How SKF collects payments from its distributors across Nigeria with Yala

SKF is one of the world's leading manufacturers of bearings and industrial components, with customers and distributor networks around the world.

Bearings are small but essential components. They reduce friction between moving parts and can be found inside everything from electric motors and pumps to factory machinery, vehicles and agricultural equipment.

Across Nigeria, SKF's authorised distributors make these products available to businesses that depend on machinery and equipment every day. When a component needs replacing, getting the right bearing can be the difference between keeping equipment running and leaving a machine sitting idle.

That makes local distributors an important part of how SKF's products reach customers across Nigeria.

SKF introduced its authorised distributors in Nigeria to Yala to support local payment collection.

Distributors can make their payments through Yala in Nigerian naira. Yala collects the funds locally and settles SKF according to the agreed arrangement.

It's a simple part of a much larger trade relationship: distributors can pay locally, SKF gets paid according to its payment terms, and Yala supports the movement of those payments between the Nigerian market and SKF.

SKF distributors can also access Trade Finance through Yala to finance their purchases from SKF.

When a distributor receives an invoice from SKF and needs additional financing to complete the purchase, they can use their available Yala credit towards the invoice.

This gives distributors another way to pay for the products they need, without requiring SKF to extend additional credit itself. SKF gets paid according to its payment terms, while the distributor gets more time to pay Yala.

Our work with SKF in Nigeria shows how Yala can support manufacturers and their distributors with two important parts of their trade relationship: collecting payments locally and financing distributor purchases.

As SKF continues to grow across Africa, there is an opportunity to extend the same model into other markets, particularly across Francophone West Africa.

A distributor in Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal or Benin should be able to pay locally and access Trade Finance just as a distributor in Nigeria can, without the manufacturer having to create a completely different payment and financing process for every market.

That's part of what we're building with the Yala Trade Desk: one place for manufacturers to work with their distributor networks as they grow across African markets.