.
The biggest cost is more like you need to have constant access to working capital. And that becomes really insane. You understand?
A lot of times, you could had it very cheaply, very early on, you could have added very cheaply, like in the early days, like when Naira was abundant everywhere.
So there’s the regular venture market problem and there’s the one that specific to Nigeria, where getting working capital, the cost of it, even if you want to pay the cost of it, to even get it at all, it’s now even difficult. Do you understand? So you need working you need access to a ridiculous working capital, as you grow that business.
You need ridiculous access to that cash, do you understand? But you are faced with multiple, you are juggling multiple things right now. Right.
So that is what we’re dealing with. But what I was trying to say before you ask that question is that, I don’t know what the other guys are doing. I can only speak for myself. Right?
I know we’re in our recovery phase, you know, we meet with important people, important companies and you know investors to ensure that Brass, because we’ve spent we’ve done a lot of work, we build credit accounts, service accounts, invoices, payroll, expense management, corporate cards, virtual terminals, physical terminals, lending. We also launched in Kenya last year and we had to roll that back, we’ve launched our customer services, which is actually part of reason why I’m actually not very happy with TechCabal because despite all of the work we’ve been doing, TechCabal has never written anything about us. But I digress. But I digress.
It’s when I’m facing challenges that TechCabal remembers me. But I digress.
So when we’ve done all of this work, right, so you can imagine that there’s a whole at stake in ensuring that that does not go to the floor in sort of like trying to re-steer the thing and everything.
Quite frankly, that is, some of the things that we are trying to actively aggressively do. Ngozi reached out to me two days ago, I’m like, Yo, bro, I am in the middle of a lot right now.
Yesterday, I had a very, very important conversation, like almost from 10am to 5pm on this same problem, on how to have a final solution to it with very, very important people. And we’re still undergoing that recovery. You understand.
So when so much has been done, when so much has been built, you can also realize that sometimes these companies, they have been thrown a curveball, even the fact even with the fact that they are overdue for a day or overdue for capital injection, we have to realize that they are overdue for capital injection.
And then they are now being thrown another curveball where in less than a month, Naira became 50% more expensive.
Muyiwa: I’m going to ask one question before I turn this over to Ngozi. I was not supposed to be in this meeting but she said you insisted. She’s the one writing this story.
Sola: Am I giving good feedback? So I’m just having a chat?
Muyiwa: Yes, yes. It’s going to be impossible to have this conversation with you without pointing out that you’ve been very, you’ve been very critical of traditional banks, extremely critical of traditional banks. Everybody still, I’m sure that you are going…
Sola: What do you think? What do you think, if you were in my shoes, I don’t understand.
Muyiwa: You’ve been openly critical of traditional banks in the past, you’re gonna get a lot of “you make criticisms, how are you getting into your own sort of problems?”
Do you understand what I’m saying? It’s a question that we like. Look, it’s a difficult question, but it has to be asked because even the people who read the article will say, how come you didn’t ask him that? You’d be you’d be very you’ve always been the opposition on Nigerian traditional banks is really clear. Like super clear.
Sola: You make it seem as if I come online and I all I talk about is UBA, GTB, whatever
Muyiwa: There have been times when you’ve offered strong opinions about Nigerian banks. So that’s that’s going to have to be asked like
Sola: So what is the question?
Muyiwa: The question would be, I mean, with the benefit of hindsight, did you underestimate what it would take you to disrupt Nigerian banks? Number one. And do you still hold the strong opinion that, you know, that, you know, the banks don’t like a rigorous job?
Sola: I don’t think I have beef with traditional bank.
***Sola requests to speak OFF the record ***
Muyiwa: What are the things that fintechs suck at?
Sola: We are very good at building out products. We are very good at building out technology. But there are some things that your Javascript can’t fix. Right. There are important things around, that comes only with experience.
Muyiwa: Things like?
