Category: Include Everyone

ValueFin is supporting micro, small and medium sized businesses in Zambia to scale and reach higher heights through connecting them to ready markets, and providing patient credit.

This according to Mukuka Bwalya, a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of ValueFin Limited is part of their commitment to promote entrepreneurship and provide solutions to the social and economic challenges faced by communities at the bottom of the pyramid.

“At ValueFin, we work with low income entrepreneurs and provide three specific services. These are access to finance, market linkages and business formalization services,” Mukuka Bwalya, a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of ValueFin Limited said.

She added: “From a financial inclusion perspective, we use a web-based loan management system that allows us to gather specific customer data points especially in the informal sector where there is no real record system. The system we have in place allows to leverage AI analytics to make credit decisions about what our customers need but also mitigate risk by following the patterns and behaviors of our customers.”

Mukuka noted that the ValueFin loan management system in flexible and accessible on an entry level smart phone thus making it easy for field agents to capture data required in ‘our day to day credit decision making’.

“We strongly believe that there should be a balance between touch and tech and thus ensure that in every market we work in, we have a physical presence so that from a trust perspective our customers can reach us to assist them whenever there is any challenge.”

She noted that ValueFin onboards 80 per cent women, serves about 500 women every month in 13 market locations and disburses average loans sizes of about 1500 Kwacha per person.

Even with this encouraging growth, Mukuka noted that low digital literacy, and low smart devices penetration are delaying last mile financial inclusion.

“We are looking for opportunities for collaboration because we believe that with collaboration, you can achieve anything. We are also improving our system to create more impact. Beyond that, we have also noticed that our customers have a lot challenges around micro insurance when tragedy befalls them. We are looking for ways of partnering with strategic partners and providing a holistic service that captures services like micro insurance to our customers.”

ValueFin was featured on Day 25 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative; Zambia and Malawi edition. The roll-out of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative in Zambia and Malawi followed its success in East Africa. Over the past 5 years, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has featured over 200 FinTech stories from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. This initiative has also engaged hundreds of end-users and shared their stories with millions worldwide.

The primary objective of this initiative is to support and showcase innovative FinTech giants and start-ups from across Africa, with a focus on promoting financial inclusion and economic growth, in addition to giving start-ups access to the resources they need to develop new and innovative financial solutions that can benefit underserved populations. Such resources include but are not limited to Level One Project guidelines, Mojaloop Open Source Software and Inclusive Finance systems, etc. 

pawaPay; one of Africa’s FinTech Giants is supporting financial inclusion through enabling hundreds of businesses to seamlessly make and collect payments.

Currently operation in at-least 19 African countries, pawaPay provides one API (Application Programming Interface) and one dashboard that integrate mobile money services in payment processes, making collections and disbursements faster and safer.

In Malawi, it has over the past 3 years established itself as a dependable mobile money aggregator.

“At pawaPay, we are a mobile money aggregator. This means that we enable merchants – our customers such as BetPawa to collect and disburse funds via mobile money. We enable customers to deposit money in to their wallets and to also collect/withdraw money from their wallets,” Arthur Muyepa, the pawaPay Country Manager for Malawi said.

He added: “We are regulated by the Reserve Bank of Malawi. We got our license in 2024. Before that, we worked on a 6 months pilot scheme regulated by the Central Bank. Since 2022, we have grown from working with one merchant to over 170 merchants in Malawi who are collecting and disturbing payments. In 2023 alone, we processed about USD 24 million while in 2024, we processed around USD 207 million. This points to the progress we are making.”

Muyepa noted that the FinTech Industry in Malawi still has a lot of untapped opportunities as most people are still unbanked and mobile money penetration is still low. He further highlighted limited interoperability, and less collaborations as key obstacles to financial inclusion.

“Unlike mature markets such as Kenya where there is a lot interoperability between banks and mobile money operators, it is still low in Malawi. A lot of work needs to be done to address this and open a lot of opportunities in the future. This makes the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative important as it is helping to address some of these issues but more effort is required. For instance, we (pawaPay) organize the FinTech Fridays where we bring our competitors together to discuss industry issues, find synergies and areas of collaboration. More of such is needed to help with capacity building, and fundraising for the players in the industry.”

pawaPay was featured on Day 24 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative; Zambia and Malawi edition. The roll-out of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative in Zambia and Malawi followed its success in East Africa. Over the past 5 years, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has featured over 200 FinTech stories from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. This initiative has also engaged hundreds of end-users and shared their stories with millions worldwide.

