Category: Interoperability

Our Reporter.

It is now 22 years since one of East Africa’s oldest financial technology companies, Craft Silicon launched operations.   

What started as a back-end financial solutions company has since transitioned into a huge banking and financial inclusion enabler providing a wide range of solutions, from core banking, microfinance, anti-money laundering, and electronic payments among others.

According to Vivek Bhirud, the Craft Silicon Country Head, while their primary goal was to provide backend core banking and microfinance solutions, experience over the years made them realize that financial inclusion can only be achieved if you provide the entire value chain in business transactions.

As such, Craft Silicon has since grown into a platform capable of facilitating business-to-business transactions, consumer-to-business transactions, consumer-to-government transactions, and consumer-to-consumer transactions.  

To make this happen, Bhirud says, Craft Silicon provides solutions right from core banking to mobile banking, internet banking, agency banking, and even ATM services to their clientele of more than one billion people across 35 countries.

“Using our solutions such as mobile banking used by several banks, we are processing about 1 billion transactions per day. This includes the mobile money transactions and bill payments,” he says.

In order to meet the company’s aspirations of enabling last mile financial inclusion, Craft Silicon predominantly prioritizes tackling the underserved segments dominated by SMEs and MSMEs, especially those run by women and youths, to level their playing field with bigger players.

State of FinTech in East Africa.

Meanwhile, Dhimant Shah, the Craft Silicon CEO notes that Financial Technology (FinTech) is fast growing in East Africa with Kenya leading the East African Community in adoption and progress in digital financial products ‘because most of its citizens are open to embracing new technology’.

He adds that the outbreak of Covid-19 further opened frontiers for innovation in Kenya’s digital financial services sector.

“Even though we have made progress, opportunities are still immense. We will continue to expand [beyond borders]. In Uganda for instance, we are partnering with different institutions to provide instant and affordable digital loans,” Shah says.

Craft Silicon is the 41^st participant in season three of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs Initiative that is shining a light on emerging and established FinTechs across the East African region.

Shah says the initiative couldn’t have come at a better time when start-up FinTechs need a lot of inspiring and mentoring.

He notes that with such interactions as 40 Days 40 FinTechs, mature FinTechs get the opportunity to share their stories, which in turn helps to inspire the start-ups and also creates room for cooperation.

“In this digital era, no one is too big and no one is too small. It is the idea that counts. I think this initiative brings visibility for the smaller players which helps in creating better solutions and collaborations,” Shah says, stressing the importance of governments, venture capitalists and incubation hubs such as HiPipo and others in fostering financial inclusion and digital growth.

40 Days 40 FinTechs.

Now in its 3^rd season, the 40 Days 40 FinTech initiative is organized by HiPipo in partnership with Level One Project, Mojaloop, and Crosslake Tech and supported by the Gates Foundation.

This year’s edition is cementing the achievements of the first two seasons by looking at more impactful FinTechs from all over the East African region. The countries covered so far are Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania.

Innocent Kawooya, the HiPipo CEO noted that FinTech giants like Craft Silicon offer a variety of learning options for young FinTech players.

“With a presence in over 35 countries, every emerging FinTech should be trying to learn how Craft Silicon has done it. We are happy that they have agreed to share their story,” Kawooya said.

Minus shining a light on impactful FinTechs, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative also offers participants useful tools and an introduction to the industry’s emerging technologies, such as Mojaloop Open Source Software, and guidance from Level One Project foundational material. The skills gained from this initiative cover Level One Project Principles, Instant and Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), Inclusive Finance and Financial Inclusion in general.

Our Reporter.

In 2001, two young African men from opposite ends of the continent sat across each other at a dinner table and had a discussion over a cup of coffee. So intense was the conversation that problem-solving models were created on a serviette that would fuel the establishment and growth of a multinational African firm forever changing the payments landscape.

They called the business “Cellulant”, paying homage to the growing mobile phone penetration in Africa, but also symbolizing the importance of a Cell, the smallest structural and functional unit of life that when combined with other Cells, builds a whole being.

Two decades later, Cellulant is arguably the leading Pan African payments company providing locally relevant and alternative payment methods for global, regional, and local merchants.

According to Moses Abindabizemu, the Cellulant Group chief marketing officer, this success is attributed to the provision of solutions that are customized to the local needs of specific societies in over 35 African countries.

