VeendHQ says its AI-powered credit platform, Vida AI, helped recover ₦69 million from a ₦172.5 million portfolio of loans that were more than 90 days overdue, in a pilot that highlights the growing role of technology in loan recovery and portfolio management.

The result comes at a time when lenders are under increasing pressure to improve recovery outcomes while managing the cost, reputational risk, and operational burden associated with overdue loans. For many credit providers, the challenge is no longer only how quickly loans can be approved, but how effectively repayment can be monitored and delinquent loans can be recovered after disbursement.

According to VeendHQ, the pilot delivered a 40 percent recovery rate on the overdue loan portfolio. The company said the result significantly outperformed traditional recovery benchmarks, where a five percent recovery rate on a similar loan book would amount to about ₦8.6 million.

VeendHQ said the pilot demonstrates how Vida AI can support lenders beyond credit assessment, extending into repayment monitoring, collections, and recovery.

“Credit access is only one side of lending. The bigger challenge for many lenders is what happens after disbursement,” said Olufemi Olanipekun, Co-founder and CEO of VeendHQ. “Vida AI helps lenders make smarter decisions across the credit lifecycle, from approval to repayment and recovery.”

VeendHQ, a Nigerian fintech company building digital credit infrastructure, developed Vida AI as an artificial intelligence-powered platform for lenders, merchants, and financial institutions. The platform supports credit assessment, identity verification, repayment collections, and loan management workflows.

With the recovery pilot, the company is positioning Vida AI beyond loan origination, as a tool for lenders seeking to improve repayment performance and manage overdue portfolios more efficiently.

Delinquent loans remain a major cash-flow challenge for lenders. Once loans exceed 60 to 90 days past due, recovery becomes more difficult, expensive, and unpredictable. Traditional approaches such as manual calls, recovery agents, and legal escalation often increase costs without significantly improving recovery rates.

VeendHQ said Vida AI’s recovery workflow enables lenders to upload overdue loan records, verify borrower information, assess repayment capacity, and trigger automated recovery actions. This gives lenders better visibility after disbursement and allows recovery teams to prioritize overdue portfolios more effectively.

“If lenders cannot recover efficiently, they become more conservative with lending. That affects consumers, small businesses, and the wider credit market,” Olanipekun said. “Better recovery infrastructure gives lenders more confidence to lend, manage risk, and keep credit flowing.”

The company said the recovery use case is especially relevant for banks, microfinance institutions, digital lenders, cooperatives, and merchants managing loans that are 60 to 180 days past due. It added that it plans to deepen Vida AI’s recovery capabilities for credit providers seeking to improve recovery performance without relying solely on manual methods.

“As lending expands across Nigeria and Africa, recovery infrastructure is becoming as critical as origination,” Olanipekun said. “Tools that improve both will define which lenders can scale sustainably.”

The pilot, VeendHQ says, points to a broader shift in the credit market: approval speed alone is no longer enough. Increasingly, lenders will be defined by how effectively they monitor repayment, recover overdue loans, and manage portfolio risk over time.

The post Veendhq’S Ai Platform Recoups ₦69 Million From Overdue Loans appeared first on Investadvocate.

Companies combine oversight and payroll platforms to stop criminals from stealing millions

May 19, 2026/Deel Local Payroll

South Africa’s government has put payroll fraud in its crosshairs. In its latest Budget Review document, the National Treasury prioritises digital payroll systems for state entities, combatting what some outlets have reported as over R4 billion in annual losses through fraudulent payroll payments.

This problem is not limited to the public sector. The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals estimates that South African businesses lose around R100 million annually through payroll fraud. Many of the cases involve manual and paper-based payroll systems that are easy to manipulate.

The adoption of digital payroll platforms can reduce and catch fraud before it becomes a serious issue. However, going digital is not enough, says Yolande Schoültz, founder of YSchoültz Attorneys and one of SA’s foremost payroll fraud experts.

“There is no doubt that digital systems are better than paper-based payroll management. But a digital system only makes it much easier to track down and stop fraud. The organisation must still put the right measures in place, such as approval policies and oversight checks.”

Payroll fraud red flags

Perpetrators of payroll fraud commit their crimes in several ways. A lone individual might skim money unnoticed by creating ghost employees or redirecting payments. They might collude with former employees, leaving the latter’s details on the system and splitting their salary payments.

Whatever the method, the most common aspect of payroll fraud is an administrator operating under little or no oversight, says Schoültz.

“There should be a chain of custody, such as someone signing off on salary calculations and doing spot checks to ensure everything is legitimate. But it’s amazing how often, even at large companies, the payroll administrator is working on their own and is the only one with proper access to the payroll system.”

Payroll fraud has several red flags, including:

• Unapproved bank accounts or changes to banking details.
• Changes to employee, account, or reporting information right before or after a payroll run.
• Excessive overtime, since payroll fraudsters often put in disproportionate hours to maintain control.
• Strange login and backup hours, another attempt to maintain control and avoid scrutiny.
• No system locks during payroll runs that would avoid manipulation of records and calculations.
• Manually feeding calculations into other systems.
• Frequent payment errors.
• Payroll software isolated to one device that only the payroll administrator can access.

Individually, some of these warnings can be innocuous. They can be signs of an overworked administrator or lacking workplace strategies. But the presence of several is reason to be concerned, and some (such as changed banking details) are immediate cause for alarm.

Preventing payroll fraud with technology

Modern payroll platforms help organisations reduce fraud, but only when used correctly and alongside other safeguards.

“There is no magical app that just changes how you operate,” says Sandra Crous, managing director of payroll provider Deel Local Payroll. “A nutrition app won’t automatically get you to eat less, and a fitness app won’t suddenly get you to exercise more. You still have to make changes and use the app to reinforce your new behaviours. A payroll platform gives a business the tools to oversee and manage payroll through different layers, but the business must use those tools in accordance with its policies.”

Spot checks can quickly reveal issues that require more scrutiny. Payroll platforms support fraud detection and financial diligence in several ways:

• System and bank account changes: The platform provides reports and audit trails, and generates custom reports for authorised employees.
• Isolated access: Modern payroll platforms operate as cloud software, accessible to multiple authorised users and devices.
• Single users: Secure accounts that give different people, such as auditors, finance directors, and HR heads, access to dashboards and reports.
• Manual data entry: Payroll platforms integrate with other systems of record, sharing payroll data automatically and leaving no room for interference.
• Obscure payroll information: Employee self-service (ESS) features enable employees to access payslips and other information directly, helping them spot irregularities.

An organisation must create oversight through clear policies, spot checks, and leadership oversight. The right payroll platform can even help people with limited payroll knowledge uncover strange behaviours.

“You won’t spot payroll fraud if you keep looking for big changes and payments,” says Schoültz. “Most payroll fraudsters siphon money over a long time and across multiple bank accounts, making it harder to detect. That’s much easier with paper-based systems, spreadsheets, and older payroll software. But if you can access regular reports and integrate payroll data with other systems, it becomes much harder for people to commit fraud, and much easier for you to catch them if they do.”

The post Oversight Matters: Spotting Payroll Fraud in a Digital World appeared first on Investadvocate.

Image Credit: Mastercard

May 19, 2026/Mastercard

By Vicki Hyman Director, Global Communications, Mastercard

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