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Merchandise Uganda is offering an online market with free stalls

Our Reporter.

Anyone doing business in Uganda will tell you that paying rent is one of their biggest nightmares. Whether you have made profits or not; whether you have spent the month sick or away attending to a patient, or whether you were in a Covid-19 lockdown; the landlord will always want their rent paid in full and on time!    

Failure to pay rent has actually been identified as one of the biggest reasons for the high turnover of businesses, especially in city arcades and malls.

It is against this background that Merchandise Uganda – an online marketplace – was formed.

Nurudin Busingye, the Merchandise Uganda General Manager says prevailing trends call for cheaper ways of doing business, and nothing beats online trading in cost-effectiveness.

“We realized that there is a lot of inequality in business where people don’t have money to rent at strategic locations. So, we said you can have your stock at home or you can import products and put them in a warehouse and open up an online shop on Merchandise Uganda to showcase your products to both local and international markets,” Busingye said.

On top of this, there is an estimated 20 million Ugandans who don’t have access to markets yet they have products to sell. And the rest of the population is looking for those products.

“So, at Merchandise Uganda, we developed this system to ensure that sellers have access to buyers and vice versa with just the use of their phones or computers,” he adds, noting that the main focus is on women SMEs.

“We see ourselves as a revolutionary company transforming traditional trade to global trade. People now work from home and have adopted technology; our goal is to ensure that Ugandan products are known not only to the local market but also the global market.”

HOW IT WORKS

When you have a business or products to sell, you just visit www.merchandiseuganda.com and open up a shop. A seller/trader is required to provide their name or business name, location, contact details, good photos of products and videos of how the products work (if need be).

When someone wants a product, they go to the website or download the Merchandise Uganda app and search for the product they want. Then people with such a product will be listed and the client can contact them directly.

“We have a partnership with delivery companies. All our suppliers are assigned to these logistics companies. So, when the client makes an order, the delivery company is notified to pick the product and deliver it,” he says, noting that clients use mobile money and banks to make payments.

“We are working on creating e-wallets to create a complete eco system…”

Started in 2019, Busingye says the Covid-19 pandemic saw a huge rise in the number of users with numbers jumping from less than 200 to more than 600 in just one year and more than 10 million product views.

“This is a good number. Remember these people don’t go to Merchandise Uganda to chat; they go there to do business,” he says.

Going International.

Merchandise Uganda is the 12th participant in this year’s 40 Day 40 Fintechs initiative by HiPipo.

Now in its third edition, 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.

Busingye is full of praise for the 40 Day 40 Fintechs initiative for having given them free publicity in last year’s edition which is already paying dividends.

“We recently had a partnership with a European company which wants to do business with Ugandan suppliers. We also got contacts in South Africa who want us to open a branch that side. All this was a result of the 40 Days 40 Fintechs 2021 edition,” he says.

And for Innocent Kawooya, the CEO HiPipo, this revelation is testament to their mission of connecting the global markets.

“The beauty about the digital market is that it has no barriers, and no borders. Merchandise Uganda’s story gives us the satisfaction our goal of Including Everyone is taking shape,” he said.

Busingye however calls for more sensitization of Ugandans about the use of technology and digital tools.

He adds that they introduced a program to support women get online shops for free.

“We are conducting trainings for women. We have over 65% women-led businesses on our platform. Our aim is not to make money, but to support the communities, especially women,” he says.

Meanwhile, Kawooya says Digital Innovators and FinTechs around East Africa should be more eager to embrace 40 Days 40 FinTechs as Season three covers physical destinations in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda.

He added that this year’s edition seeks to cement achievements of the previous editions – such as Merchandise Uganda – but also build 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.

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PayLater; Uganda’s Online Shop That Allows Installments

Our Reporter.

Many young corporates harbor dreams that would satisfy their heart’s desires. They would like to have nice cars, trendy phones, beautiful TV sets, durable furniture, name it! But their meager salaries are only enough for the daily essential needs. So, they keep dreaming!

However, PayLater Uganda has come to make these dreams a reality by introducing an online buy-now pay-later model of property acquisition.