“For example, we provide integration through cards, banks, and Mobile Money which gives us access to over 220 million clients across Africa. We have over 300 large enterprise customers and over 2,000 SMEs,” he says.

Abindabizemu says their niche is through availing a single Application Programming Interface(API) payments platform that enables businesses collect payments online and offline while allowing anyone to pay from their mobile money, local and international cards or directly from their bank.

As a result, Cellulant facilitates more than 300 million transactions per year with volumes in billions of dollars.

“Our growth rate is about 80 percent year on year. We can only continue to grow. We want to offer solutions to retail businesses in Uganda. By the end of 2022, we will be processing over 500 million transactions per year with a volume of turnover of 30 billion dollars,” he says.

To give this success some perspective, Cellulant boasts an 80 percent market share of providing payment solutions for all airlines in Africa including Emirates, Kenya Airways, Jumbojet, Ethiopian Airlines, among others. They also provide solutions for the likes of Jumia, Kiku, MultiChoice, StarTimes, Zuku, National Water, Umeme, among others.

Helping startups.

Abindabizemu says that many African FinTech startups are curtailed by a lack of sufficient funding, thus the inability to set up the correct infrastructure for business sustainability.

“When you are a startup, chances are that these service providers (website developers, telecoms, visa cards, banks) don’t know you or you don’t know them. When you come to us, we give you all that at once. You don’t need to know anything in IT… all you need [is a] phone…then we give you a merchant code and you can start transacting…If you develop a website, we give you our APIs and you start…We bridge that gap for them,” he says.

He further notes that one of the reasons small businesses don’t last long is they don’t have a good grasp of financial discipline. Someone may start a shop and probably put the minimum price of commodities at Shs 10,000 but even if the shop attendant sells that commodity at Shs 15,000, they will not declare it because the business is purely run on cash.

That is why Cellulant introduced a payment platform called Tingg, which allows a business owner to monitor everything by digitizing all payments.

“With Tingg, Money goes to your account directly. This creates a track record which can even help you get loans because your business report is well tracked,” he says.

ForAbindabizemu, settlement is one of the biggest challenges businesses face in Africa. So, they ensure that payments are made within a day.

“Businesses ask; can I get my money on the same day? Because we work with telecoms, sometimes money may take long to come on a client’s account but we [ensure that] we pay within 24 hours,” he says.

He thus calls upon FinTechs in Africa to embrace collaborations because it can only make them stronger.

“What we can do to make the industry better is appreciating that we can win together. We need to collaborate. Not one person can do everything…we can connect and integrate and take our uniform solution to a business,” he says.

“The other issue is continuous awareness. People need to know that digital payments promote financial discipline because you will only pay for the things that you really need, unlike when you have cash.”

He, however, rates Uganda as amazing with opportunity for FinTech, where digitization is still below 20 per cent.

“If you are still carrying cash, if you are still walking to a supermarket, if you still walk to the bank to pay fees, etc, then it means there is still an opportunity that can be exploited. There are many unsolved problems in Uganda and people are ready to pay for convenience,” he says.

40 Days 40 FinTechs.

Abindabizemu notes that the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative is a powerful platform for African and East African innovators to see their potential.

“Not many people know that solutions exist. This initiative helps people to discover that while they have been struggling with a given problem, there is someone who has a solution,” he says.

Cellulant is the 39^th participant in this year’s 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative that is shining a light on the unique stories about innovations enabling ever more people to join the digital economy space.

The initiative is run under HiPipo in partnership with the Level One Project, Mojaloop, ModusBox, and Crosslake Technologies, with generous support from the Gates Foundation.

According to HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya, digital innovators and FinTechs around East Africa have fully embraced Season three which covers physical destinations in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, and Rwanda.

“We are very happy that FinTechs in the East African region have taken up this opportunity to showcase how they are solving everyday problems and integrating Level One Project principles,” he said.

Kawooya added that this year’s edition has cemented the achievements of the previous editions – where over 60 FinTechs have been transformed – but also built on them to leverage digital financial inclusion in East Africa and beyond.

“As HiPipo, our extensive effort and advocacy is partly for the intention of championing digital innovation and interoperable instant and inclusive payment systems (IIPS) in Africa to a point where our innovators enjoy and achieve sound profit margins to help them keep designing and deploying affordable and inclusive financial services for the poor,” he said.

The #40Days40FinTechs platform is run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa.

