Bloomberg named South African fintech Omnisient to its African Startups to Watch in 2026 list, recognizing the company's work helping banks and insurers assess people excluded from affordable financial services due to lack of traditional credit histories. The recognition highlights Omnisient's approach to using alternative consumer behavior data, such as grocery shopping patterns, to evaluate creditworthiness. Financial exclusion remains a widespread challenge across Africa, where millions of people earn and spend responsibly but remain invisible to traditional credit scoring models that rely on formal credit histories.
Technology and Methodology
Omnisient's platform enables financial institutions to access alternative consumer behavior data from retailers, telecommunications companies, and other businesses without requiring raw customer data sharing. Organizations collaborate in a secure, privacy-preserving environment where anonymized data is analyzed using built-in analytics, artificial intelligence, and predictive modeling tools. The platform converts everyday behavioral signals, including grocery shopping patterns, into insights lenders can use when traditional credit bureau data is insufficient.
South Africa Pilot Results
In South Africa, Omnisient's platform was used by leading banks and a major grocery retailer to test whether shopping behavior can help predict credit risk. The pilot assessed more than 8 million previously unscorable consumers, with 3.2 million people qualifying for credit who would have been declined due to lack of credit history. Models built using shopping behavior improved the ability to predict loan repayment by 41%. One participating bank projected a 29% increase in credit revenue from the improved assessment methodology.
"What Bloomberg's recognition captures is the real-world potential of alternative data when it is used safely," said Jon Jacobson, CEO and co-founder of Omnisient. "A grocery basket can tell you something meaningful about a person's financial behaviour. The challenge is enabling banks to use that insight without compromising consumer privacy or asking retailers to share raw customer data."
Company Background and Recognition
Omnisient was founded in South Africa in 2019 by Jon Jacobson and Anton Grutzmacher and now operates internationally. The company was one of 25 companies selected for Bloomberg's 2026 African Startups to Watch list. South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya jointly led the list with four companies each. The South African companies named were Omnisient, Amesect, AURA, and Jem.
The company has been selected by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer, named Fast Company's Next Big Things in Tech winner for Social Good, selected for TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200, and recognized by the Financial Times as one of Africa's fastest-growing companies.
Funding and Expansion
Omnisient is backed by global consumer credit reporting agency TransUnion, investment firm Arise, and Shoprite Holdings, Africa's largest supermarket chain. In 2025, Omnisient announced a $12.5 million Series A funding round to support its international expansion, including into the United States, where lenders are seeking privacy-safe methods to assess thin-file and credit-invisible consumers.
"Financial inclusion is not only an African challenge," said Jacobson. "In every market, there are people who are excluded because the data used to assess them is incomplete. Better data can change that, but only if it is used in a way that protects privacy, preserves trust and keeps organisations in control of their customer data."
Jacobson said Bloomberg's recognition reflects a broader shift in African technology. "Africa has had to build for inclusion from the start," he said. "That is producing technology that is practical, resilient and globally relevant. We believe privacy-preserving data collaboration will become critical infrastructure for financial services and AI, because it allows organisations to use better data without exposing the people behind it."
