Babatunde Esanju built the technological backbone of QOOP's cooperative finance platform. His work transformed how more than 20,000 members access savings, loans, and digital payments.
Esanju joined QOOP as lead software engineer in July 2021. The fintech was expanding its digital cooperative services at the time.
He spent nearly three years developing interconnected systems. These systems unified savings accounts, lending products, digital wallets, and merchant payments into one integrated ecosystem.
In April 2023, QOOP promoted him to Chief Technology Officer. He held the role until April 2024, overseeing all technology strategy and engineering direction.
CEO Dele Odufuye explained why QOOP needed more than just software patches. The company required a unified technology platform that could blend multiple financial services while preserving cooperative governance.
"When Babatunde arrived, the challenge went beyond adding features," Odufuye told reporters. "We needed to connect contributions, lending, wallet activity and merchant transactions in ways cooperative administrators could control and members could understand."
A major achievement was launching a distributed Buy Now, Pay Later platform. It linked QOOP's QPAY Loan service with QOOP Mall into one seamless offering.
The engineering team deployed the system using Kubernetes technology. They integrated machine learning models based on TensorFlow to strengthen fraud detection and credit-risk assessment.
Esanju stressed that technology choices followed business logic. "We chose it because the platform had to process connected lending and commerce workflows without losing traceability," he explained in an interview.
Kubernetes provided scalable infrastructure for handling growing demand. Risk models enabled smarter credit decisions beyond simple manual review.
QOOP's results speak for themselves across multiple metrics. Revenue climbed 30 per cent over two years under Esanju's technical leadership.
Loan approval accuracy jumped 40 per cent during the same period. Default rates fell 25 per cent compared with the previous lending process.
Odufuye credited stronger service integration and improved credit assessment tools. Better technology meant better business outcomes for cooperative members.
Beyond lending, Esanju led development of a financial-aid disbursement portal. It digitised application processing, eligibility checks, and payment tracking for 4,000 cooperative members.
Manual processes that once took weeks now happened in days. Record-keeping improved dramatically while accountability increased across the board.
Esanju reflected on what the disbursement project taught him. Reliability matters most in financial technology systems serving cooperative communities.
"We had to process thousands of applications while maintaining traceability of every eligibility decision and payment," he noted. Trust depends on getting the details right consistently.