Started in 2021, this e-commerce platform has made it easy for Ugandans to purchase commodities ranging from electronics to kitchen appliances to smartphones to furniture, car tyres to beauty products at their own pace and convenience.

“It is a fact that most Ugandans cannot afford to buy genuine commodities in one go. So, we introduced this digital lease-to-own platform where they can pay in installments and acquire the property of their dreams,” says Aaron Kasozi, the PayLater CEO.

Convenient

Kasozi says that they have about 15 approved suppliers of genuine branded products. So, if someone wants a product, they just visit www.paylaterug.com  where all product categories are listed.

The customer just needs to create an account, generate password and then apply for a product of their choice. Then the system picks customer details such as employment, how much they earn, next of kin, residential address, among others.

“Once the application is received, we have to vet the customer through the Know-Your-Customer system where they are asked for a copy of national ID, bank statement and other documented income sources and work ID. If a customer passes the credit rating process, then we can go to the next step,” he says.

Once vetting is done, the customer is contacted and written to formally to tell them that they qualify for a product or not.

“If they qualify, we sign a contract with the client and we engage the supplier and the customer pays the initial deposit. We break down the value of the product into six equal installments to ensure that the client pays up within six months,” Kasozi says, noting that only digital payments are accepted through FlexiPay, Visa, Mastercard and mobile money. They don’t accept cash at all.

Kasozi further explains that they work within a 30% rating whereby if someone earns Shs 1m per month, they should only qualify for a product where they will need to make monthly remittances of Shs 300,000.

To reduce risks, Kasozi says they work hand-in-hand with the credit reference bureau but also mainly focus on people in employment where due diligence can easily be done.

So far, more than 300 people have been able to own different products through this platform.

“It is very promising. We have had over 190,000 website hits and every month we get over 800 applications. Unfortunately, most of them do not qualify,” he said, before complimenting the 40Days40FinTechs initiative for extending a helping hand to startups that normally do not have the resources for marketing, customer education and awareness.

40-Days 40-FinTechs

PayLater is the 11th participant in Season Three of the #40Days40FinTechs initiative that seeks to shine a light on the unique stories about innovations that are enabling ever more people to join the digital economy space.

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

According to the HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya, initiatives such as PayLater are testament to the rising cases of adoption of online trading and other digital financial services.

“PayLater is a well-thought-out initiative because it touches the nerve of many young people. Many people are looking out for genuine products that they can acquire conveniently and PayLater provides just that,” Kawooya said.

He further called on digital innovators and FinTechs around East Africa to embrace 40 Days 40 FinTechs as Season three covers physical destinations in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda.

Kawooya, further noted that this year’s edition is cementing achievements of the previous editions – where over 60 FinTechs have been transformed – but also building on this success 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.

He added: “It is exciting to see what the participants have to offer. And again, various stakeholders are on hand for more discussion and debate, with this time round extra insight from the likes of banks and MNOs. We are already having extensive discussions on Instant and Inclusive Payment systems, Central Bank Digital Currencies(CBDC), advancing convenience for users, cross-border payments and on micro-lending products (especially those offering facilities to persons and communities that are still on the bylines of finance and trade for example; women, PWDs and other SIGs),”

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.

The platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products & Services and also share their ideas on how more of us, especially those unserved and underserved by the present financial systems, can be brought into the fold. It 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 FinTech in general.

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Her Duuka is helping over 500 women businesses survive Covid-19 hangover

Our Reporter.

The past two years of the Covid-19 pandemic literally placed everyone in their right place – for both good and bad reasons. On the bad side; businesses closed, people lost jobs, families were broken, education stagnated and the economy crumbled.

Like they say, in every challenge, there is always an opportunity. The pandemic, especially the lockdown, sharpened people’s minds to pave way for creativity, innovation and enterprise. Such terms as ‘working from home’, ‘new normal’ and ‘online trade’ became common and are now being put to good use.

For example, it was during the lockdown that Felix Balitumye realized the need to digitally empower women entrepreneurs whose businesses were on the rocks. Together with his team at Computing Palace Technologies, Balitumye created a digital e-commerce platform and named it Her Duuka where women would register their businesses and connect to customers digitally.

