Category: Include Everyone

Now and then, you may have to purchase a particular product or service. Usually, most of these purchases are done with full payments. That is to say, if Item X costs TZS 200,000, the buyer will make this payment and then acquire the said item.

The other way goods and services are acquired is on credit. This is divided into two avenues – Buy Now and Pay Later or Save Now and Buy Later.

Under Buy Now and Pay Later, the buyer takes the product on credit with a clear payment plan of when s/he will clear the product fee and then completely own the purchased product or service. This model usually factors in an interest, over and above the actual cost of the product considering that the payment doesn’t come at once.

The opposite of Buy Now and Pay Later is Save Now and Buy Later. Under this model, the buyer identifies the goods or services s/he intends to purchase, agrees on the price with the seller, signs the agreement and then starts saving money towards this purchase; the money is saved with the seller. As soon as s/he saves enough to buy this item, s/he then takes his product or consumes the service.

Thanks to financial technology, both Buy Now and Pay Later and Save Now and Buy Later are fast-growing across Africa. 

In Tanzania, Tunzaa FinTech enables unbanked customers to save for purchases from a curated marketplace of trusted merchants with secure savings and payment APIs. The platform is built for everyday Africans who want to improve their financial habits with a save now and buy later model which allows users to purchase goods and services from vetted vendors who accept payments installment payments regarding of the amount.

According to Ng’winula Kingamkono, the Founder and CEO of TUNZAA FinTech, Tunzaa – ‘to save’ in English, is a digital platform that allows people to pay for products and services in instalments, in advance and as soon as they finish the payments, they get the products or have the services delivered.

“Tunzaa is available as both a web and mobile APP – accessible on Google Play and Apple Store. We are also accessible on the Vodacom MPESA APP. You simply come to our platform and pick a product of your choice, then you can pay for your product in instalments -daily, weekly or monthly. As soon as you finish the payment, you get the product,” Kingamkono said.

He added: “We aim at helping Africans understand their consumption, spending and saving habits. We then help them use their income to pay and acquire what they need. We give them the power to pay when they want and what they want until the full payment is made. We support both mobile money and bank card payments. Ours is to ensure that once the payment is complete, you get a genuine product.”

Kingamkono noted that the main challenges they faced when first rolling out this Save Now and Buy Later business model were Limited Trust among customers, Low Compliance and Lack of Enough Products to satisfy the appetite of customers. He nonetheless noted that they have since taken steps to address these challenges and thus serve more customers.

We interacted with Tunzaa FinTech on Day 22 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for Tanzania. First implemented in Uganda, 40 Days 40 FinTechs is an annual FinTech Innovation initiative presented by HiPipo to recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations who are making significant strides in promoting financial inclusivity through the use of technology.

It is aimed at promoting innovation and collaboration among FinTechs in Africa. The initiative is designed to provide FinTechs and startups with mentorship, training, exposure, and networking opportunities to help them grow and scale their businesses.

Kingamkono noted that the 40 Days 40 FinTechs gives Africans a chance to see what their fellow Africans are doing, something that further inspires them to work harder.

“Everything starts with a conversation. A platform like 40 Days 40 FinTechs gives us a chance to exchange ideas with different stakeholders. It also allows us to share our story; something that inspires other young innovators out there. We need to hear more stories that we can relate to and this is one way of doing it,” Kingamkono said.

40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Tanzania is part of HiPipo’s broader Include EveryOne Program that is generously supported by the Gates Foundation and implemented in partnership with Level One Project, ICTC Tanzania, Ideation Corner, Cyber PLC Academy, INFITX, Crosslake Technologies, NG Films, Founders Academy and Mojaloop Foundation.

The Include EveryOne program is a beacon of acceleration of FinTech Innovation, empowerment for Women in FinTech and a catalyst for investment and development in the ICT sector. Minus 40 Days 40 FinTechs, other initiatives under the Include EveryOne Program are the FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit and Incubator, Digital Impact Awards Africa and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit.

HiPipo is recognized as a premier advocate of digital Innovation and financial inclusion champion, a fervent proponent of the #LevelOneProject. HiPipo has been at the forefront, actively promoting digital innovation, Instant, Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), and DFS across Africa. With a legacy of advising, mobilizing, and facilitating the adoption of inclusive financial services, HiPipo’s efforts have been nothing short of transformative! For almost two decades, HiPipo has successfully facilitated the inclusive adoption of these crucial services.