Sola: Even something as basic as government relations, something as basic as treasury management, compliance. There are things that are very soft and social, that are not cool, that is not engineering and fancy products and fancy buttons. You have to get someone that has over 20 years of experience in it. But there are things that these banks are very very good at that they suck at too. You can go to their website to log in, before you do a transfer, for ten minutes you’re still trying to figure out where the transfer button is, do you understand? You’ll never experience that in a nice, fancy-looking fintech. So what happens is that for you to be able to get the kind of success you want eventually, there’s always going to be a need for a marriage of some kind between these two people, do you understand? You bring your strength, I bring my strength and then we’ll come at a point.
Off-the record comments.
There’s still a need for people, for businesses to have software like Brass, do you understand? Whether you like it or not, Brass built a great product, we built a great brand. Do you understand? And there is a place for this type of product, there’s a place for this type of business, you understand?
But how do we deliver it to businesses? How do we deliver this to people?
Or should we go back to the old days of 2003, when you can’t even do payroll on your bank on your bank accounts as a business. You can’t do something as simple as issuing a debit card to Ngozi and setting a card limit and being able to see how much the marketing team is spending, how sales team is spending or being able to understand, have a full full overview of how your payroll spend is looking. Things that should be visible.
Are we going to go back to that? No. So the question is, can we have it both ways?
That is a conversation I think we need to start having around how do banks and fintechs come together to be able to create, I bring my strengths, you bring your strengths.
And that is what I actually suspect is going to be the next evolution of this because whether you like it or not, companies, like companies or companies like ours that have build great products, will have to ask themselves, what do we do in kind of like in relationship to say, hmm, can I merge with Providus?
Do you understand? h, can I actually do some big connection, you know, like with maybe Jaiz or with whatever the case may be, and I bring my strength, you bring your strength.
And the things I’m struggling with, which is more the things that is making me sort of like struggle. I don’t have to struggle because you have that in surplus. What you are struggling with today, which is technology, I have that in some surplus. I don’t know if that makes sense.
What I have in surplus you lack, what you have in surplus, I lack. Do you understand?
T give you a clear, my own perspective is this: I don’t think we’re in a bank versus FinTech space. Maybe other FinTech CEOs have that perspective. But I don’t think we’re in a bank versus fintech.
Muyiwa: Question. I mean, that’s a great answer. As far as I’m concerned, most people would say it’s just that your position has evolved. Right.
Sola: Muyiwa, you’ve never met me. There are people who have never met me, and they have some positions about me until they meet me in real life. Oh, I thought Sola, you’re like this very arrogant person.
Muyiwa: Correct me if my theory is wrong yes.
Right. But I think the picture I’m getting here generally is with a mix of devaluation with a mix of an increased cost of doing business and, you know, a funding winter that has made it pretty difficult, to raise funds has impacted operations, right, and has affected customer ability to reach deposits right, on the one hand.
Stop me here if my theories are wrong.
But there will still be questions and this is from the point of view where your customers reached out to us about the communication, about the fact that, like you said, I mean, you said something important about payroll, and quite a number of these people were pissed off when they reached to us about the fact that they make payroll through Brass, right.
And all of that, and all of these delays have meant that they’ve not been able to make payroll on time. Right. And that, like just the fact that it has not been communicated. Or like, for them the communication has been severely lacking in like what they want has put them in a horrible position.
Sola: Okay, so I need you to also kind of like, and I’ve apologized to like at least 20-30 customers directly that I have spoken to.
First of all, we communicated to all customers are affected and I have a thread of that email. You know, we have thousands of customers and the customers are impacted as of right now and I can show you the data, they are actually less than 80, it’s about in the 80 range.
A lot of times with the way the social media works is that you could have 80, 90 people sort of like complaining about a service constantly. 80, 90 businesses talk about something and people sort of like and people sort of like magnify it and it looks like the whole world is crashing.
And I’m not to say that, and I’m not to say that it’s, it’s something I enjoy. I used to be fatter than this. I’m telling you, I used to be fatter than this.
