EXCLUSIVE: CreditChek acquires CreditCliq to bridge cross-border credit gaps

CreditChek, an African credit assessment provider, has acquired CreditCliq, a U.S.-based underwriting company. The acquisition, fully completed with undisclosed financial terms, aims to scale creditworthiness for African immigrants across the globe.

“Financial institutions should be able to provide credit to Africans globally,” Kingsley Ibe, CreditChek CEO, told Condia. “We are simply providing the data to support credit applications for African applicants who may have migrated to another country.”

CreditChek acquires CreditCliq: what it means for immigrants

The move addresses a critical bottleneck for immigrants: the inability to transfer credit histories across borders. CreditChek’s thesis centres on the challenges African immigrants face in accessing credit in new countries due to a lack of recognised credit history. The acquisition of CreditCliq is expected to accelerate CreditChek’s expansion into international markets, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. This expansion offers African immigrants a streamlined path to renting homes, obtaining credit cards, and securing loans without establishing new credit from scratch.

CreditChek’s platform partners with African credit bureaus to enhance financial data transparency. Its core offerings include Credit Insights, which connects with African credit bureaus, and Income Insights, a tool for financial institutions to assess creditworthiness from bank statements. These tools reduce credit assessment times to under 90 seconds, significantly faster than the typical 20 minutes, with charges ranging from 50 cents to $2 per search or API call.

CreditCliq, before the acquisition, developed infrastructure to underwrite immigrants from the Philippines and Mexico for American lenders. Founded in 2022 by three founders: Angel Idusuyi, Eve Idusuyi and Eniola Osabiya.

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CreditCliq was born from our personal journey as global citizens, driven by the need to make cross-border financial access simpler and more inclusive. Today, we’re proud to pass the baton to CreditChek, a team that shares our values and brings the strength, vision, and commitment to take this mission even further. Says Angel, CEO of CreditCliq

Post acquisition, its integration provides CreditChek with a standardised credit scoring engine capable of translating foreign credit histories into North American formats, addressing compliance issues and facilitating market entry. CreditCliq’s engineering team will be retained to ensure global scalability.

“We are incredibly excited about this acquisition as it marks a strategic step forward in strengthening our infrastructure, accelerating credit decisioning across borders, and expanding access to reliable credit data for global financial institutions. We believe this move will bring us closer to our mission of making financial inclusion a reality for millions of African consumers globally,” said Lionel Orishane, CTO of CreditChek.

CreditChek, launched in 2022, has already facilitated over 300,000 verifications and supported more than $30 million in loan approvals. The company is currently raising a pre-seed extension round, building on its $240,000 raised in 2021. These funds will support plans to expand credit data access to at least 10 additional African countries, including Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Malawi. This strategic expansion aligns with projections from CreditChek investor Baobab Network, which estimates 147 million Africans will emigrate by 2050.

With a 600% revenue increase over the past 18 months, CreditChek aims for profitability by Q4 2025. The company recently secured a five-year exclusive data coverage deal with CredPal.