Tanzania has a very vibrant entertainment life with several chart-topping artists, supported by millions of partygoers. As such, a week cannot pass without an entertainment event happening in Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Arusha, Moshi, Dodoma, Morogoro and Zanzibar.

While entertainment is a lucrative business in Tanzania, it has its downside; with one unique challenge affecting both event organisers and Revelers alike. That is the hustle involved in selling and buying physical, call them printed tickets.

The ticketing process; production, marketing, distribution and purchase is a time-wasting and costly venture. Particularly, physical tickets are easy to forge, spoil and lose. They also require a lot of manpower in terms of distribution and selling.

Yet all these ills can be cured with one action; replacing physical tickets with digital tickets.

In Tanzania, the Nilipe APP is leading the transition from physical to online tickets powered by smart devices and mobile payments.

According to Steven Kajamiti, the General Manager of Nilipe APP, the platform makes the life of party-goers very easy as they can purchase tickets online without having to move anywhere.

“It is very easy. You download the APP and subscribe after which you find the running events. You select your event and select the number of tickets you want. Because you have already subscribed to the platform with your mobile number, the cost of the selected tickets will show up on your mobile wallet. You will then be prompted by your mobile service provider to instant your mobile money PIN and the payment will be completed. You will then get your purchased tickets in the form of QR codes,” Kajamiti noted.

He added: “For events organizers, they pay a subscription fee and we also sign contracts with them. They can then set up their events and start selling tickets. The platform takes a commission of between 5 to 10 per cent per ticket.”

He noted that one of the key challenges faced in the digital ticketing business is the transaction charges, over and above the actual cost of the tickets.

“There is a challenge of making people understand that the networks are the ones that take the transaction fees not us; most people think that we are the ones that take the transaction fees. For example, if a ticket is 20,000 on the APP and someone has 20,000 exactly on their phone, and they try to purchase the ticket and the transaction fails, they will then come back to us thinking that we charging them more money. We have to explain to them that the transaction fees are deducted by the telecoms just like when you are sending money to another person.”

We interacted with Nilipe on Day 21 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for Tanzania. First implemented in Uganda, 40 Days 40 FinTechs is an annual FinTech Innovation initiative presented by HiPipo to recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations who are making significant strides in promoting financial inclusivity through the use of technology.

It is aimed at promoting innovation and collaboration among FinTechs in Africa. The initiative is designed to provide FinTechs and startups with mentorship, training, exposure, and networking opportunities to help them grow and scale their businesses.

“The 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative brings all stakeholders closer to discuss issues affecting the industry, in addition to telling and sharing our innovation stories widely,” Kajamiti noted.

40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Tanzania is part of HiPipo’s broader Include EveryOne Program that is generously supported by the Gates Foundation and implemented in partnership with Level One Project, ICTC Tanzania, Ideation Corner, Cyber PLC Academy, INFITX, Crosslake Technologies, NG Films, Founders Academy and Mojaloop Foundation.

The Include EveryOne program is a beacon of acceleration of FinTech Innovation, empowerment for Women in FinTech and a catalyst for investment and development in the ICT sector. Minus 40 Days 40 FinTechs, other initiatives under the Include EveryOne Program are the FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit and Incubator, Digital Impact Awards Africa and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit. HiPipo is recognized as a premier advocate of digital Innovation and financial inclusion champion, a fervent proponent of the #LevelOneProject. HiPipo has been at the forefront, actively promoting digital innovation, Instant, Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), and DFS across Africa. With a legacy of advising, mobilizing, and facilitating the adoption of inclusive financial services, HiPipo’s efforts have been nothing short of transformative! For almost two decades, HiPipo has successfully facilitated the inclusive adoption of these crucial services.

Insurance penetration in Africa is very low with South Africa rated highest, at only 12 percent. In Tanzania, Insurance penetration stood at less than 2 per cent by the end of 2021. It is the same story across East Africa; Uganda – 1 per cent, Burundi – 1 per cent, Rwanda – 2.3 per cent and Kenya – 2.4 per cent.

Several factors have been brought forward to explain the low insurance uptake. These include a lack of public confidence and trust in insurance, a lack of insuring culture by most Africans, low awareness and understanding of insurance, and limited innovation.