“The 2020 lockdown mostly affected women because they dominate the small retail businesses. We realized that there is need to empower them to stay afloat. Many had closed shops and their stock was just wasting away,” says Balitumye.

On the other hand, he says, people were all stuck at home but in great need of supplies, thus the need to connect suppliers to consumers. Her Duuka is a convenient online platform where one just needs to visit www.herduuka.com and register their business with specific product details, prices, location and contacts. Supplies range from home appliances, beauty, machinery, beverages, to foods and furniture.

“Our role is to register suppliers. All things on Her Duuka are owned by different people with independent businesses. If a person wants to buy, they go straight to Her Duuka and tap on the product and they are prompted to put details of where they want it delivered, payment mode, etc, and submit,” he says, noting that clients can pay using mobile money, cash on delivery or bank transfers.

Balitumye says this digital product has been a revelation to many women who had lost hope following the 2020 lockdown. To date, more than 500 businesses have registered on Her Duuka.

Because most women entreprenuers are either illiterate or semi-literate, Balitumye says that all entrants are taken through digital literacy trainings to ensure that they can ably use the platform.

“We then create a portal for every supplier which helps them manage daily transactions to track income and expenditure. In other words, it has an inbuilt financial management platform to help empower women in financial inclusion,” he says.

While they primarily enroll people with conventional businesses, Balitumye says they are now looking into incorporating people without physical shops or workshops. For instance, there are some students in hostels and even housewives who would want to register and sell their merchandise and make money.

“Even men are asking to join the platform but, for now, we want to maintain the brand, making sure that women are taking the front lead,” Balitumye says.

There is no business without challenges. Balitumye says they still face resistance from some people with a negative attitude towards e-commerce platforms because some have been previously duped by scammers.

“The other problem is financial empowerment… these businesses take long to make profits. So, you have to keep investing. It needs a lot of resilience…and massive investment,” he said before applauding the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for the massive awareness and advocacy for FinTechs.

40-Days 40-FinTechs.

Her Duuka is the tenth participant in the 2022 40-Days 40-Fintechs initiative.

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 our partners Level One Project, Mojaloop, ModusBox, and Crosslake Technologies generate, but mostly because of the continuing generous support of the Gates Foundation.

Digital Innovators and FinTechs around East Africa should be more eager to embrace 40 Days 40 FinTechs as Season three covers physical destinations in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda.

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; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products & Services and also share their ideas on how more of us, especially those unserved and underserved by the present financial systems, can be brought into the fold.

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.

According to HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya, this year’s edition will cement achievements of the previous editions – where over 60 FinTechs have been transformed – but also build 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.

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Belle Beauty is using FinTech to help Ugandan beauticians

Our Reporter.

When Uganda was put into a total lockdown in March 2020 due to the outbreak of Covid-19, my stylist’s hair salon came to a grand halt. She was forced to close business six months later because she could not afford to pay the rent arrears demanded by her landlord despite the fact that the salon was not operating for that entire period.

But my hair stylist’s predicament would soon become a blessing in disguise as I came up with a digital solution that would save her and many more. Belle Beauty Uganda is the first digital platform that connects beauty service providers to clients.

According to Alice Sharon Namugerwa, Belle Beauty’s founder and team lead, this platform acts like a middle-man that connects clients to service providers in the beauty industry.

“We realized that if you do hair styling, nails, make-up and are sure of what you do, you just need a platform that connects you to customers, just like Uber connects drivers and passengers,” she says.

“When I talked to Namale (my hair stylist), I realized that she was not alone. There are many people like her who are single mothers trying to fend for their children but their businesses were affected by Covid-19. How were they surviving? So, I wanted to come up with a solution that could give women in the informal sector a place where they could work. ”

She adds that this application is therefore, women-centric, with the view that women are actually the backbone of the economy without noticing that they are.

To get services, one just needs to download the application or visit the Belle Beauty website and make orders.

On the side of service providers, Namugerwa notes that they first conduct due diligence on all applicants before onboarding them.

“They are required to provide certain documents and they sign contracts and we train them. We do not set prices for service providers….we just provide a rating system,” she says.