But I have lost drastic, a lot of weight. So with our kind of business. And this is something that anyone internally at the team, I’ve communicated a lot of times is that we don’t get the privilege, we don’t get the, we are not the kind of people we are like, we’re like, we’re like an essential services, we don’t get the, I’m looking for the word but I can’t find the word but let’s just use a placeholder.
But we don’t we don’t get a place order to make too much errors are too small or to have failures.
So let’s say we’re in consumer services right now and you’re trying to pay for your Uber and the thing failed. You will vex and last last, you’ll probably go to the ATM and withdraw your money. Like it’s not that deep. Do you understand?
Or you’re in a nightclub or a bar and you’re trying to pay for a drink and drink did not go through? You just say Ngozi abeg help me with your card let me pay for this drink, I’ll settle you tomorrow morning. You understand?
So a lot of people where you can have like 3% failure, 4%, 5% fill in some of these other guys, for our own services. 1% failure is a social media event because the type of things people are paying for is very essential.
They’re trying to pay for their vendors, they’re not trying to be for Uber, they’re not trying to buy a drink at the ba. Do you understand?
Which is why this is a lot more alarming than what it is today. Do you understand? So if you have just 3% of your user base experiencing a problem, which is currently what is the case; 2-3% of our customer base experiencing a problem, you are going to have a big, massive, everybody is going to be disturbing you because what is happening is that this person is trying to pay for something on the container or trying to clear his container and you’re holding his payment; he’s going to pay demurrage. I don’t know if that makes sense.
It breaks my heart, quite frankly. And for every of these customers that we escalate, that gets to me, their payment gets resolved in a matter of minutes or less, or a couple hours.
Every single one, I send straight to my CTO. I’m like, Hey, bro, this person just reached out to me. I don’t know what it is but can you, can somebody communicate to them? Sometimes it never gets to me.
I know I’m not the most private person but I also understand that not everybody will have my number or be able to get my number, don’t get me wrong, do you understand?
But as much as the ones that get filtered to me, I make it a personal problem. I make it a very personal problem, even sometimes use my personal cash and say, You know what, I will ensure that this thing gets resolved for this particular person and the company owes me.
So this is not a question of like. The oldest we have right now on our DB is about five days, six days basically. And we’re ensuring that we’re in constant communication.
The thing is, there is also a case of like, people are coming in with a lot of force, with a lot of frustration, which I understand.
And sometimes that never gets a way to get filtered to the top where it can easily be handled.
But speaking of communication, what we’ve tried to do on our side, because of the sensitivity of this problem is that we’ve sent emails to the people that are exact, it essentially affected.
In fact, there is a guy that one of our competition was complaining about one of our customers was referring brands to that competition. And in my mind, I was like, please stay where you are.
You know, the customer was complaining about the competition on Twitter, I shared with my team or random channel. And guess what was happening, he was like you should use Brass.
I’m like, please, please, please let us calm down here. The customer was actually recommending Brass.
So there’s a whole set of customers on Brass today that don’t even know anything is going on. Do you understand? But because we can’t afford even any failure we have this seemingly like a thing, do you understand?
But in terms of communication, we’ve restricted and I have, because even Bras the FinTech experienced the problem itself. So Brass, I got an email that is from the CEO that says, hey,we were in the middle of this and we’re going to resolve it.
So we try as much as opposed to communicate to the customers that are affected.
Why are you not, why will you not want to communicate with every single person? Which is one of the things that happened when Ngozi reached out to me two days ago and I told them like, Hey, listen, you are in financial services. You don’t want to have a bank run.
Because what happens is is even when customers that are not affected. What do they do, they get panicked. And I know have an example of someone that is actually going through that right now.
So even in communication, you can’t, people, people say these things when they’re like, the thing is like it’s you’re in media yourself. It is not a black and white. Do you understand?
You have to be very, very careful issue, you have to be very, very careful in the way, if you have thousands of businesses, if you’re sitting on a ridiculous amount of liquidity, you have to be very, very careful so you don’t miscommunicate something where you have a run on the bank, on your platform.