Even so, the past few years have seen some efforts undertaken to address these issues. Such efforts include more awareness programs, insurance product diversity, accessibility through mobile devices and quicker settlement of claims.

FinTech company, SmartX Limited is contributing to the uptake of Insurance in Tanzania through its flagship product BimaSokoni.

BimaSokoni is a digital marketplace that facilitates insurers and broker to easily promote and sell their insurance products to the public at large. It is among the first insurance aggregators in Tanzania with the goal of transforming the insurance industry into a digital space.

According to Azhar Ghartey, the CEO of SmartX Limited, BimaSokoni digitizes all insurance products and directly allows customers to buy insurance online.

“At BimaSokoni, we onboard all insurance companies, brokers, agents and banks and allow them to sell insurance online. Customers go on their mobile devices, visit our website and select the insurance product of their choice. As soon as they select their preferred product, they get a control number because our systems are integrated with the Tanzania Insurance Regulator and the Revenue Authority. As soon as the customer gets the control number, they can pay via mobile money after which they can receive the policy details right on their mobile phone,” Azhar explained.

He noted that minus running an online Insurance platform, his company is investing a lot of resources on educating and raising awareness around Insurance because low awareness contributes significantly to the low uptake of Insurance across Africa.

“We have been operational for one year with an online website. In the future, we plan to have more products and an APP. Online Insurance is a new concept of buying Insurance and thus comes with its own unique challenges. Many customers don’t trust online systems; they are very sceptical but we continue to educate and engage them.”

BimaSokoni features on Day 20 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for Tanzania. First implemented in Uganda, 40 Days 40 FinTechs is an annual FinTech Innovation initiative presented by HiPipo to recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations who are making significant strides in promoting financial inclusivity through the use of technology.

It is aimed at promoting innovation and collaboration among FinTechs in Africa. The initiative is designed to provide FinTechs and startups with mentorship, training, exposure, and networking opportunities to help them grow and scale their businesses.

“Recently we launched TAFINA – Tanzania Fintech Association; specifically, to bring the different FinTechs together and talk about the challenges facing the industry and thereafter engage the regulators and policymakers on how to address these challenges. The 40 Days 40 FinTechs is a great initiative which supports these ongoing efforts by raising awareness about what the African market is innovating in the FinTech space. The African story hasn’t been well put out thus 40 Days 40 FinTechs fills this gap by telling the African story,” Azhar explained.

40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Tanzania is part of HiPipo’s broader Include EveryOne Program that is generously supported by the Gates Foundation and implemented in partnership with Level One Project, ICTC Tanzania, Ideation Corner, Cyber PLC Academy, INFITX, Crosslake Technologies, NG Films, Founders Academy and Mojaloop Foundation.

The Include EveryOne program is a beacon of acceleration of FinTech Innovation, empowerment for Women in FinTech and a catalyst for investment and development in the ICT sector. Minus 40 Days 40 FinTechs, other initiatives under the Include EveryOne Program are the FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit and Incubator, Digital Impact Awards Africa and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit.

HiPipo is recognized as a premier advocate of digital Innovation and financial inclusion champion, a fervent proponent of the #LevelOneProject. HiPipo has been at the forefront, actively promoting digital innovation, Instant, Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), and DFS across Africa. With a legacy of advising, mobilizing, and facilitating the adoption of inclusive financial services, HiPipo’s efforts have been nothing short of transformative! For almost two decades, HiPipo has successfully facilitated the inclusive adoption of these crucial services.

All a customer needs are effective solutions that address his or her needs. Be it shopping, money transfers, entertainment or health services among others, end-users are always looking out for efficient services.

While there are several service providers, all promising effectiveness and efficiency, many fall short, leaving customers displeased. To mitigate this, innovators continue to develop smart solutions with easy-to-use front-ends and very tight, somewhat very hard-to-compromise back-ends.

In Tanzania, AzamPay and AzamPesa are easing payments for hundreds of users whilst working on expansion plans to other countries.  

AzamPesa enables consumers to pay for goods and services, Cash In/Out and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) transfers at a relatively lower rate. The AzamPesa APP is available on both iOS and Android platforms while the same service is also accessible through the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) infrastructure.

On the other hand, AzamPay is specialized in the development of end-to-end online payment management solutions for companies; offering bespoke solutions that guarantee optimal business performance and efficiency.