It offers participants useful tools and an introduction to the industry’s emerging technologies, such as Mojaloop Open Source Software, and guidance from Level One Project foundational material. The skills gained from this initiative cover Level One Project Principles, Instant and Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), Inclusive Finance and FinTech in general.

Our Reporter.

At the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Denis Orech and two friends from Lira University decided to devise means of delivering goods and services to people in Lira town who were trapped in their homes due to a national lockdown.

The three, using their knowledge in information technology, started an e-commerce platform called Yammie shoppers where people would go and order home supplies and pay upon delivery.

“Lira being a remote district in Northern Uganda, the business did not pick on. One of the reasons for this failure was that we did not have enough capital. People would make orders but we never had resources to buy and transport the goods to their destinations using our motorcycle,” he says.

However, it is from this bottleneck that Orech originated a new business idea that is now becoming a household name in Lira town.

Orech says that whenever they were short of money to make deliveries, they would approach an old lady in the area who would lend them some money and they pay later.

“I realized that this lady was extending loans to even Boda Boda riders. I said I can do this as well. So, one of my partners happened to be running a fuel station in Amolatar district; we sat down and I shared the idea. We came up with a model and launched MedMoo in January 2022 with me as its CEO,” he says.

MedMoo is a Luo word that loosely translates into refueling in English or ‘Yongeramu amafuta’ in Luganda. Under this model, they onboard riders who are then given daily fuel loans which they are expected to repay within 24 hours, with a 10 percent interest.

“We approach them at their stage and explain what we do. We ask those interested to register. We get their names, number plates, phone numbers and NIN numbers,” Orech says.  

The riders are given specific forms to fill out at their stage location and the stage chairman or treasurer co-signs as their guarantor.

Upon registration, a Boda Boda rider can go to any of the MedMoo partner fuel stations and get fuel on credit ranging from UGX 5,000 to UGX 20,000.

“We have an employee at all these stations who hands out fuel vouchers to these riders. The employee first confirms their registration status and credit status before issuing a voucher,” he explains, noting that payments can be made in cash or using mobile money.

In six months, MedMoo has onboarded over 878 riders and given out fuel worth UGX 77m.

“At the beginning of the year, we were giving out fuel loans of about 700,000 per day but as fuel has become more expensive, trips have reduced, our numbers have dropped to as low as 300,000 per day,” he says.

Meanwhile, Orech says one of the biggest challenges faced by startups in northern Uganda is capital. He explains that while many young people have brilliant ideas, they are affected by limited capital and low levels of uptake of technology.

“It takes a lot of time for people to adapt to new things. There is a mindset problem, especially for homegrown initiatives. People expect everything to have a stamp of approval from Kampala,” says.

40 Days 40 FinTechs.

He, however, applauds the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative that has reached out to even upcountry FinTechs and given them both national and international mileage.

“We really need a very active tech space; I am meaning incubators, in northern Uganda. We need a hub in Northern Uganda. The skill is there. The people are there. We need exposure and funding. It is very encouraging for the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative to come to us and give us a chance to tell our story,” he says.

Now in its third edition, the HiPipo #40Days40FinTechs has quickly grown into one of the world’s premier showcase events for the innovations that are enabling ever more people to join the digital economy space. This is done in collaboration with partners such as Level One Project, Mojaloop, ModusBox, and Crosslake Technologies, with support from the Gates Foundation.

MedMoo are the 37^th participants in this year’s edition that has been extended to cover physical destinations in East African nations of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, and Rwanda.

According to the HiPipo CEO, Innocent Kawooya, Medmoo is an encouraging start-up with a solution that targets a huge yet niche audience.

“Boda Boda riders are part and parcel of our economy. They always struggle with getting fuel, more so in the morning. A solution like Medmoo helps them start their work days well without worrying about fuel. We have challenged the Medmoo team to scale their product and make it, paperless, cash-lite, and eventually cashless. HiPipo is ready to move with Medmoo on this journey”

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative offers participants useful tools and an introduction to the industry’s emerging technologies, such as Mojaloop Open Source Software, and guidance from Level One Project foundational material. The skills gained from this initiative cover Level One Project Principles, Instant and Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), Inclusive Finance and FinTech in general.

Our Reporter.

Uganda has a huge but largely underdeveloped fashion industry.

