Carbon partners with AXA Mansard expand into healthcare insurance

Carbon, Nigeria’s digital financial services firm, has partnered with insurance giant AXA Mansard, to enter the lucrative health insurance sector.

Carbon says the new deal will allow customers who can save a minimum of N3,000 monthly to qualify for a N20,000 cash benefit in the event that they are hospitalised for 2 or more nights. This cover is for a period of one month for every qualifying month on a recurring basis as long as customers continue to qualify and is currently only available to Carbon’s customers in Nigeria.

According to Ngozi Dozie, co-founder of Carbon, “Our main aim as a business is to empower our customers to live a life of dignity and prosperity. Whether that is by rewarding their discipline and loyalty or by adjusting the terms of their loans, we are committed to seeing them thrive and flourish. That is why we have rolled out these benefits and announced the new measures. We want to ensure that they have the best support and access to life-changing services, even at this difficult time.”

Customers who have an existing loan that is not in arrears or do over N5,000 in transactions such as transfers, bills, airtime monthly will also qualify for this health benefit.

To ease  the financial burden caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the firm is providing customers who pay their loans on time with access to the new healthcare benefits, and also rescheduling loans for eligible customers who experience difficulty paying back their loans. Users will also be able to make up to 30 fee-free transfers on the platform. 

Across the world, many lenders have stopped issuing loans to customers, potentially depriving people of funds when they need it the most. To cater for the expected increase in loan requests, Carbon has put some additional safeguards in place but will continue to disburse loans. Carbon will also keep loan amounts constant on renewals and in some cases reduce loan amounts. Repeat loan applications may also require further review but that will be kept to a minimum. 

Carbon’s new range of healthcare benefits are part of its future and that’s why it rebranded to Carbon from Paylater. which limited it to lending. With the new brand, Carbon is able to provide a plethora of credit products than just traditional loans.

AXA Mansard’s Group Head, Emerging Customers and Financial Inclusion, Alfred Egbai also added: “We are really excited to partner with Carbon to roll out these benefits across Nigeria. In Carbon, we have a partner that understands the needs of the Nigerian consumer and is committed to putting the customer first, just as we are. We are confident that, by working together, we can deliver services that add value to the lives of our customers”. 

Earlier this year, Carbon introduced an iOS app and USSD service following on from their launch in Kenya in December 2019. The firm also launched its Disrupt Fund, a $100,000 Pan-African fund to address the lack of capital for African tech startups. 

Carbon’s competition include Branch, Tala, Okash among others.

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