These two sister companies are part of the wider Bakhresa Group; an industrial conglomerate founded by Mr Said Salim Awadh Bakhresa in 1975 in Tanzania. It has since spread to several other African countries offering services in Agro Processing, Food and Beverage, Real Estate, Logistics, Broadcast and Media and FinTech among others.

“At AzamPay, we are a payment company that enables businesses to collect and disburse mobile money payments, bank payments and card payments. Mobile money is a prominent payment method and thus we are innovating around it with Push and Bill Payments,” Shadrack Kamenya, the Sales Manager for the Payment Division at AzamPay said.

He added: “What we have come to realize is that most people are currently underserved due to the nature of services provided by other operators. So AzamPesa is a mobile money platform that enables people to send and receive money plus make bill payments through their mobile phones. The main distinction of AzamPesa is that we don’t operate a telecom network; meaning that any person from any network can join and use AzamPesa. We pride ourselves in terms of the cost of services but also how innovative we are in terms of the products that someone can build on top of AzamPesa. One can join AzamPesa through physical biometric registration or through using the AzamPesa Mobile Application.”

Kamenya noted that the main challenge still hindering the wider adoption of financial technology services is traditional cash preference; with less than 15 per cent of total transactions happening digitally while the rest are still cash-based.

“Only 10 to 12 per cent of transactions are happening digitally, with the rest still cash transactions.  Most of the money is still in the cash ecosystem and this is the main challenge.”

He called for collaboration among players to address existing challenges and make Financial Inclusion a reality.

“Yes, we have competitors. But the main thing we are competing with is cash. As long as you are doing something to address the issue of cash versus digital money, then we believe that we can work together. We are working with Banks, MNOs, start-ups and other FinTechs because we believe in collaborations. More players coming in will unlock the industry more.”  

We interacted with AzamPay and AzamPesa on Day 19 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for Tanzania. First implemented in Uganda, 40 Days 40 FinTechs is an annual FinTech Innovation initiative presented by HiPipo to recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations who are making significant strides in promoting financial inclusivity through the use of technology.

It is aimed at promoting innovation and collaboration among FinTechs in Africa. The initiative is designed to provide FinTechs and startups with mentorship, training, exposure, and networking opportunities to help them grow and scale their businesses.

“We need more storytelling in terms of what is happening in this industry. The 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative is critical as it voices out what is happening in the industry. It also brings together different stakeholders to discuss key issues affecting the industry,” he noted.  

40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Tanzania is part of HiPipo’s broader Include EveryOne Program that is generously supported by the Gates Foundation and implemented in partnership with Level One Project, ICTC Tanzania, Ideation Corner, Cyber PLC Academy, INFITX, NG Films, Founders Academy and Mojaloop Foundation.

The Include EveryOne program is a beacon of acceleration of FinTech Innovation, empowerment for Women in FinTech and a catalyst for investment and development in the ICT sector. Minus 40 Days 40 FinTechs, other initiatives under the Include EveryOne Program are the FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit and Incubator, Digital Impact Awards Africa and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit.

HiPipo is recognized as a premier advocate of digital Innovation and financial inclusion champion, a fervent proponent of the #LevelOneProject. HiPipo has been at the forefront, actively promoting digital innovation, Instant, Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), and DFS across Africa. With a legacy of advising, mobilizing, and facilitating the adoption of inclusive financial services, HiPipo’s efforts have been nothing short of transformative! For almost two decades, HiPipo has successfully facilitated the inclusive adoption of these crucial services.

The World Health Organization (WHO) notes that Universal health coverage can only be achieved when there is affordable access to safe, effective and quality medicines and health products.

Countries face a range of obstacles to achieving this, including rising prices for new medicines, shortages and stockouts of essential medicines, especially for non-communicable diseases, and the growing problem of substandard and falsified medical products entering the global supply chain.

In Tanzania, Dawa Mkononi is using technology to advance universal health coverage by making pharmaceuticals readily available to pharmacies, hospitals, clinics and drug shops.

Dawa Mkononi which when translated to English means Medicine at your Palms is a Business-to-Business (B2B) pharmaceutical company focusing on innovations around the pharmaceutical supply chain.

According to Christina Mark, the Customer Service Head at Dawa Mkononi, the company’s operations mainly target pharmacies, health facilities, and other registered B2B clients. With, a data-driven approach, the company’s mission is to improve access to medicine distribution and make medicines more available and affordable.