According to a November 2020 article by The East African newspaper, “Uganda’s fashion industry is characterized by struggling ventures, semi-professional small-scale production, and lack of infrastructure, institutions and government support.”

Even so, while thousands of Ugandans continue to find their space in fashion and arts, a few others are coming up with solutions that transform the entire industry for the better.

Among such people is Stephen Mutungi, the CEO of 2ambale; a digital marketplace for fashion stores. He sat down with the HiPipo 40 Days 40 FinTechs team and laid bare his 2ambale vision.

QN: What is 2ambale and what do you do?

ANS: 2ambale is an online marketplace for fashion stores. We leverage technologies like machine learning to help small businesses easily pay for efficient advertising on the world’s leading digital platforms like Google, Meta, and Twitter using mobile money.

QN: What is the motivation behind 2ambale? What market challenges do you address?

ANS: 90 percent of businesses in Uganda are small businesses and 33 percent of these are in trade and commerce with physical locations relying on physically visiting customers. To survive, businesses need to pay heavy rent fees for prime locations. This coupled with other rising costs has greatly raised the cost of doing business and seen many small businesses close shop earlier than their first birthdays.

In an effort to reverse this, 2ambale leverages technology to help small businesses dealing in fashion, textile, and art products, to easily pay for efficient marketing online to customers beyond their physical location. 

This way, businesses don’t have to compete for prime locations with high costs of doing business but can instead set up anywhere, list their products online, and yet sell to a bigger market.

QN: For the time you have been in business, what do your numbers look like?

ANS: We have enabled businesses to generate over 18,000 business transactions from more than 11,000 buyers. These numbers are very encouraging and we are optimistic about the future.

QN: What is the state of Uganda’s E-commerce Industry?

ANS: E-commerce is a new but one of the fastest growing technology industries in Uganda. The main challenges for this industry are around absence of infrastructure mainly robust and trusted digital payment solutions and logistics services tailored to the industry.

QN: In your opinion, how does the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative support the industry?

ANS: Platforms like 40 Days 40 FinTechs create publicity and grow people’s confidence in different financial technologies while pushing and advocating for best practices among the players. This results into the growth of a more disciplined and healthy industry.  As 2ambale, we are excited to be part of this season.

About 40 Days 40 FinTechs!

2ambale is participant number 35 in the 2022 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative. The #40Days40FinTechs platform is run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa.

It offers participants useful tools and an introduction to the industry’s emerging technologies, such as Mojaloop Open Source Software, and guidance from Level One Project foundational material. The skills gained from this initiative cover Level One Project Principles, Instant and Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), Inclusive Finance and FinTech in general.

According to Innocent Kawooya, the HiPipo CEO, though in its infant stage, 2ambale is a great idea, targeting a popular niche.

“Thousands of Youth and Women are involved in fashion and art. However, many of them are yet to integrate technology into their trade. A platform like 2ambale is one way of aiding the digitization of such businesses,” Kawooya said.

He further noted that despite the rapid adoption of digital financial services, an average of 40 percent of Africa’s adult population remains financially excluded and something must be done. “Financial exclusion continues due to the lack of interoperable, open-loop, cost-effective, real-time, and secure retail payments systems/switches to digitally connect large numbers of low-income users onto formal financial rails. The 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative is accelerating discussions on building industry-led Instant and Inclusive Payment System (IIPS) across the East African region and continent.”

Our Reporter.

Enrolling members into savings, and investment clubs is a key stage in operationalizing such organizations. But when this is done, the harder part is handling operations, which includes keeping customers’ deposits safe, managing the risks that come with handling savings and loans, and ensuring proper record keeping.

That is where Mfuko Plus comes in handy. This platform is a ‘SACCO Management System’ established and run by Nugsoft Technologies.

The HiPipo 40 Days 40 FinTechs team had a chat with Darius Mutasi, the Nugsoft Technologies Business Development Manager. Below is his take on how his organization is improving SACCOs, improvement in FinTech, and ongoing Financial Inclusion efforts.   

QN: What is Mfuko Plus?

ANS: Mfuko Plus is a credit advisory and records management application. The application manages loans, shares, individual and group profiles, and transactions like savings, withdrawals, and transfers; all provided with standard financial reports and detailed transaction reports. USSD and mobile money services have also been recently introduced to the platform. We work with SACCOs, Microfinance institutions, Savings groups, money lenders, and several other credit institutions.

QN: How does your platform work?