HOW IT WORKS

After downloading the application, the customer can make an order and the app will show the service providers that are in close proximity. The client makes a choice and pays using mobile money.

“The order always has specifics of what the client wants and where they want it to be done. If the customer wants the service urgently and the selected provider cannot meet the timelines, we are able to go in the system and reallocate the deal to another available provider. The client has to get the service at the time they want,” Namugerwa says.

After a service is completed, then the service provider is paid electronically by Belle Beauty in less than 24 hours. Namugerwa adds that they are now planning on creating a beauty hub where all service providers who do not have physical salons/workstations can converge and work.

“We will give them a chance where you don’t have to have a saloon. You just come with your client, as long as they have booked through Belle
Beauty and work on them from there. This will eliminate the extra cost of running a business on their part as women,” she says.

They also plan on helping women come up with saving schemes and investment plans.

Namugerwa appreciates the chance offered by the 40 days 40
FinTechs initiative to showcase tech startups because such opportunities offer visibility and exposure.

“If you are a startup, everything costs money. So, we appreciate HiPipo for giving us a chance to showcase our product for free… It also highlights the ecosystem of the FinTech space. You get to learn from other FinTechs and E-Commerce players and what they are offering,” she says.

Belle Beauty is the 8th participant in the 2022 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative.

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 our partners Level One Project, Mojaloop, ModusBox, and Crosslake Technologies generate, but mostly because of the continuing generous support of the Gates Foundation.

Digital Innovators and FinTechs around East Africa should be more eager to embrace 40 Days 40 FinTechs as Season three covers physical destinations in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda.

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; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products & Services and also share their ideas on how more of us, especially those unserved and underserved by the present financial systems, can be brought into the fold.

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.

According to HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya, this year’s edition will cement achievements of the previous editions – where over 60 FinTechs have been transformed – but also build 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.

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Silicon Pay using FinTech to ease payments

By Our writer  

Away from its negative consequences, the COVID-19 pandemic was an eye-opener to individuals and businesses. It brought the role and overall importance of digital financial services (DFS) at the forefront.

Further, the pandemic opened opportunities for Financial Technology companies (FinTechs) to come up with innovative solutions that have since transformed the way people make and receive payments.

Among FinTechs benefiting from this wave is Silicon Savannah Limited, a technology company whose Silicon Pay solution is easing payments for several businesses.

According to the Silicon Pay Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Settuba, the firm offers a fully integrated suite of payments products including collections, bulk payments, utilities, and bank transfers through its Application Programming Interface (API). For about three years in business, the company has over 900 retained clients and 15,000 active merchants and users. This includes about 30 percent women users. Silicon Pay is also supporting about 500 women SACCOs on matters collections and pay outs.

 “COVID-19 affected businesses but it paved way for the growth of digital payments as businesses moved online because they could not do physical meet-ups and collections. More people got to know about the online services that we offer and they tried them out,” he says.

To stay on top of their game, Settuba says Silicon Pay integrated new products and services to meet its clients’ evolving financial needs. For instance, it integrated mobile wallets to cater for customers who receive money in different currencies.

It also forged partnerships with key service providers such as e-commerce platforms, to provide more services to its clients.

To make it easy for businesses to onboard, Settuba says that the company uses the tiered Know-Your-Customer (KYC) principle, which also helps them guard against fraud.

“To understand who we are dealing with, we incorporated KYC standards to better understand the customer we are dealing with. We thus take extra steps by asking them to prove their identity, nature of the business to make sure the source of a customer’s funds is legitimate,” Settuba notes.

He adds that their system enables users to monitor their funds on their dashboard in real-time and can withdraw through mobile money instantly whenever they need it.

Additionally, the platform enables users to transfer funds instantly to their preferred bank accounts on request and receive the funds in a few hours depending on the time the request is made.

40-Days 40-FinTechs

Silicon Pay is among the firms taking part in the 2022 40-Days 40-Fintechs initiative and has been featured on Day 7.

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 our partners Level One Project, Mojaloop, ModusBox, and Crosslake Technologies generate, but mostly because of the continuing generous support of the Gates Foundation.