Christina Mark noted that Dawa Mkononi provides an easy platform for medical shops to conveniently purchase medicine and medical equipment thus reducing the time and resources spent on physically looking for these products.

“We have an application available on both IOS and Google Play. When a customer downloads this application, s/he gets to access a variety of medicine and medical equipment available on our platform. After selecting the medicine, and confirming their order, the customers can then pay directly as we have embedded a FinTech-driven payment option on the APP. First-time customers usually prefer paying cash on delivery while returning customers find paying directly from the APP more convenient because it is faster, safer and doesn’t come with any additional charges,” Christina Mark explained.

She added: “The number of customers using our APP has been growing. We started with Dar es Salaam but have since scaled to Mwanza whilst targeting more locations in the future. In Dar es Salaam alone, more than 1,000 active healthcare businesses are purchasing from our APP.”

According to Christina, the main problems faced by those in the medical supplies industry are delays in accessing stock, price fluctuations and counterfeit supplies. These she notes are what Mkononi is addressing as it is faster, price stable and only deals in legitimate products.

This is day eighteen of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for Tanzania. On this day, we interacted with the Tanzania-founded e-health and FinTech platform Dawa Mkononi. First implemented in Uganda, 40 Days 40 FinTechs is an annual FinTech Innovation initiative presented by HiPipo to recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations who are making significant strides in promoting financial inclusivity through the use of technology.

It is aimed at promoting innovation and collaboration among FinTechs in Africa. The initiative is designed to provide FinTechs and startups with mentorship, training, exposure, and networking opportunities to help them grow and scale their businesses.

 “40 Days 40 FinTechs is helping start-ups like ours to learn and incorporate the latest technology in our products and services, which is key to enhancing ongoing inclusion efforts. This initiative is making us more visible to the outside world and popularizing our solutions,” Christina said.

40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Tanzania is part of HiPipo’s broader Include Everyone Program that is generously supported by the Gates Foundation and implemented in partnership with Level One Project, ICTC Tanzania, Ideation Corner, Cyber PLC Academy, INFITX, Crosslake Technologies, NG Films, Founders Academy and Mojaloop Foundation.

The Include EveryOne program is a beacon of acceleration of FinTech Innovation, empowerment for Women in FinTech and a catalyst for investment and development in the ICT sector. Minus 40 Days 40 FinTechs, other initiatives under the Include EveryOne Program are the FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit and Incubator, Digital Impact Awards Africa and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit.

HiPipo is recognized as a premier advocate of digital Innovation and financial inclusion champion, a fervent proponent of the #LevelOneProject. HiPipo has been at the forefront, actively promoting digital innovation, Instant, Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), and DFS across Africa. With a legacy of advising, mobilizing, and facilitating the adoption of inclusive financial services, HiPipo’s efforts have been nothing short of transformative! For almost two decades, HiPipo has successfully facilitated the inclusive adoption of these crucial services.

STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics have since time immemorial been at the forefront of global transformation, with most innovations rotating around it.

But, learning science, technology, engineering and mathematics is an expensive venture, requiring lots of time and resources. With this in mind, innovators are looking for smart and better ways of democratizing STEM. Many are rolling out innovations to address these challenges.

One such innovation is SmartDarasa; a digital platform with the ability to enhance normal books to make them interactive and bring content to life in the form of video, animation and 3D objects.

Founded in 2019, this platform is a next-generation learning platform helping students understand the reality and practicality of things they learn in STEM subjects.

“There is a big gap between theoretical knowledge taught in class and practical knowledge in STEM subjects which is caused by the scarcity of laboratories and insufficient laboratory tools to provide reality and practical knowledge of concepts learned in class. As a result, teachers have a hard time bridging between the theories and reality or the practicality of things they teach in class. In turn, more than 50% of students in Tanzania fail Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Geography subjects each year, and others cram than understand. This is the problem that SmartDarasa came to solve,” Elias Elisante, the Co-Founder and CEO of SmartDarasa said.

Elisante noted that to make the platform more efficient, they introduced Smart Pay; a gamified FinTech solution that enables students to purchase digital coins off the SmartDarasa platform and utilize them on the go depending on the content they want to consume.

“We are taking advantage of digital tools such as tablets and mobile phones. The STEM content is made available on these tools and with just a digital payment, teachers and students can access this content and try out as many practical lessons as possible without breaking any laboratory apparatus,” Elisante noted.