ANS: Mfuko Plus runs as a web application and it has two key modules. One is the main platform where businesses like SACCOs, Microfinance Institutions, and others login in to manage their operations (Loans, savings, and other transactions) while the other is a members’ portal where members of the enrolled businesses can self-register, then log in to check their balances and perform several transactions individually. We mainly enroll financial institutions and for them to start, they just visit www.mfuko.net to contact us or request a demo. All they need is a functional computer and an active internet connection (We shield all businesses against internet costs as all our services are zero-rated).

QN: For the years you have been working, what do your numbers look like?

ANS: We have a total of 22 SACCOs enrolled, over 50 microfinance and money-lending institutions/ individuals and 6 Saving Clubs. Across all these, we have over 12,000 members and we have managed cash-flows of over UGX 22Bn cumulatively and in this year alone, about UGX 7.3Bn.

QN: How is Mfuko Plus supporting women, small businesses and the youth?

ANS: To reduce costs of accessing the service among small businesses and the youth, we recently incorporated SMS services, and USSD and went ahead to zero-rate the service. This means all our members can access the service without loading data. Additionally, we revised our pricing to offer lower rates to youth groups, women saving groups, and village/community-saving initiatives.

QN: As an entity actively involved in the FinTech space, are you implementing Level One Project Principles which are Industry Best Practices such as Tiered KYC, Accessibility on Low-Cost User Devices, Real-time/Immediate funds transfer, Same-day settlement, Pricing Transparency, and Irrevocability?

ANS: We enabled USSD in Mfuko Plus to ease accessibility on low-cost user devices. In terms of transparency, we have standard pricing plans for the different modules with no hidden costs in our billing and all transactions are reported accurately. We also identify aggregators who support real-time funds transfers and same-day settlements in order to facilitate a high level of efficiency, flexibility, and productivity.

QN: What is the state of Uganda’s FinTech Industry?

ANS: The industry is very promising and the players are full of potential. Yes, there are challenges, but the opportunities outweigh the challenges. One of the biggest opportunities is the general adoption of technology across the country; there is a reasonable growth in the use of technology across businesses which presents a big market opportunity. The influx of foreign players to support local FinTechs is also an advantage.

However, there are several challenges like the high cost of transactions, especially among aggregators; the stringent legislation around FinTechs compared to other players in the sector; and the low volume of capital/funding that caps several FinTechs from reaching their potential, among others.

QN: In your opinion, how does the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative support the industry? What else must be done to improve the industry?

The 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative extends great visibility to FinTechs and this eventually creates market and much-needed revenue growth. It has also created a conducive atmosphere where various FinTechs can converge to share ideas, opportunities, and avenues for collaboration; all these are extremely vital and deeply appreciated.

If the initiative can introduce an element of funding in the future (either directly or through its partners), especially for start-up FinTechs that have been part of the initiative, there will be a strong impact on how these FinTechs survive and ultimately, on how they grow.

About 40 Days 40 FinTechs!

Mfuko Plus is participant number 34 in the 2022 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative. The #40Days40FinTechs platform is run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa.

It offers participants useful tools and an introduction to the industry’s emerging technologies, such as Mojaloop Open Source Software, and guidance from Level One Project foundational material. The skills gained from this initiative cover Level One Project Principles, Instant and Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), Inclusive Finance and FinTech in general.

According to Innocent Kawooya, the HiPipo CEO, despite the rapid adoption of digital financial services, an average of 40 percent of Africa’s adult population remains financially excluded and something must be done.

“Financial exclusion continues due to the lack of interoperable, open-loop, cost-effective, real-time, and secure retail payments systems/switches to digitally connect large numbers of low-income users onto formal financial rails. The 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative is accelerating discussions on building industry-led Instant and Inclusive Payment System (IIPS) across the East African region and continent.”

Our Reporter.

The world is slowly migrating into a cash-lite and eventually a cashless global economy where all transactions are done without the exchange of cash. As a result, more financial technology companies (FinTechs) are emerging with a variety of solutions to meet consumer needs.

However, most of these solutions target a fairly literate population that can at least read and interpret mobile phone prompts, leaving out the illiterate and blind population.

It is this problem that PayTota is determined to end with the introduction of an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solution that allows its customers to interact with a computer-operated phone system through the use of voice.

