Lidya Leadership Shakeup and Ongoing Customer Fund Crisis: What Nigerian SMEs Need to Know

Lidya Leadership Shakeup and Ongoing Customer Fund Crisis: What Nigerian SMEs Need to Know

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Lidya Collect Crisis Deepens as CEO and CTO Exit While SMEs Struggle With Frozen Funds

For nearly a year, numerous small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria have faced growing frustration as they remain unable to withdraw funds from their wallets on Lidya Collect—a loan repayment platform by the once-prominent fintech, Lidya. While these businesses await access to their hard-earned revenues, a deeper internal shakeup has unfolded at the company’s leadership level.

The Origin of Lidya and Its Expansion Journey

Lidya was founded in 2016 by Tunde Kehinde, previously the co-founder of Jumia Nigeria, and Ercin Eksin, former CEO of Jumia Nigeria and COO of Jumia Africa. The startup positioned itself as a tech-driven credit platform aiming to provide financial support for underserved SMEs in Africa.

In a bold move to expand beyond the Nigerian market, Lidya launched operations in Poland and the Czech Republic in 2020. Backed by a $8.3 million Series B funding round, the expansion was short-lived, with the company exiting both European markets by 2023 to focus entirely on Nigeria and its new service—Lidya Collect... Read complete content click link below

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How Lidya Collect Was Supposed to Work Lidya Collect was introduced as an automated loan collection tool. It allowed SMEs to recover debts from their customers by leveraging standing debit instructions on customers’ bank accounts. These recovered amounts were meant to be credited into the SMEs’ Lidya wallets for easy access and withdrawal.

However, multiple users now report that they have been unable to access their funds for over nine months. One affected business owner shared with Techpoint Africa that they’ve sent countless emails since 2023 with no response from Lidya. “Our money is stuck. Apart from that, we now have to manually recover millions in customer debts that were once automated through Lidya,” the source lamented.

Leadership Exodus Raises Red Flags

In the midst of this financial turbulence, Lidya’s top leadership has seen major exits. In October 2024, co-founder Tunde Kehinde stepped down as CEO, followed by CTO Cristiano Machado in September 2024. By March 2025, when a concerned customer attempted to contact Kehinde about withheld funds, he disclosed that he was no longer associated with the company.

Kehinde indicated that Itunu Efunkoya, who joined Lidya in 2016 and currently holds the role of Financial Operations Manager, was appointed as the new CEO. However, Efunkoya did not confirm or deny this claim, further adding to the opacity surrounding Lidya’s internal affairs.

Signs of Financial Distress at Lidya

Further indications of Lidya’s operational decline came from a former employee, who revealed that the company failed to pay its Portugal-based tech team for four months beginning in May 2024. By September, the entire team had reportedly resigned. According to the source, a potential investor pulled out from a funding deal, and the remaining board members declined to cover the shortfall.

With no active engineering team to maintain its platform, and with customers still unable to retrieve funds, Lidya appears to be facing serious liquidity and operational challenges.

What’s Next for Lidya and Its Users?

In a brief written response to Techpoint Africa, Efunkoya acknowledged the situation, stating, “We are aware of the situation and are currently looking into it. We’re working to gather accurate information and will provide an update as soon as we’re able.”

Unfortunately, for the many Nigerian SMEs relying on Lidya for debt collection and cash flow, these words offer little comfort. With leadership transitions, unpaid employees, and stalled customer withdrawals, Lidya’s future remains uncertain.

For Nigerian business owners, this situation underscores the importance of due diligence when integrating third-party financial platforms. As the Lidya Collect crisis continues to unfold, transparency, accountability, and swift action are urgently needed—not just from the company, but from relevant financial oversight bodies as well.

Source: Techpoint Africa

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