Cooperative societies have run this way for decades. The record-keeping shouldn’t hold them back.
rafiqHQ is software for a cooperative society to run on — the accounts, the financing, the surplus payout, the governance trail — built so an executive, an auditor and a member can all trust the same numbers.
What a cooperative society actually is
A cooperative society is a group of people who pool their savings, lend to their own members without interest, and share what the group earns at the end of the year. No outside shareholders, no profit extracted by anyone who isn’t a member — the surplus belongs to the people who contributed to it.
Nigeria has thousands of these societies, most of them decades old, and most of them still tracking every contribution, loan and dividend by hand.
The paper problem
- A spreadsheet per branch, reconciled by hand at month end
- Member dividend calculated once a year, by whoever has time
- No single, exportable audit trail if a regulator or member asks
- A financing request’s approval history living in someone’s notebook
The software layer, not the bank
rafiqHQ doesn't hold member money itself. It's the system of record a cooperative runs its accounts, financing and governance through — settlement always happens through a licensed partner.
One ledger, everyone’s view
Executives, auditors and members look at the same numbers, updated the same day a contribution or repayment lands.
Settlement through licensed partners
Member accounts and transfers are issued and settled via CBN-licensed commercial and non-interest banking partners— rafiqHQ runs the ledger on top, it doesn’t custody the money itself.
Two ways to operate
A society can issue dedicated member accounts, or keep its existing bank account and let rafiqHQ run the ledger against it. Neither is the “real” option.
Verified before it’s listed. Approved before it’s disbursed.
Every cooperative in the public directory is verified by rafiqHQ before it appears. Every financing contract follows an AAOIFI-modelled template, and every disbursement clears three separate approvals — society executive, internal auditor, and the cooperative’s own Sharia advisory board — before any money moves.
Our team and founding story
This section is being written and will publish here once it’s ready — we’d rather leave it blank than publish something we made up.
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