The primary objective of this initiative is to support and showcase innovative FinTech giants and start-ups from across Africa, with a focus on promoting financial inclusion and economic growth, in addition to giving start-ups access to the resources they need to develop new and innovative financial solutions that can benefit underserved populations. Such resources include but are not limited to Level One Project guidelines, Mojaloop Open Source Software and Inclusive Finance systems, etc.

World over, the Gig economy is fast-growing, offering millions of people with a decent livelihood.

According to Investopedia, the gig economy, also known as the sharing economy or access economy, refers to a labor market characterized by short-term, independent work, often accessed through digital platforms. This includes freelance, contract, or project-based work, as opposed to traditional employment with a regular salary and benefits.

The gig economy relies heavily on temporary and part-time positions filled by independent contractors and freelancers rather than full-time permanent employees.

In Zambia, Skille Technologies Limited is using a ‘Gig Economy approach’ to connect freelancers to available gigs – short term work.

“We are a market place for digital services. As a client who needs digital services such as website development, influencer marketing, graphics designing, and anything you need for your business to grow or upscale, we are a platform that provides that for you. You just come to Skille and at a click of a button, you check the service you need, find a sustainable freelancer and get the work done,” noted Kabwe Chama Nkandu, a co-founder at Skille Technologies.

She added: “All our freelancers subscribe to be listed. For any freelancer to be connected to a client, you must be a subscribed member. This means that we vet all service providers, their levels of competence and professionalism. We do this because we want to give value to our customers, not just onboarding anybody.”

She noted that once a client is connected to an available service provider, and payment details agreed; the client then pays to Skille, who in turn hold the payment and only remit it to the service provider once the procured service has been provided as per the client request.

“The clients pay directly to our platform, we hold the money and only pay the freelancer once the job is completed. It is from this payment that we also get our commission directly.”

Nkandu noted that the roll-out of Skille has been a rollercoaster as the market is not yet fully accustomed to digital payments, with customers worried about cyber fraud while majority are still comfortable with cash-based transactions.

“Some freelancers don’t want to be paid on the platform. They insist on being paid cash away from the platform. So, what we have done is that there is no communication or connection between the freelancers and the customers seeking services. We manage the communication on the platform but we know that some people do further communication away from the platform. In this case, whatever challenge that comes off the platform is not our challenge to address.”

Nkandu applauded the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative noting that the knowledge shared and visibility given to participants will propel the FinTech Industry to greater heights.

Skille Technologies was featured on Day 23 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative; Zambia and Malawi edition. The roll-out of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative in Zambia and Malawi followed its success in East Africa. Over the past 5 years, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has featured over 200 FinTech stories from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. This initiative has also engaged hundreds of end-users and shared their stories with millions worldwide.

The primary objective of this initiative is to support and showcase innovative FinTech giants and start-ups from across Africa, with a focus on promoting financial inclusion and economic growth, in addition to giving start-ups access to the resources they need to develop new and innovative financial solutions that can benefit underserved populations. Such resources include but are not limited to Level One Project guidelines, Mojaloop Open Source Software and Inclusive Finance systems, etc.

JUMO is fast-tracking Africa’s last-mile financial inclusion through offering digital-collateral free loans to individuals and small businesses.

Described as a market leading banking as a service platform, JUMO enables real-time access to funds at the lowest possible operating cost in Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, South Africa and Zambia among other countries.

“At JUMO, we believe in frictionless banking systems. So, we provide a platform that allows individuals to access banking, credit and saving products without having to go through brick and mortar traditional banking. Access is through the mobile phone as most individuals across Africa do own mobile phones which are either smart or feature phones. Our customers are able to access us through the USSD platform and APP in some markets. Through the USSD, our customers are able to opt in and choose the loans of their choice. Once they opt in and wish to proceed with borrowing, a credit assessment is done and the customers are notified instantly whether they are eligible to borrow or not,” Alison Lungu, the JUMO Head of Capital Partnerships for East Africa explained.