It could be a case of like two people having a transfer. Someone, right I know is dealing with that as we speak.
And it’s because of that tactical mistake, right? If you go and tweet something something right now and say, Oh, we are experiencing one thing one thing, what is going to happen is that even someone that has 2000 Naira.
Now your problem is coming from like 80 businesses, you are now dealing like 5000 businesses and your world is crashing. I don’t know if that makes sense. So for us, it’s like, we have to be very, very, very, very careful with the, with the sensitivity of this business, of the industry, in ensuring that we take it on, we have to be very careful.
Iif you’re fighting fire, right in your house, what you want to do is to contain the fire to the room where it is burning.
So that even if the even if the fire keeps burning, it is not spreading across the entire building, you contain it. I don’t know if that makes sense. You contain to wherever it is, you’re like, Hey, guys, I’m putting a lot of water here.
But if you go and do something stupid, the fire spreads across the entire building, what do you have? Now you are looking for fire service and fire trucks.
So you need to kind of like understand my perspective here as a founder, where I’m dealing with the case of like, how do you manage perception? How do we contain to fire while we’re solving problems.
So for us, it’s like two things, we are looking at things from like, we need to manage perception and contain a fire because we’re in perception business.
We also need, in the middle of that, develop a solution, a lasting solution that must kill, that must end the problem once and for all finally, do you understand?
And both of these both of these events, while seemingly unconnected, they are very based on things like perception and signaling. You know, they are based on perception or signaling.
If you are trying to, if you’re trying to save a boat, right? If you are in the middle of that process. If there’s a bad, if you get a bad signaling out there, that, Oh, there’s a crisis, what happens, nobody wants to catch a falling knife, even though you’re not a falling knife, it becomes difficult for you to save the boat and everything crashes, and all of your work for the last four years, boom, disappears.
If you try to. If you try to communicate to your entire user base and say, Oh, we are dealing with this thing, what you are going to have in your hand is that you will see the fire spread rapidly in less than 12 hours, rapidly in less than 12 hours. So you need to see it like, we are not just we are not just being. We have been one of the most people that are always in touch with our customers.
But when you have a problem that is restricted, we actually created a different infrastructure for these customers. If you have a problem that is restricted to less than 100 of your businesses, you can’t afford to let it spread more than that even though those 100 are complaining.You can’t afford to let it spread. If it spreads, you are in a bigger mess than what you were you have.
Muyiwa:Thank you so much. Ngozi has about six questions for you. I’m going to have to drop off because I have.
Sola: I’ve spoken to you, I don’t know if you guys have any, because I’m like, trying to be as helpful as much as possible. Yeah,
Muyiwa: I totally understand that. And like I said, I mean, I will say this all the time. And it’s always interesting when there’s criticism because we will do this with founders all the time where we talk and we talk and we…
Sola: I have some questions for you. I have some questions for you.
Muyiwa: Really, I can take like two questions before I run off.
Sola: Okay, the first person I have for you is that? And I was asking Ngozi yesterday? How come TechCabal hasn’t actually written anything about Brass in the last three and a half years or even recognized Brass in any way? And I’m not entitled to this in anyway.
Muyiwa: I can speak to that only from the one year I’ve been here. What I can speak on is pretty straightforward in that I tell businesses this all the time.
In a global economy where there’s a lot of struggle, where there’s a lot of bad news that dominates the news cycle. The bad news dominates the news cycle, because it’s a reflection of what’s going on in the economy, right? It means that companies and people must be more intentional about how they tell their positive stories.
And I say this all the time I use, I will use a couple of examples, right? You’d be surprised. If we write a bad story about Brass, right? Even if you don’t know me, you will ask somebody and you will find my number and be like, I really hated that story. Right?
I always ask, Why don’t people have the same sort of passion for a good story? You think your story is good enough? Yeah, send us an email, shoot us an email. Yo, we got this interesting angle for you about Brass, right?