The SmartDarasa team interacted with HiPipo on the seventeenth day of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for Tanzania. First implemented in Uganda, 40 Days 40 FinTechs is an annual FinTech Innovation initiative presented by HiPipo to recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations who are making significant strides in promoting financial inclusivity through the use of technology.

It is aimed at promoting innovation and collaboration among FinTechs in Africa. The initiative is designed to provide FinTechs and startups with mentorship, training, exposure, and networking opportunities to help them grow and scale their businesses.

Elisante noted that the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative is a timely intervention as it will not only attract more investors but also encourage innovators to ideate and roll out more financial inclusion solutions.

“40 Days 40 FinTechs is like a tool that seeks to understand the innovations we are implementing and the problems we are facing in rolling out these innovations. The initiative is also an advocate platform that collects our challenges and shares them with policymakers. This helps in making the ecosystem better for innovators to operate and thrive,” Elisante said.

40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Tanzania is part of HiPipo’s broader Include EveryOne Program that is generously supported by the Gates Foundation and implemented in partnership with Level One Project, ICTC Tanzania, Ideation Corner, Cyber PLC Academy, INFITX, Crosslake Technologies, NG Films, Founders Academy and Mojaloop Foundation.

The Include EveryOne program is a beacon of acceleration of FinTech Innovation, empowerment for Women in FinTech and a catalyst for investment and development in the ICT sector. Minus 40 Days 40 FinTechs, other initiatives under the Include EveryOne Program are the FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit and Incubator, Digital Impact Awards Africa and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit.

HiPipo is recognized as a premier advocate of digital Innovation and financial inclusion champion, a fervent proponent of the #LevelOneProject. HiPipo has been at the forefront, actively promoting digital innovation, Instant, Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), and DFS across Africa. With a legacy of advising, mobilizing, and facilitating the adoption of inclusive financial services, HiPipo’s efforts have been nothing short of transformative! For almost two decades, HiPipo has successfully facilitated the inclusive adoption of these crucial services.

Imagine you are in the middle of cooking your favorite meal and all of a sudden, everything stops due to an empty gas cylinder. To those who cook frequently, these are things that can happen now and then.

Now imagine that as soon as you find out that your gas cylinder is almost getting empty, you can through your mobile phone place a refill or replacement order and have it delivered to your kitchen doorstep.

Both these imaginations are legit; one is a problem and the other is what technology does to fix such problems.

In Dar es Salaam, GasFasta is spearheading the clean cooking revolution, aided by technology. Gas Fasta simplifies the process of ordering cooking gas from the nearest verified vendors and gives a free yet reliable delivery service to all corners of Dar es Salaam. Its catalogue features all brands of LPG gas available in Tanzania such as Oryx Gas, Taifa Gas, Mihan Gas, O Gas, Cam Gas, Alpha Gas, and Manjis Gas among others.

According to Mohamed Alberti, the Founder and CEO of GasFasta, the users of his company’s services simply download the GasFasta APP, register, add their location details, place orders, pay and enjoy free deliveries.

“We are solving the problem of accessibility, affordability and delivery to cooking gas end-users. We have an Application available on IOS and Android, and a WhatsApp chatboard. We also have a network of vendors across Dar es Salaam. We provide free delivery to end users hence making gas affordable,” Mohamed Alberti said.

He added: “We have several modes of payment. You can pay cash on delivery, or pay through the APP with mobile money or your bank account. These digital payments are supported by payment aggregators licensed by the Central Bank of Tanzania.”

Alberti noted that the uptake of GasFasta services across Dar es Salaam has been impressive and thus encouraged them to start working on an expansion strategy that will see them serve other parts of Tanzania such as Mwanza, Arusha, Moshi, Dodoma, Morogoro and Zanzibar.  

Nonetheless, he noted that consumer behaviour is among the main challenges they face as most customers still prefer the traditional manual way of ordering gas and thus need time to adjust to the technological way of placing these orders.

We interacted with GasFasta on the sixteenth day of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for Tanzania. First implemented in Uganda, 40 Days 40 FinTechs is an annual FinTech Innovation initiative presented by HiPipo to recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations who are making significant strides in promoting financial inclusivity through the use of technology.

