Rank wants to pool Nigeria’s savings into a wealth engine

Saving money in Nigeria has become easier, but turning those savings into wealth remains harder. Rank, a Nigerian integrated financial services and wealth management platform, wants to close that gap by pooling people’s savings so they can access investments and financial services that may be out of reach individually.

Its model is simple: combine small savings into larger pools of capital that can invest in assets and opportunities typically available to wealthier investors. The pitch comes as formal saving grows in Nigeria, with 38% of adults—69% of those with a transactional account—saving formally, according to Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access (EFInA)’s 2023 survey. 

Rank sees saving as only the first step. By pooling its users’ money, it creates larger pools of capital that can access investments that may be out of reach for individuals. The company does this through financial communities that pool contributions, create scale, and give members access to investments, credit, and other financial services.

“Rank is a wealth management company, and what we are trying to do is change what wealth management is for young people,” Femi Iromini, CEO and co-founder, told TechCabal in an interview.

“The intention of saving is meant to lead to financial freedom one day or wealth creation. And after 10 years, what we are seeing is more like a savings fatigue where people have saved for years, but then the path to wealth creation is still blocked.”

The problem with saving alone

Investment is, in part, a volume game. The more capital an investor controls, the more opportunities, pricing power, and negotiating leverage they can potentially access.

“We have worked with high-net-worth individuals (HNIs) and seen a couple of things that actually give them the leverage to create wealth. The first is volume; the second is access to information; and the third is leverage. Now the three of them are connected because volume is where you have the leverage,” Iromini said.

Iromini defines HNIs as those with at least ₦100 million ($75,199.28) to invest. Most young Nigerians cannot put that much money aside, as they are trying to build savings from limited incomes already being squeezed by rising living costs. According to PiggyVest’s 2025 savings report, only one in 20 Nigerians earns more than ₦1 million ($751.99) monthly. 

A young Nigerian earning ₦1 million ($751.99) monthly and saving half their income—₦500,000 ($375.99)—would need 16 years and eight months to save ₦100 million ($75,199.28), assuming no returns on their savings. 

“What you see with a lot of young people is that we were just saving, and you are going to be shocked by the disparity when it comes to access to wealth generally,” Iromini said.

Rank’s answer is to create that volume collectively. Nigeria has a long history of people pooling money through ajo, esusu, adashi, and other rotating savings structures. 

The Securities and Exchange Commission recognises collective investment schemes as structures in which two or more investors pool money or other assets into a portfolio and share the risks and benefits. Unit trusts, for example, allow small sums from individual investors to be pooled and professionally invested in securities.

“Being able to pull resources together,” Iromini said, allows people to “create a volume that is not possible with them doing it alone.”

This is different from the savings-led model that defined much of Nigeria’s fintech boom. Rank’s experience with HNIs showed the company that wealth-building depends on volume, information, and leverage, and it wants to apply those lessons by turning savings into assets that can compound.

From ajo to an investment rail

Ajo is an old financial management method built around an agreement in which individuals of common interest deposit a certain amount of money on an agreed basis, with the money later redistributed according to a pre-agreed structure.

Many fintechs have tried to digitise the Ajo model. AjoMoney, which Rank acquired, provided digital infrastructure for savings groups, allowing members to organise contributions, schedules, payouts, and records. PiggyVest has a group target savings product that lets users save collaboratively towards a shared goal.

Rank said its model goes beyond pooling savings, adding underwriting, investment opportunities, custody, and treasury management. It currently has three products built around this model.

Tribe is designed for people who already know one another and want to pool money towards a common goal. The pooled capital can be used for investments or assets that require a larger minimum ticket, including private stock transactions and land.

“We have tribes as a product. People put resources together as a tribe, where people can actually put their money together and be able to use it for something,” Iromini said.

Some groups have used the product to buy land, while others have pooled money to purchase cars for fleet operations, he said.

In one case, a group pooled ₦120 million ($90,239.13) and subsequently moved into wealth management, gaining access to asset classes including equities, bonds, and treasury instruments. Iromini said the portfolio is now worth about ₦2 billion ($1.50 million).

That example is central to Rank’s thesis: scale can change what an individual saver can access. Rank can also participate in some of these opportunities through its own treasury.

“There are times when we say, okay, we want to be part of it. We have a treasury as a business, and we want to benefit from it,” Iromini said.

Money Circles, another Rank product, is closer to the traditional ajo, esusu, or Rotational Savings and Credit Association (ROSCA). Users join a circle and commit to monthly contributions. When their slot arrives, they receive an agreed lump sum and continue making their regular contributions. Rank charges a service fee based on the user’s position in the circle rather than interest.

The cost varies depending on how early a user wants access to the pooled money. Rank says fees can reach 14% per annum for earlier slots; middle slots have no service fee, while later slots receive a bonus.

“For the later slots, we don’t even charge any service fee. And when you look at both of these, they balance out,” Iromini said.

Groups can have five, 10, or 15 members. Unlike informal savings groups, Rank underwrites participants based on income and transaction history, and said the product has recorded zero defaults. Its third product, Perks, takes the model into the workplace, giving employees access to salary-backed credit and savings circles, with repayments and contributions deducted automatically from payroll.

“We sign up a company, all the staff. We do a financial wellness assessment across the company; we get an index for that, and based on that, we can recommend products for them to be able to move through their journey,” Iromini said.

The company said the product also lets employees from different companies and similar income levels join the same circle. It protects participants’ identities from one another, while Rank guarantees a payout for each member.

The company said these businesses can also access dedicated wealth or investment managers. Rank’s initial market is formal salaried workers, with the average user aged 23 and contributing about ₦50,000 ($37.59) monthly.

The business underneath the pooling

The pooling model also gives Rank access to capital held on its platform before deployment. It acts as custodian of these funds and allocates them to low-risk, government-backed instruments while they wait, allowing Rank to generate treasury income alongside its service fees.

“Primarily, we are a wealth management company. We are regulated, and being regulated in the sense means that, being a custodian of every capital, we have that fiduciary duty to make sure that we are responsible with it,” Iromini said.

“For that period, we can do that while focusing heavily on low-risk, government-backed instruments, and that is some form of treasury management for us.”

For its circles,  Rank says service fees from earlier slots, combined with yield earned while funds are held, help it manage default risk while generating revenue. 

“For the later slots, we don’t even charge any service fee. And when you look at both of these, they balance out such that with the service fee,” he said. “For the period where the fund is, where they are in the circle, we are more like a custodian for the money. And based on our treasury experience, we can get yield that actually helps to de-risk defaults and also helps us to generate revenue as a platform as well.”  

The bigger ambition is wealth management

Launched in 2021 as Moni, Rank started by providing group financing to small businesses, using social trust within existing communities while building a high-yield (23%) savings platform. It rebranded as Rank in November 2025 and acquired AjoMoney, a group savings platform, and Zazzau Microfinance Bank, now Rank Microfinance Bank. 

The company told TechCabal at the time that it ran a pilot savings feature that reached 10,000 business owners and individuals across traders’ associations, market unions, and neighbourhood cooperatives.

Rank said participants pooled a minimum of ₦150,000 ($112.79) each, with the funds invested in government-backed securities like treasury bills and money markets, yielding returns of up to 23%. It delivered ₦16 billion ($12.03 million) in total payouts.

The newer community wealth-building product is about a year old. Rank says it has facilitated more than $100 million in community fundraising and payouts and expects that figure to more than double by the end of 2026. Iromini said customer retention has averaged 95% to 98%.

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