According to Erasmus Okurut, the PayTota CEO and Co-Founder, while this product is already in use in more advanced economies, PayTota is proud to be the champions of this initiative in Uganda.

“Not everyone can read and operate phones. So, if we want to include everyone, this product is very crucial,” he says.

Pay Tota is a Financial Technology company that designs universal payment solutions with an emphasis on emerging markets targeting mainly insurance providers, e-commerce players, and agri- service providers, among others. They are the 33^rd participant in this year’s 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative that is showcasing impactful and emerging FinTechs across East Africa and beyond.

“We provide a unified payments interface for our clients. Being a Business-to-Business FinTech, we have been able to integrate more than 20 businesses in Uganda and five businesses outside the country,” Okurut says. 

Okurut says this integration is facilitated by other payment methods including Google pay, Mobile Money, Visa and Credit Cards, etc, with monthly recurring revenue of more than USD 20,000.

He owes this success to the Covid-19 pandemic that prompted many businesses to reach out to them seeking digital payment services and solutions.

“Covid-19 was an awakening call. We were able to grow within the pandemic and also in terms of the impact, we saw many businesses take up PayTota solutions. In Uganda, we were able to receive over 100 players per month asking for our solutions,” he says.

For better client management, they have implemented different tools at the back-end, the latest being KYC onboarding, which is already being done to help reduce the timelines one needs to get on-boarded to the market.

Okurut highlights that although there are some regulatory challenges, FinTechs in Uganda are generally picking up faster, with more investors taking a keen interest.

“The market is ripe and now is the time to develop solutions that target consumer needs,” he says, before applauding the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative that has contributed a great deal in highlighting and exposing startups to the global economy.

“When we first featured on this platform, we were just a startup, but it gave us a platform and we were able to onboard over five clients because of that. Our brand visibility has improved,” he says.

40-Days 40-FinTechs

Now in its third edition, #40Days40FinTechs has quickly grown into one of the world’s premier showcase events for the innovations that are enabling ever more people to join the digital economy space. That is surely going to remain the case, in large part due to the inspiration and collaboration that HiPipo partners Level One Project, Mojaloop, ModusBox, and Crosslake Technologies generate, but mostly because of the continuing generous support of the Gates Foundation.

The initiative offers participants useful tools and an introduction to the industry’s emerging technologies, such as Mojaloop Open Source Software, and guidance from Level One Project foundational material. The skills gained from this initiative cover Level One Project Principles, Instant and Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), Inclusive Finance, and FinTech in general.

According to HiPipo CEO, Innocent Kawooya, this year’s edition is cementing the achievements of the previous editions – where over 60 FinTechs have been transformed – but also building on them to leverage digital financial inclusion in East Africa and beyond. “As HiPipo, our extensive effort and advocacy is partly for the intention of championing digital innovation and interoperable instant and inclusive payment systems (IIPS) in Africa to a point where our innovators enjoy and achieve sound profit margins to help them keep designing and deploying affordable and inclusive financial services for the poor,” Kawooya said.

Our Reporter.

FutureLink Technologies is a community-driven marketplace for affordable financial services. It is licensed by the Bank of Uganda as a digital national payment systems operator.

They work to enhance the financial resilience of Africa’s low and middle-income earners through a community-driven marketplace where consumers access a variety of financial services, mainly credit, most appropriate and affordable for their daily needs.

FutureLink Technologies is the 31^st participant in this year’s 40 days 40 FinTechs initiative by HiPipo that seeks to highlight emerging FinTechs in East Africa and beyond. The HiPipo team talked to VINCENT TUMWIJUKYE, the CEO and co-founder of FutureLink Technologies, and below is how the conversation went.

QN: Why did you choose the community-based model?

ANS: Africa is fragmented. So, we realized that generic products cannot survive or make an impact in African communities where people are divided around culture, physical boundaries, countries, etc. so, it is better to come up with community-driven initiatives.

QN: So, how does this model work?

ANS: On our platform, we have different players; we have sellers and buyers. We have about 300 SACCOs on the market side of the platform across Uganda. These are providing financial services that are responsive to the unique needs of the people where they hail from. If you come to the buyers’ side, we have different categories. One channel is the Digital channel (M –Saccos) with over 350,000 subscribers. There are those still using branches to transact and they are about 600,000 people.