It is aimed at promoting innovation and collaboration among FinTechs in Africa. The initiative is designed to provide FinTechs and startups with mentorship, training, exposure, and networking opportunities to help them grow and scale their businesses.

Alberti noted that the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative is a timely intervention as it will not only attract more investors but also encourage innovators to ideate and roll out more financial inclusion solutions.

“We know that a lot of investors will come to Tanzania after watching these episodes. It will also encourage a lot of innovators to come up and showcase their products. More FinTechs will come out and approach 40 Days 40 FinTechs to showcase what they have and seek ways of how they can scale across Africa,” Alberti said.

40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Tanzania is part of HiPipo’s broader Include EveryOne Program that is generously supported by the Gates Foundation and implemented in partnership with Level One Project, ICTC Tanzania, Ideation Corner, Cyber PLC Academy, INFITX, Crosslake Technologies, NG Films, Founders Academy and Mojaloop Foundation.

The Include EveryOne program is a beacon of acceleration of FinTech Innovation, empowerment for Women in FinTech and a catalyst for investment and development in the ICT sector. Minus 40 Days 40 FinTechs, other initiatives under the Include EveryOne Program are the FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit and Incubator, Digital Impact Awards Africa and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit.

HiPipo is recognized as a premier advocate of digital Innovation and financial inclusion champion, a fervent proponent of the #LevelOneProject. HiPipo has been at the forefront, actively promoting digital innovation, Instant, Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), and DFS across Africa. With a legacy of advising, mobilizing, and facilitating the adoption of inclusive financial services, HiPipo’s efforts have been nothing short of transformative! For almost two decades, HiPipo has successfully facilitated the inclusive adoption of these crucial services.

At the start of every school term, there are always long queues of students and parents in financial institutions; some withdrawing money and others depositing the same as school fees. This is a time-consuming and risky exercise dreaded by most stakeholders.

But financial technology is reducing most of this hustle with innovators developing and launching different school fees payment and collection platforms available on mobile phones through APPs and USSD.

In Tanzania, one such solution is PayFee; a digital payments collection platform. PayFee facilitates associations and schools to collect their monthly, quarterly and yearly fees from their members through a digitized system. It allows multiple collection channels such as mobile money, bank transfers and bank deposits.

“For school fees payments, we first onboard a school as the organization that has students as its members. We know that you have to pay school fees quarterly or semiannually or annually. With this, we create a unique identifier for every student which is then linked to their parent or guardian who will be the one to pay the school fees. This unique identifier created for every student is also used as the permanent reference number as parents make the school fees payment,” Rahim Hamza Shoo, the Chief of Products and Business Development at PayFee explained.

He added: “We currently work with three banks to facilitate members contributions and payments. The school chooses to work with one of our partner banks or suggests the bank they are working with so that we can do the necessary integrations that will allow for these digital transactions to be captured into the school’s PayFee account.”

Rahim Hamza noted that high transaction costs remain the biggest obstacles to financial inclusion as they undermine most of the benefits that come with digital financial services. He nonetheless noted that in Tanzania, there are ongoing discussions between the Central Bank and FinTech stakeholders on how to further reduce the transaction charges and make financial inclusion a truly attainable goal.

We interacted with PayFee on Day 15 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for Tanzania. First implemented in Uganda, 40 Days 40 FinTechs is an annual FinTech Innovation initiative presented by HiPipo to recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations who are making significant strides in promoting financial inclusivity through the use of technology.

It is aimed at promoting innovation and collaboration among FinTechs in Africa. The initiative is designed to provide FinTechs and startups with mentorship, training, exposure, and networking opportunities to help them grow and scale their businesses.

“Having seen what the 40 Days 40 FinTechs platform has done for one start-up that I know here in Tanzania, I can say that this initiative is enormous. With this platform, there is a huge possibility for stakeholders in the space to see what we are doing and what opportunities are there for them to work with us. 40 Days 40 FinTechs gives us a chance to interact with potential investors, partners and customers,” Rajim Hamza noted.

40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Tanzania is part of HiPipo’s broader Include EveryOne Program that is generously supported by the Gates Foundation and implemented in partnership with Level One Project, ICTC Tanzania, Ideation Corner, Cyber PLC Academy, INFITX, NG Films, Founders Academy and Mojaloop Foundation.