Digital Innovators and FinTechs around East Africa should be more eager to embrace 40 Days 40 FinTechs as Season three covers physical destinations in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda.

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; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products & Services and also share their ideas on how more of us, especially those unserved and underserved by the present financial systems, can be brought into the fold.

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.

According to HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya, this year’s edition will cement achievements of the previous editions – where over 60 FinTechs have been transformed – but also build 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.

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Card Pesa is keeping start-ups and individuals afloat with instant collateral-free loans

Our Reporter.

Regardless of how persuasive loan advertisements are, getting credit in Uganda is one complicated hustle; more so for those in the informal sector – who happen to be the huge majority.

When one visits a formal financial institution, the paperwork, waiting time and costs involved to process a loan become a huge turn-off. This forces many to turn to loan sharks who have outrageous conditions; despite having instant cash.

Many ask those seeking credit to sign off their collateral security as sale agreements with a mutual understanding that when the loan is repaid, the sale agreement will become null and void. This particularly leaves those seeking credit between a rock and a hard place.

Nevertheless, there are digital solutions that are closing this credit gap. One of those organizations that is revolutionizing and democratizing credit is Card Pesa.

Card Pesa is a tier-four Non-Deposit Taking Microfinance Institution that uses online and cellular platforms to provide small working capital and emergency loans.

The Card Pesa platform is built to use Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) and online applications to deliver credit to you wherever you are for as long as you can connect to a telecom network. It is automated and therefore service time from the point you request for credit to the point you receive the credit is a matter of seconds.

The solution enables people access collateral-free working capital loans instantaneously to invest in their businesses so as to maintain or increase their earnings. It also provides personal emergency loans to its subscribers.

Instead of asking for physical collateral, CardPesa assesses the borrower’s creditworthiness and loan limits using five Cs – the borrower’s character, capacity, capital, available conditions in the environment and collateral – which in this case is in form of one’s biodata, references and one’s business or workplace.

According to Victoria Birungi, the Card Pesa Head of Operations, the company is committed to funding everyone’s hustle for as long as you prove that you are involved in a profitable activity, need money and have the capacity to repay.

“We are extending loans for business and emergency services to different types of people. To get started, you are required to sign up to the platform by visiting www.cardpesa.com/signup. After signing up, our team gets in touch with you and your submitted references to confirm that the information you have given us is actually correct. Depending on how responsive you are, you will be able to access funds within 48 hours,” Birungi said;

She added: “At the end of the day, all the steps you go through help find out that you are involved in an economic activity so that we are able to fund your hustle.”

Basing on one’s credit history on the platform, their limits can be increased to millions and even given better service plus longer repayment periods. To provide the loan service, Card Pesa integrated into Airtel Money, MoMo Pay and banks to easily provide instant credit to its clients.

Card Pesa is the third participant to be showcased in the 2022 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative.

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 our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop, ModusBox, and Crosslake Technologies generate, but mostly because of the continuing, generous support of the Gates Foundation.

Digital Innovators and FinTechs around East Africa should be more eager to embrace 40 Days 40 FinTechs as Season three will cover physical destinations in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda.

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; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products & Services and also share their ideas on how more of us, especially those unserved and underserved by the present financial systems, can be brought into the fold.

The 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative offers participants useful tools and an introduction to 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 will cement achievements of the previous editions – where over 60 FinTechs have been transformed – but also build 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.

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Kawu is using FinTech to make school life a joy to live

Our Reporter.

The word Kawu must be familiar to whoever attended boarding schools in Uganda. Kawu is that period in a boarding school when a student’s pocket money and grab – read packed eats and drinks – are over and the only thing left to feed on are the meals served by the school kitchen. These meals are usually porridge, posho and beans.

The word Kawu is an abbreviation for Kawunga (Posho) and Kawukuumi (beans weevils) served in most schools.  

After going through long spells of Kawu, a group of young Ugandans don’t wish to see others in boarding schools suffer the same fate. As such, they came up with a digital solution for managing student’s pocket money and expenditure.

Named Kawu, the platform allows students to safely keep their money and spend it without wastage. It enables parents and guardians to periodically send money to students, manage their expenditure and also teach them financial discipline.

