We exist so that a good business can prove it.
Many African businesses are creditworthy and cannot show it. The barrier is rarely the business. It is the absence of a shared, verifiable language between how businesses operate and how institutions assess credibility. LAVAN Credibility builds that language.
It is easier to say what LAVAN is once it is clear what it is not.
We are taken for three things we are not. Each matters, because each would change what a Trust Passport means.
We do not provide credit, accept deposits or manage money. Whether to finance a business is the institution’s decision, and stays that way.
A Trust Passport is not a credit rating and does not predict default. It records what a business could evidence on the day it was assessed.
A bureau holds borrowing history, and a business that has never borrowed has none. We assess what it can show today.
Credibility infrastructure.
LAVAN issues standardised Trust Passports to African businesses: assessor-verified records built from ten domains of how a business really operates, and expressed as six decision scores.
We do not lend. We do not rate. We do not predict. We verify, score and certify, with human assessors, a published method, and an audit trail behind every decision.
More was raised for African private capital in 2024. Fewer investors were active in its venture deals.
[1] AVCA, African Private Capital Activity Report 2024, April 2025.[2] AVCA, 2024 Venture Capital in Africa Report, 2025.Read at source, October 2026.
An assessment is only as good as the people who carry it out.
So who they are, and what they are held to, is part of the standard and not left to chance.
Six things you do not have to take our word for.
A credibility firm that asks to be trusted has missed the point. Each of these can be checked without us.
How a business’s information is held.
What an institution’s security and compliance teams ask about first, stated as it is.
Data security
SME data is encrypted at rest, and travels over TLS wherever it crosses the internet. The database sits on an isolated private network with no public route to it. Role-based access controls are enforced at assessment, portal, and API level.
Built to NDPA 2023
SME data is processed under explicit, recorded consent. Access, correction and erasure requests are logged with the statutory response clock running against each one.
Access and audit controls
Every role sees only what its role allows, every assessment action is written to an append-only audit trail, and every score traces to the evidence and the assessor behind it.
Open methodology
The scoring framework is published and auditable. No black-box decisions.
View methodologyWhere it has come from, and where it is meant to go.
The first three have happened. The last two are intentions, and are marked as such.
LAVAN founded in Nigeria.
Platform launched, with portals for businesses, banks and investors.
Methodology version 2.0 published. Assessor panel and verification levels introduced.
West Africa expansion.
Pan-African credibility infrastructure.
LAVAN Credibility is one of three parts of LAVAN Global, with Advisory and Investments.
This site is the product. The company, its other work and its articles are on its own site.
For businesses
Ready to build your credibility?
Begin your Trust Passport assessment: one record of how the business really operates, in a form institutions can check for themselves.
Request an assessmentFor institutions
Want to see it on your own pipeline?
Talk to us about dashboards, watchlists and the verification API, and about checking passports from your own systems.
Request an institution demoLAVAN scores are credibility signals produced from assessor-verified evidence. They are not credit ratings and do not carry predictive validity claims. Institutions use Trust Passport data alongside, not in substitution for, independent due diligence. Data processed under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023.