The informal economy every WhatsApp group already runs

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Sparkle, the digital bank licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria and founded by Uzoma Dozie, has built One Link, a new feature on…

…Behind every Nigerian wedding, burial and hospital bill is one person matching bank alerts to names long after everyone else has gone to bed. Sparkle’s One Link was built for them.

It is 11.40pm, three days before the burial, and the first son is still awake.

His phone has buzzed all evening. A credit alert, then another, then a voice note from an uncle in Enugu asking whether his own has “entered”. In the family WhatsApp group, which somebody named “Papa’s Final Journey” within an hour of the news, an aunty wants to know why her name is missing from the latest list. He is sure he added her. He scrolls back through two hundred messages to check.

On the bed beside him is an exercise book. Names down the left, amounts down the right.

Some entries are in pen, some in pencil because he was not certain, and a few are just question marks: ₦20,000 from “OKONKWO C.”, in a family with at least four Okonkwos.

If you have ever been this person, you know how the rest of the week goes. If you have not, you have almost certainly sent money to one.

Outsiders sometimes assume the notebook is about counting. Nigerians understand it as a record of loyalty. It shows who came, who sent something and how much, and families keep it long after the event. When it is your turn to bury a parent or give out a daughter in marriage, somebody will open that book. You stood by us; we will stand by you.

That is why the person keeping it cannot afford a mistake. A missing name reads as a slight, and in some families it starts a quarrel that outlives the occasion.

The same job turns up everywhere. At weddings it falls to the bride’s closest friend, who collects for aso-ebi, gele and the group gift, then spends weeks fielding complaints about colour and delivery. Alumni associations have a treasurer chasing levies for the old school. Every December, someone books the apartment for the group trip and spends January sending polite reminders.

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