If that email gets ignored, act like, you just got some bad coverage, right?
Find the person’s number be like, Yo, I know that that thing didn’t translate well over email. Let me sit down with you. Like get on the phone with you for 20 minutes, right? And share with you this interesting thing we’re doing or this interesting spin to our business or this positive news, it will get published, right?
It’s just we have a very small newsroom, 12 writers, and tons and tons of companies. Ask Ngozi on a daily basis how many email pitches she receives from companies.
Sola: I understand that, but what I was telling her yesterday is more around the fact that there are lik important events that has happened that are like, obviously a funding event, launching an entirely an entirely new business line.
The reason why you reached out to me is because Brass is actually somewhat influential, and you think a story about Brass is actually going to be a very interesting story.
Muyiwa: Something to consider is that, again, like I said,
Sola: Sorry, Muyiwa. I’m so sorry. Because I was even saying that I’ve seen stories about competition, you understand. And in that same story, you will hear things like companies like Brass, such as Brass, you know, where we have been mentioned, as well.
I’m like, why are you writing about XYZ? And in the middle, you are now writing people like Brass. Brass has never in the real sense for three and a half years, we’ve never gotten any form of an invite to event from TechCabal.
Not even an invitation like come and be an attendee.
I was at Four Points one time or one of these hotels, I was coming down from my room, and I saw you guys having an event. And I’m like, he thought I was coming in. I’m like, No, you guys never invited me. I’m just getting downstairs to grab breakfast. I’m just thinking of literally going to the restaurant. I just stumbled on you. I didn’t know you were here.
Muyiwa: We’re going to fix on our business and partnerships end for these invitations. That’s on the one hand, right?
Another thing that would be helpful. And I say this all the time, right? If people assume that, for instance, some of the businesses that get featured or people say, some of the big businesses don’t have to do anything to get coverage.
And I’m like, you’ll be surprised, right? Paystack sends us an email and say, oh, we have this thing. We probably don’t reply. Paystack’s PR person sends me WhatsApp text message. “Oh we sent you this thing.”
And I’m like, Alright, it doesn’t slap like that. And then she probably says something like, You know what, let me get you on a call with the product manager of this product, right? He’s going to explain it to you in a way that will blow your mind, right? And she does that.
And she gets the person on the call. She gets another person on the call. They talk and they talk and they talk. And they present this really interesting sort of angle. And the reporter is like, oh, you know what, I can do that. Right?
That’s Paystack right? So if that article gets done, people will assume Paystack shot us an email and moved on with it. It doesn’t work like that. If Ngozi tells you how many messages we’ve received about Brass, you understand why we followed this story, right?
So in that same vein, imagine you have somebody on your team, who was just telling us constantly about like, Yo, this cool thing that brass was doing, or this cool thing that brass launched or do you want to speak to our CEO?
Sola: I get it, I get it. I don’t I’m not, I’m not entitled to these things.
Muyiwa: I don’t think it’s entitlement, I think it’s just a cold hard reality of how or how business coverage works, I’ve worked in public relations, I worked in public relations at GTCO, I worked as Head of Public Relations at Lemonade Finance, right.
And I can tell you that it was my job to constantly hound journalists until I got coverage, it was just how it was it works right. And that’s why they call it earned media, because it’s very, very difficult to earn, the easiest thing is just to pay for it.
But if you want to earn something, especially because that’s what has more credibility, you’re going to sit on it, you’re going to, you know how many times journalists will give me the runaround.
And I’ll say, You know what, you know, there’s nothing to junk, most journalists like that to sit and talk to the CEO. And I’ll say, You know what, I’m going to get my CEO on the call for 20 minutes, you can ask him anything, right?
People like that sort of stuff. Because it gives them a sense that they’re not just getting like a dull story, they’re getting first-hand access to the person who leads the business, you can ask that person really interesting questions about how he or she thinks about where their business is going. I think that makes a world of difference.