So, if you go to PlayStore, we have the M-Sacco. You will be able to see hundreds of Saccos showing what they paid and what their return on investment was. You will be able to see the average cost of credit for these Saccos. Seated here in Kampala, you will be able to open an account in a Sacco somewhere in the rural area and start earning dividends and more.

QN: How are you performing in terms of numbers?

ANS: For the year 2021, we moved about UGX 2.7 trillion shillings on our platforms. We also have key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure our impact. We saw that cash flow per member on our platform grew by 14 percent; savings per member remained constant largely because of the Covid-19 effects but we are excited to see that people’s financial resilience is growing.

QN: One of the main tenets of the 40 days 40 FinTechs initiative is to ensure that we ‘Include Everyone”. How do you rate yourselves in this aspect?

ANS: We believe that you cannot include everyone without addressing key barriers. One barrier is affordability. The other is functionality and responsiveness. How does your product respond to the needs of women, farmers, and the youth? That is why we employ the community-based model and work with indigenous cooperatives that target specific groups with specific needs.

Secondly, we prioritize affordability. In Uganda, our platform offers the cheapest credit. At 8.75 percent per annum, you can get a loan on our platform. There are businesses that are still borrowing at 20 percent per month. That is ridiculous. There is no business you can do with credit of 20 percent per month. That is 240 percent per annum. The only business you can do is lending.

If we must build an equitable sustainable economy, we must address the issue of affordability. So, we are happy to see that we are championing the matter of bringing down the cost of credit. Our 8.75 percent is beginning to trigger a conversation about the cost of credit and banks are responding by reducing interest rates. We have proven that you can lend at that rate and be able to remain in the market.

QN: What is the key behind this success?

ANS: For you to be able to unlock the kinds of markets that we serve, you must be transparent. You must be seen to actually work for the people because suspicion is high. If you look at the rural communities that we work with, by default they think that technology is a way of trying to steal their money. If you don’t take an effort to be equitable, and come up with business models that actually work for every stakeholder, then you will not go a long way.

QN: What is your general assessment of the growth of FinTech in Uganda?

ANS: The state of FinTech in Uganda is exciting. We have a regulator who is supportive and a listener. We have quarterly forums with the deputy governor and we think that is healthy. We are also seeing confidence within the population, especially after Covid-19. People understand that this is something they can leverage.

I think there is a keen interest, more than there was before because of the regulation. Venture capital funds are coming in. Uganda’s open free market is exciting. I think other players coming should not be deceived by the idea to push generic products because Uganda is fragmented. You need to have community-responsive products.

QN: What is FutureLink’s biggest achievement so far?

ANS: We have achieved quite a lot. Recently, we were listed among the top 50 most inclusive FinTechs in the world. Think about this, this in comparison with other institutions from all over the world. This was a statement that the work we do for the rural communities, the voice we give to the end consumer, and the catalytic effort we put into the design and delivery of financial services are commendable.

QN: What is your take on the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative?

ANS: This initiative provides an opportunity to test ourselves if indeed we are creating an impact in comparison to our peers. It is a great initiative that is shining a light on the entire industry.

Perhaps what could be done with other stakeholders like FITSPA is to build the three pillars of investment. First, we need to bring out the exciting innovations in the media, locally and regionally. We need to have a university that is focused on talent; churning out developers, and business analysts because we have a significant lack of talent. Then we need to build the VC (Venture Capitalists) community.

40-Days 40-FinTechs.

Now in its third edition, #40Days40FinTechs has quickly grown into one of the world’s premier showcase events for the innovations that are enabling ever more people to join the digital economy space. It is organized by HiPipo in partnership with Level One Project, Mojaloop, ModusBox, and Crosslake Technologies and supported by the Gates Foundation.

According to Innocent Kawooya, the HiPipo CEO, FutureLink Technologies is a clear representation of what 40 Days 40 FinTechs is all about – enhancing last mile Financial Inclusion.

“Access to affordable and readily available credit is key to business development and financial inclusion. Targeting people at the bottom of the pyramid is a must if we must achieve financial inclusion. FutureLink Technologies is doing this by empowering Saccos and making their services available to thousands of people. We applaud them and challenge them to achieve even much more.” Kawooya noted.

The 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative offers participants useful tools and an introduction to the industry’s emerging technologies, such as Mojaloop Open Source Software, and guidance from Level One Project foundational material. The skills gained from this initiative cover Level One Project Principles, Instant and Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS), Inclusive Finance and FinTech in general.