“In the past, the arrangement has been that parents and guardians leave money with teachers, matrons, wardens and canteen attendants. The student would then go and ask for the money whenever they need to spend. Sometimes, those left with the cash, get emergencies and end up spending this money with hope of refunding it. This arrangement is tiresome, risky, time consuming and doesn’t benefit those that keep the money,” Steven Kakooza, a director at Kawu Uganda explained the rationale behind the Kawu platform.

He added: “But with Kawu, a student has a smart card which s/he uses to make payments at school canteen and also withdraw money in case a need for cash arises. The teachers, matrons, wardens and canteen attendants are the agents that enable the transactions. They get a commission for this. All they need is a smartphone to enable the transactions. A student only needs to have the Kawu smart card. For the parents, they just need to log on to the APP, send money to the student’s smart card, and set periodic expenditure limits. Kawu benefits all stakeholders.”

Since rolling out the platform at the start of the year, Kawu is already active in 20 schools and serving over 1,000 students.

“We have received a lot of positive reception everywhere we have gone. We are actually overwhelmed by the requests from different schools that want to enroll on to Kawu. Over 90 per cent of the schools we visit wish to have their students on Kawu. The team is now focusing on ensuring that we are able to accommodate the huge numbers that we are bringing on board. We are very optimistic that thanks to Kawu platform, Uganda’s students are going to become cashless very soon.”

According to Kakooza, Uganda’s financial inclusion story should include everyone regardless of age and location.

“People always admire the flowers but ignore the roots yet without roots, the flowers couldn’t grow. For our case, we are enhancing financial inclusion and teaching financial literacy right from schools so that by the time these students leave school, they are equipped with sufficient knowledge to do better financially,” Kakooza said.

Kawu Uganda Limited is the second participant in the 2022 40 Days 40 Fintechs initiative.

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 our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop, ModusBox, and Crosslake Technologies generate, but mostly because of the continuing, generous support of the Gates Foundation.

Digital Innovators and FinTechs around East Africa should be more eager to embrace 40 Days 40 FinTechs as Season three will cover physical destinations in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda.

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; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products & Services and also share their ideas on how more of us, especially those unserved and underserved by the present financial systems, can be brought into the fold.

The 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative offers participants useful tools and an introduction to 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 will cement achievements of the previous editions – where over 60 FinTechs have been transformed – but also build 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.

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AgriShare is using FinTech to improve farmers’ livelihood as Season Three of 40 Days 40 FinTechs kicks off

Our Reporter.

No serious storyteller can narrate Uganda’s post-independence story without giving prominence to the famous Luweero triangle. It is that pivotal but that is a story for another day.

For decades, farmers in Uganda have earned very little, sometimes nothing from their produce and farmland due to issues such as failure to source the right inputs, absence of modernization equipment and inability to access ready markets among others.

But this may soon be a thing of the past, if the latest developments in the sector are anything to go by.

Based in Luweero, a group of youth is taking lead in the modernization and commercialization of Agriculture. They are doing this through a digital-based platform named AgriShare.

AgriShare is a social enterprise which uses mobile digital technology to connect farmers to services like land for hire, tractors, irrigation equipment, and labor and value addition equipment.

The web-based application is also targeting youth, Uganda’s largest population cluster who grapple with unemployment.

Launched in Uganda in 2021, AgriShare already has over 15,000 subscribers and over 10,000 transactions. Even so, AgriShare’s story started in Zimbabwe in 2017 where over 50,000 people are using the platform. Encouraged by this success, the platform is now expanding in other African countries with Malawi next in queue, with a launch planned for this year.  

Agro-based Economy.

Agriculture in Uganda employs more than 70 per cent people, but Ugandan farmers are also the poorest. Farm productivity is substance-based because of the absence of equipment and other essential farming services.

“Over 70% of land in Uganda is arable for agriculture, yet less than 30% is under cultivation. Predominantly, the most used tools used are rudimentary. Admittedly, they are most times too expensive to afford. The twist is though, as some struggle to get equipment, others have them lying idle,” says Paul Zaake, the Managing Director at AgriShare.