He added: “The key thing here is that this individual doesn’t have to walk in to a branch, or fill in any forms. We are basically looking at your historical data. How long have you used the phone, transaction history, activity period, peak payments and in follows among others. All these metrics help us make a decision on whether to onboard and allow them to start enjoying these loans products.”

Lungu revealed that as of end of 2024, JUMO World had disbursed up to USD 6.6 billion across its markets, qualified 300,000 new customers on to its global ecosystem every month and currently processing about 150,000 loans in Zambia, every month. 

He revealed that some of the challenges affecting Africa’s FinTech Industry are financial literacy gaps, individuals’ inability and willingness to repay, low availability and access to patient capital.

“It is an exciting time to be in the FinTech space. Our constraint is not lack of business, it is really how much capital we can push in to the ecosystem in a responsible manner.”

Lungu applauded the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for uplifting innovators, supporting cross border trade and helping direct capital towards the vulnerable and unbanked individuals. 

JUMO featured on Day 22 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative; Zambia and Malawi edition. The roll-out of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative in Zambia and Malawi followed its success in East Africa. Over the past 5 years, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has featured over 200 FinTech stories from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. This initiative has also engaged hundreds of end-users and shared their stories with millions worldwide.

The primary objective of this initiative is to support and showcase innovative FinTech giants and start-ups from across Africa, with a focus on promoting financial inclusion and economic growth, in addition to giving start-ups access to the resources they need to develop new and innovative financial solutions that can benefit underserved populations. Such resources include but are not limited to Level One Project guidelines, Mojaloop Open Source Software and Inclusive Finance systems, etc.

MobiPay Limited, a Malawian innovation company is using technology to develop and roll-out solutions aimed at ending financial exclusion.

Among its financial inclusion solutions is Malipo – a payment gateway that simplifies transactions, enhance efficiency, and empowers business to do more and grow seamlessly across Malawi.

 “Our flagship FinTech Product is called Malipo; a payment gateway that enables businesses collect and make payments. Malipo supports bank transactions, cards, and mobile money. Malipo provides secure and hassle-free payment processing solutions tailored for all businesses across Malawi. It is accessible as an APP downloadable on both Google Play and APP store,” Alex Piringu, an ICT Manager at MobiPay Limited said.

He added: “We also have a crowdfunding platform where people can donate money for different causes. Again, through Malipo, the money will be collected and channeled to the cause that someone has created a campaign for. In brief, we provide a gateway for people to transact using any payment method wherever they are.”

Piringu noted that limited product awareness, financial literacy, low capital and rigid licensing regimes are some of the main challenges they face on the market.

MobiPay featured on Day 21 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative; Zambia and Malawi edition. The roll-out of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative in Zambia and Malawi followed its success in East Africa. Over the past 5 years, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has featured over 200 FinTech stories from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. This initiative has also engaged hundreds of end-users and shared their stories with millions worldwide.

The primary objective of this initiative is to support and showcase innovative FinTech giants and start-ups from across Africa, with a focus on promoting financial inclusion and economic growth, in addition to giving start-ups access to the resources they need to develop new and innovative financial solutions that can benefit underserved populations. Such resources include but are not limited to Level One Project guidelines, Mojaloop Open Source Software and Inclusive Finance systems, etc.

Transport and Logistics challenges are some of the major pain points affecting trade across Africa. Such challenges include poor infrastructure, limited access to finance, political instability, fragmentation of markets, and lack of skilled workforce.

While big businesses, well established traders have the capacity to navigate most of these challenges and keep their businesses afloat, the same can’t be said of small businesses with small cargoes to deliver.

It is these challenges that irk cargo owners and transporters that Nyamula Logistics was established to address. 

Nyamula Logistics is a technology-driven platform that connects cargo owners with trusted and reliable small-scale truck operators, offering cost-effective and timely logistics solutions for businesses of all sizes.