The Include EveryOne program is a beacon of acceleration of FinTech Innovation, empowerment for Women in FinTech and a catalyst for investment and development in the ICT sector. Minus 40 Days 40 FinTechs, other initiatives under the Include EveryOne Program are the FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit and Incubator, Digital Impact Awards Africa and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit. HiPipo is recognized as a premier advocate of digital Innovation and financial inclusion champion, a fervent proponent of the #LevelOneProject. HiPipo has been at the forefront, actively promoting digital innovation, Instant, Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), and DFS across Africa. With a legacy of advising, mobilizing, and facilitating the adoption of inclusive financial services, HiPipo’s efforts have been nothing short of transformative! For almost two decades, HiPipo has successfully facilitated the inclusive adoption of these crucial services.

Weddings in Africa are major social events. Families and friends plan for months on how to give a befitting ceremony to those intending to wed and the hundreds of guests that will bear them witness. These elaborate plans involve lots of funds; a fact that makes wedding contributions and pledges a key element of these events.

Since time immemorially, wedding contributions have been done physically and managed by the event finance team. But like in other activities, cash is prone to misuse. On many occasions, those in charge could divert part of the collected monies to other causes.

Nonetheless, technology is now being used to address these shortcomings. In Tanzania, a team of forward-thinking entrepreneurs have since developed M-Kadi; a digital platform that manages events’ invitations, pledges and contributions.

According to its developers, “M-Kadi is a platform, which brings solutions to challenges facing events organizers such social, corporate and government in terms of communication, distribution and sharing of information. The platform also facilitates and manages pledges, which at times involve contributing on an instalment basis.”

“We provide two main services. One is an invitation cards service; M-Kadi through mobile phones. On smartphones, invitation cards are delivered with a QR code. For feature phones, the invitation cards are delivered as a short message with a password. The second service is m-pledges where you can collect funds and financial support from your friends, relatives and the general public to support your events and projects,” Maarufu Muyaga, the Founder and CEO of M-Kadi Technologies Limited explained.

He added: “While on our platform, you register your event and a unique link is created. You can then share this link with your target audience who then will get the details of the event and start contributing. On the platform, you can pledge and then contribute in instalments through mobile money or bank cards. These contributions go directly to the person that set up the event/public cause with the platform on retaining a very minimal commission.”

Maarufu notes that the biggest challenges to African start-ups are unfair regulations and very high licensing fees which make it impossible to compete favourably with already established players. Even so, he notes that the Tanzanian government has tried to address these obstacles thus giving start-ups like M-Kadi a chance to thrive.

M-Kadi interacted with HiPipo on Day 14 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for Tanzania. First implemented in Uganda, 40 Days 40 FinTechs is an annual FinTech Innovation initiative presented by HiPipo to recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations who are making significant strides in promoting financial inclusivity through the use of technology.

It is aimed at promoting innovation and collaboration among FinTechs in Africa. The initiative is designed to provide FinTechs and startups with mentorship, training, exposure, and networking opportunities to help them grow and scale their businesses.

Maarufu noted that the 40 Days 40 FinTechs platform is transformative as it gives start-ups a chance to scale up and serve more people.

“40 Days 40 FinTechs is playing a great role. It gives us a chance to be visible to so many people; customers, policy makers and potential investors. Last year we received so many calls from people who watched our story from this initiative. It helps start-ups a lot,” Maarufu said.

40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Tanzania is part of HiPipo’s broader Include EveryOne Program that is generously supported by the Gates Foundation and implemented in partnership with Level One Project, ICTC Tanzania, Ideation Corner, Cyber PLC Academy, INFITX, NG Films, Founders Academy and Mojaloop Foundation.

The Include EveryOne program is a beacon of acceleration of FinTech Innovation, empowerment for Women in FinTech and a catalyst for investment and development in the ICT sector. Minus 40 Days 40 FinTechs, other initiatives under the Include EveryOne Program are the FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit and Incubator, Digital Impact Awards Africa and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit. HiPipo is recognized as a premier advocate of digital Innovation and financial inclusion champion, a fervent proponent of the #LevelOneProject. HiPipo has been at the forefront, actively promoting digital innovation, Instant, Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), and DFS across Africa. With a legacy of advising, mobilizing, and facilitating the adoption of inclusive financial services, HiPipo’s efforts have been nothing short of transformative! For almost two decades, HiPipo has successfully facilitated the inclusive adoption of these crucial services.