Sola: Generally, what I just need to get to kind of like have a perspective around this is sort of like sensitivity of alpha or Powell case. Even though there’s like, a funding winter that I’ve shared in good faith with you, typically, companies like this should be companies like this in that category, not just business banking.
Fintechs generally are overdue for financing, will will obviously. But while all of that is going on, Brass is actually in the middle of a recovery process in the middle of a big one. Do you understand?
I just need you guys just to clear unless you want, which is the reason why you asked about communication, I told you guys, there’s reason why we restricted the category, those that did it the way you wanted us to do it, I can still see, it they’re going through hell right now.
So there’s reason why we took counsel around how to manage the communication. So my plea to you is that, we’re in the middle of a whole lot of recovery and making sure that we get everything running and that this has to be done, it must be done.
Because we’ve put in so much work, sweat and blood, and a lot of. Everybody internally is, is gravitating and getting the energy together to make sure that we do this.
For a lot of customers that have reached out and say, Hey, I’m these and that.
For every single one that I get to or even gets to even my head of finance, whatever the case may be, we ensure we resolve the payments in 24 hours or even less, do you understand?
So it’s always a case of like, they’re like 55 people, maybe you go to someone like that person. [Unclear]
What I’m trying to say is we are in the middle of a lot that needs to be happen in this month of March. There’s so many people that are involved in ensuring that Brass goes back to the original position of 2020. And I need to get to actually put that at the back of your mind whatever you do.
Because if you do it in a way that make it seem like you’re calling out Brass, it can literally it can cause a bank run, it can scatter our deals. Do you understand?
Any of these are two probably any of these two problems can kill the business? Now imagine you have both of them. It can you can have a bankroll on your hand on your hand. Or you can actually kill a deal that is imminent.
So I just need to get to put that in perspective.
I spoke, you know, like talking to you out of good faith. And I really understand I really hope you kind of like you understand what we’re dealing with here. It’s a lot; there’s already a battle internally. I don’t want this to be a third battle.
Muyiwa: All right. All right. Thank you. I’m going to again hand this meeting over to Ngozi. Thank you for speaking to us, Ngozi will take it from here. I have to run. Yeah,
Sola: I thought this meeting was going to be for one hour.
Ngozi: Okay, so can I ask you a few right now? Like two or three right now?
Sola: Right. Okay.
Ngozi: Alright, hi. Earlier on just now, you also repeated that. Oh, first of all, I want to reassure you that this story is not to call you out. Because if it was, we would have published the story long before now.
Also in the newsroom, we are very, very conscious of how much work the founders put into their business. And also what like any kind of news means to people who use the product. We know about bank runs. It’s why we’ve waited so long. We’ve been getting messages, tags oon Twitter, emails, people in our DMS on social media, Instagram, Twitter, asking us to write about this. But we don’t call out people, we merely report facts in the right context, it’s why we’re having this call with you. So also, so like, just just earlier on, and also twice on this call now you said that.
Sola: Is it possible? Like you noticed earlier, my phone was ringing. Okay, ask these questions, maybe if I can answer them right away or you can just email them to me if you don’t mind.
Ngozi: I wanted to ask questions on this call but you spent all my time talking to Muyiwa. It’s not fair.
Sola: Sorry. Just ask me. Just write the questions out. I will see if I can answer them.
Ngozi: Okay, can I ask you a few right now, two or three right now. On the call earlier, just some minutes ago, you said that sometimes like when things escalated to you, that most of these things are resolved in 24 hours tops. But several people we’ve spoken to told us that, that are unable to withdraw despite contacting customer care and following instructions. And they are being told to wait on for responses from the team. That they haven’t been able to withdraw their money for over two weeks. Some say for three weeks, Some say in four weeks. Some say that it’s been just some days. Right?
So I’m wondering, is there preferential treatment given to certain people? And they’re also in certain groups.