“Nyamula Logistics was founded in 2018 with the aim of addressing the challenges that cargo owners and transporters where facing, which is going through agents that are time consuming and expensive. As such, Nyamula Logistics was started to connect cargo owners and transporters. Our audience are the cargo owners – people with cargo to be transported and transporters – those ready to transport cargo. The cargo owners register on our platform and include all the details of the cargo they have. Such detail includes type of cargo, origin, destination and weight. When the cargo is posted, the available transporters see it and if the cargo aligns with their route or type of truck, they will then accept the transport request,” Euphemia Chikungulu, a Software Engineer and Chief Technology Lead at Nyamula Logistics explained.

The platform allows for faster delivery, real-time tracking, dedicated support and now expanding to integrate digital payments.

“We are currently working on integrating digital payments on our system so that as soon as the cargo owner and transporters align; a digital payment can be processed either at the start of the trip, midway or as soon as the cargo is delivered.”

Chikungulu noted that as a new entrant in the FinTech space, Nyamula Logistics is faced with different challenges which they believe will be overcame through industry collaborations, mentorships, and technical guidance among others.

Nyamula Logistics featured on Day 20 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative; Zambia and Malawi edition. The roll-out of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative in Zambia and Malawi followed its success in East Africa. Over the past 5 years, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has featured over 200 FinTech stories from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. This initiative has also engaged hundreds of end-users and shared their stories with millions worldwide.

The primary objective of this initiative is to support and showcase innovative FinTech giants and start-ups from across Africa, with a focus on promoting financial inclusion and economic growth, in addition to giving start-ups access to the resources they need to develop new and innovative financial solutions that can benefit underserved populations. Such resources include but are not limited to Level One Project guidelines, Mojaloop Open Source Software and Inclusive Finance systems, etc.

Africa has a lot undiscovered and unmonetized content creators. While majority of these are without a doubt very talented, their failure to breakthrough means they can’t earn from their God given talents.

It is such content creators that Lemon Zambia came to support with a digital platform from which creatives can, showcase the art, list their works, get paid and fundraise.

“We are a content monetization platform for marginalized African creators. We recently launched our MVP named Buy Me a Drink (with functionality like that of Go Fund me) that allows the audience to support their favorite creators directly. If you are creator, a person that likes your content can directly support you through Lemon. We allow mobile money payments as well as card payments,” Musonda Mwaka Mwiche, the co-founder and CEO of Lemon said.

She added: “Our creators onboarding process is quite easy. Creatives only goes to our platform, sign up, go to the creator dashboard, enter their details and customize the support button which we call ‘Buy Me a Drink’ button. After customization, they then share the link across their circles and social media platforms. The audience can then support them by simply tapping on the link.”

Mwiche noted that Lemon is focusing on all marginalized African creators, revealing that from Zambia, they will be scaling to Malawi and other countries will follow thereafter.

“In a very short time, we have grown from just 12 creators to over 500 creators. We are in discussions with FinTechs in Malawi to see how we can effectively launch Lemon there before we move to other countries. Right now, smart phone is not the only way to monetize. You also have to be banked. Unfortunately, many Africans are unbanked. It is here where local solutions for local problems come in. That is why we are doing localized payments and very soon we shall add USSD functionality.”

Mwiche appealed to the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative to support Lemon through visibility, market penetration strategies, and technical guidance.

Lemon featured on Day 19 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative; Zambia and Malawi edition. The roll-out of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative in Zambia and Malawi followed its success in East Africa. Over the past 5 years, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has featured over 200 FinTech stories from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. This initiative has also engaged hundreds of end-users and shared their stories with millions worldwide.

The primary objective of this initiative is to support and showcase innovative FinTech giants and start-ups from across Africa, with a focus on promoting financial inclusion and economic growth, in addition to giving start-ups access to the resources they need to develop new and innovative financial solutions that can benefit underserved populations. Such resources include but are not limited to Level One Project guidelines, Mojaloop Open Source Software and Inclusive Finance systems, etc.

Access to affordable and reliable finance remains one of the biggest challenges faced by businesses across Africa. Be it east or west, north or south; everywhere you go, the issue of limited capital to scale remains unresolved.

While this is a problem for almost everyone, it mostly affects small businesses and sole proprietorships as these usually lack the prerequisites to enable them join the ‘borrowing brackets’. Nonetheless, different people are thinking outside the box and coming up with solutions to this long-standing problem.