Zaake says he has built a network of agents to help farmers and service providers, who may not be familiar with smart phones.

“All we are doing is to change the way Agriculture is done in Uganda. We are here to improve food security. But most importantly, we are here to ensure that farmers have joy, create employment and boost our economy,” Zaake noted. 

How it works

Any farmer with a smartphone can download the Agrishare app and order equipment like labor, irrigation pumps, and resources like land and labor.

On the other side, a farmer with excess or idle resources can list them on the Agrishare application and earn extra money when they are hired out. In a nutshell, the application is where resource owners meet resource-seekers.

With concerns of low smartphone penetration and high internet charges, Agrishare has agents spread across the country, to help farmers book or list resources.

AgriShare is the first participant to be featured on the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative, season three that has officially got underway today, the 13th of June, 2022.

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 our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop, ModusBox, and Crosslake Technologies generate, but mostly because of the continuing, generous support of the Gates Foundation.

Digital Innovators and FinTechs around East Africa should be more eager to embrace 40 Days 40 FinTechs as Season three will cover physical destinations in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda.

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; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products & Services and also share their ideas on how more of us, especially those unserved and underserved by the present financial systems, can be brought into the fold.

The 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative offers participants useful tools and an introduction to 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 will cement achievements of the previous editions – where over 60 FinTechs have been transformed – but also build 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.

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#40Days40FinTechs #LevelOneProject Season Three Is Here!

We are proud to say that the second HiPipo 40 Days 40 FinTechs that ran in the months of July and August, 2021 set the bar very high. Even though it started soon after the partial lifting of the 2021 lockdown, it was tremendously successful.

#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 our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop, ModusBox, and Crosslake Technologies generate, but mostly because of the continuing, generous support of the Gates Foundation.

Digital Innovators and FinTechs around East Africa should be more eager to embrace 40 Days 40 FinTechs as Season three will cover physical destinations in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda.

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; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products & Services and also share their ideas on how more of us, especially those unserved and underserved by the present financial systems, can be brought into the fold.

The 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative offers participants useful tools and an introduction to 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.

As captured by its name, 40 Days 40 FinTechs always delivers over two months of exhibition, dialogue and discussion, one not seen in the sector before. The initiative continues to generate enormous publicity, demand and pull for instant and inclusive real-time retail payment systems.

Last, but definitely not least, it draws the most attention yet to what is undeniably the future of digital financial services – interoperability.

Several participants are going on to innovate for sectors beyond just the traditional financial services but are making forays into healthcare, education, lending, remittances, agriculture, Robo-advisor, Payments, RegTech, InsurTech, crowdfunding, neo-banking, cryptography, cryptocurrency, Interledger, Blockchain, cross-border payments, retirement schemes and new ways of operating bonds and real estate among others. In their day-to-day operations, they are changing the lives of the likes of rural farmers, women, merchants, small business holders (formal and Informal), and unemployed youth, in a way creating forays for digital youth champions, women and other special interest groups (SIGs).

Not to be overlooked are the various governmental policymakers and regulators who continue to participate in the different discussions and activities we host. It is evident that demand for FinTech, DFS, IIPS, and interoperability has rapidly grown in recent years due to the impact of the broader HiPipo Include Everyone Program.

For the FinTechs, the cost-free exposure aided by the generosity of the Level One Project; an initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor (FSP) program, which is part of their Global Growth and Opportunity division, is still of immeasurable value.

“As HiPipo, our extensive effort and advocacy is partly for the intention of championing digital innovation and interoperable instant & 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. It was thus pleasant for us to learn that up to 25 of our season two participants not only continued to enjoy increased client engagement and better bottom lines as a direct result of participating in the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative but are also helping to generate economy-wide efficiencies by digitally connecting millions of low-income consumers that are learning to transact at a fast rate,” Innocent Kawooya, the HiPipo CEO noted.

“But this is just the start, and we acknowledge there is a lot more to do. Season three of 40 Days 40 FinTechs is here, starting mid-2022 with optimism that the initiative will impact even more lives and livelihoods going forward.”