That Brass has a telegram group where they have been engaged by the support team but several of them have shown screenshots of users who have been complaining that they have not had their payment resolved for weeks. So it contradicts what you have said about issues being resolved in 24 hours so I’m asking about that.
Sola:
So when you are in the middle of things like this, you have to understand that there’s so much. The team is lean. Right? And there’s a lot of requests, it’s like when you’re in the middle of a fire fighting. The team is lean, and you have like customer success team who are handling so many things. You have two engineers assigned so things fall through the crack, do you understand. I am also very busy and trying to drive a permanent solution.
So like you can be firefighting or you can also be looking for the real solution. Do you understand that? You know? It is not temporary.
So we are dealing with the case of like, first of all, you also have to realize that people exaggerate, but that is not the point I’m making. And they also cases of exaggerations, but I digress.
But what I am trying to make you understand is that there is a case of complaints and there’s a case of a lean team trying to pass through these complaints as much as possible and as quickly as quickly as they can.
And sometimes you have a case of first in, last out. Maybe you sent a request by 9 am and as I was getting to my desk, my laptop, I get another request by 10:30, and as I am resolving 10:30 am, by 11 am, another request comes in. Guess what will happen? I have forgotten the one that you sent by 9:30 am. Because I’ve been busy the entire day dealing with 10, 12, 15.
And then two days later, you now say, Sola, I sent you something two days ago.
And I’m like, “Oopsie doopsie, I’m so sorry.” Because you know why? Because I was getting a lot of work done, I totally forgot that I was meant to get back to someone. Do you understand?
And what happens is that people will be forgotten there and we have like one week, two weeks. I’m like “Oh shit. This could have been resolved easily. It is just 200,000 naira.” And you totally forgot. What happens is that the lean team is simply overwhelmed.
Ngozi: Your team is overwhelmed?
Sola: My point is that the lean team becomes overwhelmed. I’m just trying to give you an idea of what you could deal with where you have customers complaining and then so.
To answer your question, this is not a preferential treatment. Nobody’s like oh, I don’t like Ngozi’s face. We don’t remember this customers aren’t like nobody’s not like a preferential treatment who I like and goes I don’t like I don’t like my car. No, that’s not what is going on.
It is a case of sometimes things just fall through the cracks. A lot of times things actually fall through the cracks. And it’s just the reality of the current circumstances that we’re dealing with.
Ngozi: I understand. But you know, you haven’t really told us what exactly the problem is. What caused this inability to withdraw money from the bank, and when did it start? When did the company notice it? And what exactly caused it? That is something we are curious about also.
Sola: I mean, it’s, it’s been a couple of months now. It’s been a couple of months. But like I said when I was on the call with Ngozi, Muyiwa. I kind of hinted at that. This is not specific to Brass, specifically. You understand? Everyone is sort of, like going to have to experience this. And anyone would have experienced this if they were put in the same scenario that we’re put in.
And it’s simply a case of: these companies run on expensive working capital. And they have been due for it. So they’ve just been sort of managing it themselves.
They’re over overdue, basically and that’s why I hinted at the case of the 2016 class of fintech; they got an injection in 2018.
The 2020 class of fintechs have not gotten an injection so far. So use that and then combine it with the case of Naira devaluation. You are taxed with being able to even source for these things. So you’re actually fighting multiple battles at the same time. That makes it difficult for you to be able to get the support you need to balance these things.
For us, you know, the problem starts becoming very visible when you have a problem that is showing you yellow and then after a while, it starts showing red, and you are like, “Oh shit. We need to act right now.”
So sometimes when you are yellow, when you are driving a car, you can see the fuel getting to empty. But you can say, maybe this car can get me to VI. When we start, you are like, you know what? I need to find a nice police station otherwise this guy is meant to stop on the roadside.
Ngozi: Speaking about seeing yellow. Employee that I spoke to said that this also happened early last year but Brass fixed it. For two weeks, there was like there was the same issue of people being unable to withdraw money from the bank. So is this what you’re referring to when you say that you say a signal that you saw a signal before and then you know that
Sola: Kind of like you fix it because even though life was good. Even though life was bad generally in Nigeria. You can tell January last year, and January this year are two different January’s.