In Zambia, Mighty FIN, read Mighty Finance as popularly referred to is contributing to easing the access to credit problem through extending digital, collateral free loans to individuals and small businesses that have been since time immemorial under-served or completely unserved by traditional financial institutions.

“We are an online business lending platform that provides credit to small businesses and individuals. We started off as an idea based on my 7 years banking experience from which I found out that even though SMEs were being banked by traditional lenders, they couldn’t access credit. Small businesses require credit on the go and this was a huge challenge for them to make the critical business decisions. Mighty FIN then was born to create a platform that conveys access to small businesses in quick, affordable and flexible manner,” Vwanganji Bowa, the Founder and CEO of Mighty Finance said.

She added “We started as a traditional micro finance that was offering manual operations. But because of COVID-19, we sat back and pivoted to see how we could reach out to our customers. We then transitioned in to a FinTech in 2022. Our customers are mostly underserved SMEs and Individuals. We have a primary but not limited focus on women founded, owned and led businesses. Since 2021, we have been able to disburse over USD 250,000 worth of loans to over 5600 customers.”

Even so, Bowa noted that the main challenges faced by FINTECHs like Mighty FIN are Financial Literacy Gap, Poor Connectivity, Low Smartphone Usage, and Limited Capital to provide last-mile financial technology solutions.

She applauded HiPipo and COMESA Business Council (CBC) for partnering to roll out the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative across the COMESA region noting that this initiative is a providing a platform for FinTech players to showcase their innovations, improve the products and reach wide markets.

Mighty FIN featured on Day 18 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative; Zambia and Malawi edition. The roll-out of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative in Zambia and Malawi followed its success in East Africa. Over the past 5 years, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has featured over 200 FinTech stories from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. This initiative has also engaged hundreds of end-users and shared their stories with millions worldwide.

The primary objective of this initiative is to support and showcase innovative FinTech giants and start-ups from across Africa, with a focus on promoting financial inclusion and economic growth, in addition to giving start-ups access to the resources they need to develop new and innovative financial solutions that can benefit underserved populations. Such resources include but are not limited to Level One Project guidelines, Mojaloop Open Source Software and Inclusive Finance systems, etc.

Established in 1994, FINCA Malawi is an active financial institution in Malawi, serving over 35,000 customers; 70 per cent of these being rural based while at least 50 per cent are Women.

According to Takondwa Chirwa, the Marketing Manager at FINCA Malawi, FINCA intentionally supports women because while ‘women are core’, they have for so long been the least included.

“Women are core so if we start with targeting women then we are supporting the whole household. Most women are more active in small businesses and they lack financing for their businesses. So, we support them with working capital so that they can be financially independent and run sustainable businesses,” Takondwa

She noted that in period between January – 2024 and March – 2025, FINCA Malawi rolled out several FINTECH driven gender intentional innovations including FINCA AIRTEL MGODI that allows mobile money agents to have liquidity through overdraft loans, FINCA Mobile Upgrade aimed at increasing access for customers – especially women in the rural areas, and FINCA EduSmart – an education finance product for students, parents, guardians and schools.

“The final major innovation we rolled out in the past twelve months is FINCA Clean Energy. Through this, we offer customers loans for purchasing gas cooking equipment or solar powered systems. This product is supporting women doing small businesses such as roadside vendors that cook and sell mandazi. Instead of using charcoal or firewood, we are through these loans encouraging them to use clean energy,” she noted.

Takondwa noted that low digital acceptability and limited support for start-ups are some of the main challenges slowing financial inclusion. She urged the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative to support Malawi’s ecosystem with strategic collaborations, and technical assistance.

FINCA Malawi featured on Day 16 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative; Zambia and Malawi edition. The roll-out of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative in Zambia and Malawi followed its success in East Africa. Over the past 5 years, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has featured over 200 FinTech stories from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. This initiative has also engaged hundreds of end-users and shared their stories with millions worldwide.

The primary objective of this initiative is to support and showcase innovative FinTech giants and start-ups from across Africa, with a focus on promoting financial inclusion and economic growth, in addition to giving start-ups access to the resources they need to develop new and innovative financial solutions that can benefit underserved populations. Such resources include but are not limited to Level One Project guidelines, Mojaloop Open Source Software and Inclusive Finance systems, etc.