We are alive to the current market realities which continue to inform ours and our partners’ thinking, in regards to ensuring the healthiness and overall safety of participants throughout the different activities. Furthermore, we believe that, just like last year, FinTechs will take up the challenge and use the opportunity to ride the wave of appreciation for cashless payments the pandemic has brought. We need to be prepared with appropriate products and have the appropriate real-time retail payment systems in place to support an inclusive, interoperable digital marketplace that is both thriving and safe.

“It will be exciting to see what the participants have to offer. And again, various stakeholders will be on hand for more discussion and debate, with this time round extra insight from the likes of banks and MNOs. We anticipate extensive discussion on Instant and Inclusive Payment systems, Central Bank Digital Currencies(CBDC), advancing convenience for users, cross-border payments and on micro-lending products (especially those offering facilities to persons and communities that are still on the bylines of finance and trade for example; women, PWDs and other SIGs),” said Innocent Kawooya, the HiPipo CEO.

40 Days 40 FinTechs Initiative is implemented by HiPipo in partnership with Crosslake Technologies, ModusBox, and Mojaloop Foundation, and generously sponsored by the Gates Foundation.

It is ultimately also HiPipo’s hope that more people, from all walks of life, will be drawn to the advocacy for financial inclusion. Together, we will bring the day when it is at 100% ever closer.

Registration is on first-come, first-served basis so qualifying FinTech stakeholders operating in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and other parts of the continent are encouraged to book their slots before 11th June 2022.

So see you soon.

SCOPE
ProjectDate
40 Days 40 FinTechs13th June to 30th July 2022
FinTech Landscape Exhibition11th August to 12th August 2022
Women In FinTech Hackathon10th to 16th September 2022
Women In FinTech Summit16th September 2022
Women In FinTech Incubator26th September 2022 to 6th January 2023
Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit18th November 2022
Digital Impact Awards Africa18th November 2022

Ends.

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HiPipo & IDEATION CORNER ANNOUNCE WOMEN’S DAY CELEBRATION, & CONCLUSION OF INAUGURAL WOMEN IN FINTECH INCUBATOR

As part of our continuous efforts to not only improve the quality and variety of digital financial services, with a special emphasis on those that cater for the unbanked and underserved, but also to ensure that the delivery of these services offers rewards to the innovators, HiPipo sought to build on the gains made from the 2nd Women-in-FinTech Hackathon & Summit. And this we have successfully done by engaging the Hackathon’s top teams in the inaugural Women-in-FinTech Incubator. 

The essence of the Incubator is to empower the innovators with entrepreneurial and operational skills to complement their already formidable technical acumen. Thus, over the course of 90 days, the Incubator participants have been part of multiple online sessions and face-to-face group consultations, with even a cocktail thrown in for good measure. The facilitators, who included HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya and Ideation Corner Founder Damali Ssali, covered a vast range of topics to ready the participants for the business journey ahead. Core to the Incubator was to create linkages between the Level One Project principles and how they can be the firm foundation on which a successful FinTech vehicle is built.

We at HiPipo are glad that March 8th, the International Women’s Day, has served up a fantastic opportunity. In conjunction with the Ideation Corner, we intend to also use that day as the conclusion of the Incubator. It was Damali Ssali, who recently ascended to the Ambassadorial role for Uganda at the United Nations Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Organisation (WEDO), and is now also an Advisory Board Member of the Africa Continental Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who helped us shape the idea.

It is greatly symbolic for all of us that the day set aside to remind all that women must be given the opportunities to fulfill their potential, that all forms of discrimination and sexism that have been placed in their path need to end, and that the world will only truly bridge its development gaps if women are fully brought into the innovation space, syncs perfectly with what the Women-in-FinTech Hackathon & Summit in particular and indeed the HiPipo Include Everyone program in general, stands for- to break all biases that hinder the acquisition and adoption of life changing digital financial technology.

And to all those that have successfully taken part, we can assure you that this is just the beginning. HiPipo will continue to be there for you as you set forth to conquer the world with your innovations. Our promise of service is the least you deserve for choosing to make the world a better place through the power of digital financial technology. So handing you your certificates on March 8th is just another landmark in our shared journey. Congratulations, dear friends!