Ngozi: Yes. Okay. So it happened in january last year?
Sola: No, I am just telling you that when you have a problem like this, typically you can easily fix it in the old days, three years ago. Everybody has this type of problem.
Every single person. It is not just even Brass. I was working in a fintech before now. Do you understand? Every fintech will probably need to raise like maybe 100 million, 1 billion, 500 million over the weekend and be like, I need this now, I will pay you back on Monday.
That was one of those things that was very easy back in the day when Nigeria was in a better place. But these days, these are different. These are different times.
Ngozi: So I’m trying to understand. Just like I told you on WhatsApp. I don’t quite understand how this business banking stuff works.
Sola: It is not just business banking. It is financial services generally.
Ngozi: As a layperson, because, a lot of people who will read our articles are laymen, right? People got money, they put it in a bank, right? And they expect that they can just withdraw the money anytime.
Sola: Ngozi, I am not trying to. I’m seven minutes late for another call.
Ngozi: You told me you are free today. That today is your day off.
Sola: Yeah, but you so my Chief of Staff was actually calling me around 10:58. I can show you.
Ngozi: When do you think it can happen? Because I have questions.
Sola: So this is my call log. I don’t know if you can see it. Yeah.
Ngozi: So when do you think I can have a chat with you today? Because you said I can call you and ask you questions before my report. So when can I have a chat with you?
Sola: What I am asking you right now is this right. You know I’m actually in the middle of firefighting. Okay, yeah.
Ngozi: Yeah. I’ll shoot you an email. So when do you think I will get a response to your email?
Sola: You can get it by, before next week. Ngozi, please. Well, I can probably get it to you today. Or maybe Saturday. But let me just answer Kimberly. I don’t know why she’s calling me.
Ngozi: I know. Okay. But I want you to acknowledge that it’s not fair. You spent most of the time, asking Muyiwa questions about certain things.
Sola: This is not a you thing. Ngozi, out of all the founders you have interviewed, I’m sure I’m like in your top five of the ones that have been very responsive. Yes or no?
Ngozi: I will not respond to that.
Sola: You see? Now you do not want to respond to my question. But you agree, I’m very responsive. I’m actually trying to be as helpful.
Ngozi: I didn’t get to ask you any questions. You just came on and talked with Muyiwa and he left. And he is not the one writing the report and I am the one? I’m the one. Can you promise that today, you will send me responses to my questions, please?
Sola: I can’t promise you today, but I will look at it today. I will try as much as possible. Just send your questions to me, please. But also like me, and Muyiwa, when we were talking, you recorded the call right? You can sort of like extract the whole facts.
Ngozi: No. You and Muyiwa were talking about business banking broadly. I told you that I’m writing about Brass as a company on what’s happening now And you did not respond to any of my questions. And now I feel frustrated. For sure. I will send you an email. I look forward to seeing your response to my email. But yeah, just text you and let you know what my editor says because I’m not sure what to do anymore. I wouldn’t for two weeks. And now again, you’re pushing out
Sola: Just send me a text.
Ngozi: Okay, I will send you a text and also let you know what my editor says. I have been waiting for this chat for two weeks, and now you are just pulling out.
Sola: It is an easy one, Ngozi. It is over an hour, it is 11:10.
Ngozi: You spent two hours talking to Muyiwa, not me.
Sola: We’re already talking. I didn’t know that I have two different people I’m talking to. Like in that sense. I thought we already talking but my point is, it is Ngozi, I’m not trying to be funny. Alright? I have to also attend to a lot of things. As I’m talking to you right now, there are things that are calling for my attention. Like literally. Or do you want your people to come and tell you that. There are things that are calling my attention right away.
After the call, Ngozi, the reporter who was on the call sent this email to Sola:
Sola responded to the above questions in an email that reads thus:
