Category: Interoperability

Our Reporter.  

While most Ugandans describe land as the key to wealth, leaving it idle for years is not a smart idea.

In Uganda, it is not unusual for one to leave their piece of land vacant for years because they do not have funds to develop it.

Even though it appreciates in value over time, the returns may not be commensurate if it had been developed.

To help more Ugandans harness the potential of their land assets, Buladde, a Savings and Credit Co-operative organisation (Sacco) was born in 2016, to help the Buganda Land Board staff to improve their security of tenure, develop their land and improve their way of living through savings and borrowing.

“We discovered that most people did not have money to secure their land, they cannot get money to survey their land or even finish their houses. So we decided  to start a Sacco where people could save and take credit to develop their land,” John Mark Golooba, the  Buladde Financial Services General Manager said.

From 80 members in 2016, Buladde currently has a total membership of 2,553 members as of December 2019 and about sh1.12 billion has been disbursed out in loans in the last 4 years.

Although credit was initially for land-related developments, Golooba said that they later realised that people need credit to do other developmental projects such as business.

Despite the growth, Golooba said the Sacco has been grappling with a number of challenges including some people wanting to access credit yet they do not want to save.

“Most of our people do not have a good saving culture and we discovered that such people also find it had to re-pay loans. However, Buladde came to change this narrative; we empower our members to develop themselves, borrow at affordable rates and repay in a convenient period,” Golooba said.

He, however, said that the saving culture is constrained by the manual process of saving and accessing credit, which makes it hard for members from far districts such as Masaka to diligently save and also access their savings when they need to.

Technology

Golooba, however, noted that the Covid-19 pandemic which forced the government to institute measures to constrain movement of people has opened their eyes about the importance of adopting the use of technology.

“Technology is very important for Saccos; banks and mobile money come in handy as we deliver our services. We are pleased to be part of the 40-days-40-FinTechs project and looking forward to improving our systems to further serve our clients,” he said.

Buladde is one of the entities participating in the 40-days-40-FinTechs project, an initiative of HiPipo, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation.

The initiative seeks to enable FinTechs to innovate solutions that facilitate cross-network financial transactions at minimal risks to enhance access to financial services.

Running for 40 days, the project will see the participating 40 FinTechs acquire interoperable development skills to improve access to financial services, using the Mojaloop open source software.

The HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya commended Buladde for the initiative to promote savings and credit through a niche product – land, but urged them to embrace technology, saying that currently, it relates to every sector.

“This is an intriguing product; you realised that you are in control of land that is usually an asset for security in every financial institution. If you are to give a loan, you know where to start from in case you need any recoveries. This is a niche centric product that is not only helping people understand finance but are also helping people learn good financial habits like savings,” Kawooya said.

He added: “The main role of financial technology is to improve financial inclusion and you are already doing that; you are already encouraging very many people to save money and also extending out credit to help people improve their businesses.”

Kawooya pledged to help Buladde get a test platform free of charge within about six months, so as to onboard its members on a digital system, powered by Mojaloop. 

Our Reporter.

Blockchain technology and Cryptocurrencies – digital representation of value that are digitally traded and act as a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value, are increasingly being adopted across the world.

They are steadily playing a critical role in helping countries across the globe drive their financial inclusion and the cashless economy agenda.

One firm that is playing in this field is Sqoin Blockchain and Cryptocurrency, a Tunisia based Financial Technology (FinTech) start-up, seeking to democratise cryptocurrencies, lobby to get out of the grey zone, and also enable people adopt the token economy.

Mohamed Ali Belajouza, the Sqoin co-founder and chief business officer said that Sqoin is driven by the best promises blockchain technology offers to the population, including helping to boost financial inclusion.

He said that after a lot of effort to create all the software for an African Cryptocurrency, dubbed Bastoji, the Sqoin team is now focusing on tokenised payment systems and related software development.

Products

The firm offers a number of products including cryptocurrencies, community currencies and the token economy and asset tokenisation.

Belajouza said cryptocurrency has a bright future, especially in the financial inclusion aspect and low-fees fund transfers.

To offer the community currencies product, Sqoin partnered with Coinsence, another start-up that aims to empower people with community crypto tokens.

Under the token economy and asset tokenisation, Belajouza said that it is a future proof concept, with a roadmap for the product, VERSA – a blockchain based internal payment system that considerably reduces fees for businesses.

Challenges

He, however, said the products are faced with a challenge of slow adoption as people are not yet familiar with neither the concept nor the technology.

Additionally, he said the regulatory environment of cryptocurrencies is also still a grey zone yet tokens are not regulated at all.

It should be noted that transactions on this platform are made over the internet and there is no central authority that processes transactions. Users are anonymous and identified only by their virtual identities.

He also added that while they need strong partners to co-exist in their dreamy market so as to facilitate geo-scaling, the partners are not easy to come by.

Despite the challenges, there are also immense opportunities and one of them is the regulatory sandboxes, which Belajouza said is opening Tunisia and other North African countries to innovate and test their products on the market before being rolled out.  He, however, noted that they are working closely with the central bank to define a scope.

The other opportunity is inherent in the tech they are using; Belajouza said decentralisation is on-going and they are part of it, adding that financial inclusion is becoming more important.

40 days 40 FinTechs.

Sqoin Blockchain and Cryptocurrency is among the firms participating in the 40-days-40 FinTechs initiative, which is organised by HiPipo under its Include EveryOne program, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation.

The initiative seeks to enable FinTechs to innovate solutions that facilitate cross-network financial transactions at minimal risks to enhance access to financial services.

Running for 40 days, the project will see the participating 40 FinTechs acquire interoperable development skills to improve access to financial services, using the Mojaloop open source software.

Belajouza commended HiPipo for the initiative, saying that they want to master Mojaloop for use in crypto and tokens so as to bridge the gap with other stakeholder in the transaction loop.

“After studying the Mojaloop software potential, we found it a great way to address global problems, and a great technical starting point to grow and talk to key accounts for adoption,” he said.

For equality, Belajouza said Sqoin believes in gender equity, noting that more than half of their team are women. He added that being a woman is an asset to integrate their team.

“In terms of project, we are working with conscience under the SDG label empowering women on a use case with community currencies for women,” he said.

Innocent Kawooya, the HiPipo CEO said thanked Sqoin for playing a major role in helping the world achieve full financial inclusion soon, rather than later.

“It is so amazing, how much Sqoin is leveraging blockchain technology, especially the inter leger protocol to create seamless, secure and bulk payment solutions. HiPipo pledges to introduce them to as many FinTech professionals as possible, to ensure they are equipped with enough skills and knowledge about emerging tools like Mojaloop that are helping to create affordable interoperable payment systems.”

Our Reporter.

There are many people who have missed out on their favorite sports games, music shows or comedy just because they were unable to buy their ticket from a location which was far from where they were.

However, all that is history, thanks to Ticteq, a Xopa Limited online ticketing system that houses revelers and organizers in one place.

Through Ticteq, people can buy live entertainment tickets online or offline using a free USSD code for sports, theatre shows, music concerts, cinemas, comedy shows, and festivals among others.

The idea that birthed Ticteq was conceived after George Katuramu thought of the hassle people go through sometimes to buy tickets to attend their favorite shows.

He decided to innovate a solution that would enable them pay for tickets at their convenience from wherever they are.

According to Katuramu, he first developed an android application for the solution but it was not well received by the target market as people never installed it on their mobile phones.

This prompted him to change it to a web application, whereby anyone would access it via a domain without having to install it on the phone.

He then engaged event organizers to interest them into using the app to enable them shift from a manual to a digital process by registering and uploading their events on the app for potential customers to buy.

According to Katuramu, the app is increasingly being used given that it settles transactions in real time, using either mobile money or a bank account.

Katuramu added that with the app, event organizers can contact the people who have bought tickets, and a customer can also get a refund in case they are unable to attend.

“This is a complete solution for someone who wants to organise a successful event, without worrying about tickets, fake notes, coins or being cheated at the door,” he said.

He added:  “We want to ensure that we offer these services in a way that makes the fun of a live event start with the purchase process, not just when someone arrives at the venue.”

Books.

In addition to the Ticteq product, Xopa also offers book authors a platform to publicise and sell their books or videos online.

Xopa, which is one of the firms participating in the 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative, which is organised by HiPipo, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation, also offers a fundraising portal for people with different causes that need to fundraise money.

The 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative seeks to enable FinTechs to innovate solutions that facilitate cross-network financial transactions at minimal risks to enhance access to financial services.

Running for 40 days, the project will see the participating 40 FinTechs acquire interoperable development skills to improve access to financial services, using the Mojaloop open source software.

The HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya commended Xopa for the digital tickets product, saying that it is supporting efforts to digitize the economy.

He, however, said that they need an interoperable payment gateway to allow people seamlessly pay for tickets from their service provider of choice at a lower cost.

“We want to celebrate you; we know that it is because of the 40 stories and many others that may not get a chance to feature this year, that we have been able to achieve the levels of financial inclusion we have in the country today,” Kawooya said.

He added: “So we are here to shine a light on prime stories that are transforming millions of lives, using financial technology. Its amazing that all the FinTechs we have talked to so far have different ways of how they are boosting financial inclusion and we are excited and we celebrate you.”

He noted that the interoperability and Mojaloop stories fit well in what Xopa does with its tickets, books and fundraising platforms.

“When you adopt an interoperable system, expansion into other countries will be easier going forward because you have an alternative and solution of being able to  access payments from anywhere in the world,” Kawooya said.

Our Reporter.

While there has been effort from the various governments across Africa to shift their respective countries from cash to cashless economies, the World Bank estimates that about 90% of retail transactions on the continent are still cash based.

However, there seems to be renewed effort, from all corners to migrate Africa from a cash to a cashless economy.

In Cameroon, the cashless economy drive is being spearheaded by several Financial Technology Companies (FimTechs), one of them being NewLife Technologies Sarl.

NewLife Technologies Sarl is a Cameroon-based mobile application and website development company that was established last year.

The company recently launched a financial inclusion App dubbed SoftPay, a mobile app that uses the scan and pay method, and allows people in poor regions of the world, especially in Africa and Asia to access financial products digitally so as to promote cashless economies.

The company’s founder and chief executive officer, Ngala Cyprian Mufor said the App works without an internet connection, enabling people in remote areas of Africa and Asia who have no internet and those with poor internet connections to enjoy modern financial technologies.

“SoftPay offers cashless payments and one requires no internet to use the app,” Mufor said.

Using the MTN Mobile Money and Orange Money APIs, users can easily load their SoftPay account from any of these service providers as well as withdraw funds from their SoftPay account using their mobile network service provider.

The App is currently is free for SoftPay-to-SoftPay transfers, according to Mufor

“We are working to make this service to meet the needs of a wider population in Cameroon and beyond,” he said.

Opportunities

“Africa still has about 66% of the adult population unbanked and this is an opportunity for us to tap into by extending financial services to them,”

Quoting the 2017 Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) Mobile Economy report, Mufor said that Africa will have more than half a billion unique mobile subscribers by the end of 2020, making it the fastest growing mobile market.

“The challenge will be that people will have problems in loading cash to their wallets as the only form of electronic money available with the common people, especially in Cameroon, are two mobile operators and they pay charges for every transaction.”

He, however, said that they are planning to make transactions free for all users but are still inhibited by the fact that they have to pay the operators.

“To make this service to work internet free, we need funds to negotiate deals and setup infrastructure to make this work. It is a real challenge for us,” he said.

He added that poor infrastructure in Africa including electricity and internet is also still inhibiting FinTechs from extending financial services to the financially excluded people.

Challenges

Mufor, however, notes that transferring money across networks is still very expensive. Also, even when the transfer is done, Mufor said, it is still difficult for a user to withdraw the funds received from a different mobile money operator unto their network.

This, he noted, is due to lack of interoperability.

“If an MTN Mobile Money user receives a funds transfer from Orange Money user, the MTN Mobile money user may never be able to do the withdrawal which means these services are not interoperability,” he said.

He, however, noted that SoftPay is increasingly resolving that challenge by facilitating interoperability.

NewLife Technologies Sarl is among the FinTechs participating in the 40-days-40-FinTechs initiatives organised by HiPipo, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation.

The initiative seeks to enable FinTechs to innovate solutions that facilitate cross-network financial transactions at minimal risks to enhance access to financial services.

Running for 40 days, the project will see the participating 40 FinTechs acquire interoperable development skills to improve access to financial services, using the Mojaloop open source software.

Mufor said the 40-days-40- FinTech initiative will offer them an opportunity to discuss plans and vision for Africa with experts.

“We are open to receiving inputs and recommendations from everyone to add substance to our future plans and products. We are also searching and looking to collaborate with other willing organizations to work together for Africa,” he said.

The HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya said that HiPipo and its global partners are committed to supporting the FinTech community across Africa, especially those facing technical challenges relating with creating interoperable digital payment systems and integrations with digital financial services providers such as banks and mobile network operators.

He commended NewLife Technologies Sarl for the Softpay product, saying that once it succeeds in Cameroon, it will give the rest of Africa a successful case study on creating interoperable, seamless and affordable financial services using new emerging technologies like Mojaloop. He added that this would then help many stakeholders to adopt easily.

NewLife Technologies Sarl has a gender bias, 57% of its staff and contractors being women.

Our Reporter.

Ugandans across the country could soon be able to access safe and convenient financial services if Cytrone launches its free financial inclusion product.

Established in 2016, Cytrone Limited – a payment technology company that offers a domestic, open- loop, multilateral system that facilitates electronic payments, is in final stages of product development according to its founder and chief executive officer Bob Moses Oyuru.

Dubbed PayClide, the product is a web and mobile application that provides merchant aggregation system and peer-to-peer mobile payment platform that can be accessed anytime.

Oyuru said that they are currently testing the product and that they intend to launch it sometime in July this year.

“We are already testing PayClide with the two leading telecoms and two banks already. We intend to have has many financial institutions on board as possible,” Oyuru said.

Cytrone also offers the Audio Jack Card reader product, which helps sellers to accept any Chip Card and near-field communication (NFC) payments – contactless payments that use near-field communication (NFC) technology to exchange data between readers and payment devices such as mobile phones.

Oyuru added that the merchant software would also be beefed up with features such as sending invoices, employee payments, delivery options and loans.

Motivation

According to Oyuru, he was inspired to develop the product PayClide financial inclusion product, after realizing that people were struggling to keep their cash secure given the long distances to formal financial institutions and high transfer and withdraw fees that are making it hard for people to use mobile money.

“Keeping cash secure in trickier; the high transfer and withdraw fees and long distances are also an obstacle to using mobile money. The distances involved to and from financial institutions makes it hard for people to use them,” he said.

Oyuru, however, noted that PayClide is coming to address these challenges. The PayClide App has a wallet which allows people to save money, send to friends and family or withdraw it any time, instantly, free of charge.

It should be noted that while mobile money has helped boost financial inclusion, from 57% in 2006 to 78% in 2018, a sizeable number of people are still locked out due to high transactional charges.

“We believe everyone should be able to participate and thrive in an economy. So we seek to help sellers and vendors of all sizes to start, run and grow their businesses,” Oyuru said.

Women focus

Cytrone also intends to launch a Payclide credit product for the women vendors where credit scoring based on the transaction history will be used as collateral to access credit.

“If you meet a woman’s needs, then you will surpass man’s expectations. Payclide is a product that will help women do business better,” Oyuru said.

Cytrone is one of the Financial Technology companies (FinTechs) participating in the 40-days-40-FinTechs initiatives organised by HiPipo, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation.

The initiative seeks to enable FinTechs to innovate solutions that facilitate cross-network financial transactions at minimal risks to enhance access to financial services.

Running for 40 days, the project will see the participating 40 FinTechs acquire interoperable development skills to improve access to financial services, using the Mojaloop open source software.

Oyuru commended HiPipo for organising the 40-days-40 FinTechs initiative, saying that such engagements are mutually beneficial and will help them to improve.

“We are happy to engage with Mojaloop. We believe it will improve financial technology in Uganda and Africa,” he said.

The HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya commended Cytrone for developing the PayClide product, saying it is a masterpiece for financial inclusion as it will bring telecoms and banks together and allow people to pull and push money any time.

“Getting money is very hard, more so in these unprecedented times. Saving it and using it to transact should not be hard. So a product like PayClide will address this. They already have the major telecoms on board and now pitching to banks. HiPipo will gladly support them in all ways possible,” Kawooya said.

Our Reporter.

While micro, small and medium enterprises account for over 80% of businesses in Uganda and employ the largest number of the country’s working population, they still find it hard to access bank credit. This is mainly because majority are informal, fragile, lack collateral and thus considered risky.

However, in a bid to close the financing gap and enable them continue playing their rightful role in Uganda, Social Lend Africa, a Financial Technology Company (FinTech) has democratized lending to ease access to credit, using a digital platform.

Through the platform, small business owners in need of credit are linked to lenders, so as to access affordably and conveniently, according to the Social Lend Africa co-founder and chief executive officer Marvin Peter Akankwasa.

Akankwasa alludes to the existing gap in the market, between businesses that need credit and those who can give it.

“We believe everyone deserves to access quality financial services to enable them pursue a life of dignity and prosperity. So we lend small unsecured amounts of money at scale to millions of financially responsible Africans,” he says.

According to him, SMEs in Uganda need about $4.8b (Shs17.8 trillion) to be able to finance their businesses and scale operations but they cannot access the money, yet there are many unbanked people with sizable amounts of savings and income that can be loaned out.

“There is an opportunity in bringing cheap credit to both banks and the unbanked in an efficient manner; this efficiency can better be achieved by going digital,” Akankwasa says.

Social Lend Africa, which is one of the FinTechs participating in the 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative launched recently, by HiPipo, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation.

The project seeks to enable FinTechs to innovate solutions that facilitate cross-network financial transactions at minimal risks to enhance access to financial services.

Running for 40 days, the project will see the participating 40 FinTechs, acquire interoperable development skills to improve access to financial services, using the Mojaloop open source software.

Akankwasa applauded HiPipo, saying that the project has come at a right time, when Social Lend Africa is focusing on democratising lending and borrowing, which he said they cannot achieve unless  they revolutionise risk assessment and credit extension.

“I am happy that Mojaloop is trying to revolutionise how payments are done; with Mojaloop, I am sure that we have a tool that is going to make financial technology better. We are looking forward to working with Mojaloop Foundation, HiPipo and other partners in enhancing financial inclusion,” Akankwasa said, adding that the Mojaloop software will help them make financial technology better.

Background

Founded over four years ago, Social Lend Africa has over the years helped micro and small enterprises access affordable credit.

It screens borrowers, facilitates the transaction and services the cash advance. Borrowers can then use the cash advance for business, consolidate debt, finance purchases or cater for certain personal financing needs.

The company was established in 2015, initially lending money to small business owners and students around universities for their tuition. It initially traded Spectrum Xchange (U) Limited before rebranding to Social Lend Africa in in 2018, owing to the growth in reliance on peer-to-peer lending networks.

“We settled for Social Lend Africa because we felt it represents our aspiration to leverage our online peer-to-peer lending networks and spread them across Africa, enabling entrepreneurs and small business owners easily access instant, short-term loans through a simple loan application process, via a secure platform,” Akankwasa says.

Due to the need to leverage technology to ease the application process and also provide access to credit to more consumers, it went fully digital in May 2019 by launching the Social Lend Africa web app, which helps customers access credit any time.

Good solution

The HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya said: “I am excited to learn about Social Lend Africa. We are happy that your registered and made the shortlist for the 40-days-40-FinTechs project, a brainchild of HiPipo. HiPipo is a 15-year old company that focuses on using technology to serve and save millions of people mainly in Africa.”

Kawooya says that while offering people credit is a noble job, it is so challenging as businesses, mainly start-ups need loans yet most of them do not have collateral to access the loans.

“Many of these start-ups are by young Ugandans who do not own anything except their innovative minds and products they are developing. Most lenders can never come to their help because of lack of collateral,” he explains.

Kawooya also explains that informal lenders are also hard to deal with as they charge high interests and yet their conditions are short term.

“It is thus exciting to interact with a company like Social Lend Africa that is trying to democratise lending and borrowing. It will be nice for Social Lend Africa to develop an interoperable solution that would enable it do lending and borrowing from multiple institutions all brought together on one platform,” Kawooya explains.

Our Reporter.

Over the past few years, distinctions between financial institutions and telecom service providers have been gradually breaking, thanks to the emergence of Financial Technology Companies (FinTechs) that are providing the needed bridge.

FinTechs are transforming lives in Uganda and the entire African region for the better; facilitating payments, boosting financial inclusion and enhancing customer experience.

Among the key FinTechs that has played a great role in this space in Uganda is True African, a mobile and online Financial Services Hub that provides custom tailored software solutions to address specific business needs, payment gateways to banks, collection platforms to utility service providers and individual and corporate mobile and online wallets.

True African, a pioneer Financial Technology Company (FinTech) in region also enables individuals and business enterprises to securely and efficiently transact large volumes of payments on a single platform under one umbrella.

True African ventured into the market 18 years, with the short messaging (SMS) product, giving the firm market visibility, before venturing into mobile banking in 2002, according to the company’s founder and managing director Eric Kamau.

Products.  

As pioneers in the value added services (VAS) industry, True African has over a decade of network connectivity across the country, with a multiple channel software platform that integrates with off-the-shelf SMS and USSD gateways.

It offers a wide range of services including MasterCard QR; a payment solution that harnesses technology to allow consumers pay for goods and services using mobile phones at merchant outlets.

Mastercard QR empowers merchants to easily and securely accept digital payments through a no-cost Point-Of-Sale solution that provides a cash-like experience for merchants and a low-risk investment for the user.

“MasterCard QR is secure, smart and easy; providing a cost-effective alternative to cash payments,” Kamau says.

The other product is Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) Code Aggregation that allows high-speed interactive communication between the subscribers and applications across a GSM network.

It offers both dedicated and shared USSD codes. Under the dedicated USSD, a code is aggregated and solely used by the client while the shared USSD code is used by multiple companies or services where each company is allocated an extension off the main code.

Other products are merchant collections, bulk payments, mobile banking, software development and a VSLA Imara platform.

This has put them at the center of the electronic payments industry in the East African region.

True African is one of the FinTechs taking part in the 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative organised by HiPipo, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation.

The initiative seeks to enable FinTechs to innovate solutions that facilitate cross-network financial transactions at minimal risks to enhance access to financial services.

Running for 40 days, the project will see the participating 40 FinTechs acquire interoperable development skills to improve access to financial services, using the Mojaloop open source software.

Kamau commended HiPipo for the initiative, saying that interoperability discussions are timely and good for the industry.

“I was around when Mojaloop was being founded. We understand that some of these projects we are undertaking need to be hosted somewhere, costs must be managed and all other interoperability issues must be addressed. We are happy to engage with HiPipo and other likeminded partners on how to enhance financial inclusion,” Kamau says.

Tailor-made solutions

To support the financial inclusion journey, Kamau says that it is important to understand the special needs of the people you want to serve, so that you develop products that meet their needs.

“Having technology alone is not enough; you must understand the special needs and requirements for different people,” he notes.

Keen about delivering solutions that meet the diverse needs of their target market, Kamau says the firm is also seeking to devise ways of solving financial management problems in refugee camps.

“We cannot just digitalise people; it is a process. People need to first understand what you are doing before they accept to go digital and do digital financing,” he notes.

Kamanu explains that the firm innovated a saving solution that is currently used by several non-governmental organizations and other entities such as the Central Broadcasting Services (CBS) Powesa Sacco, helping them to manage their funds effectively.

In Eastern Uganda, True African is undertaking a project that offers women crop insurance. Under the project, True African allows members to access farm inputs from registered shops, lends them money and empowers them on agricultural commercialisation.

He says that over 50 women farmers have benefited from the pilot project and they are now planning to expand it and manage it under one application.

The HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya says the 40-days-40 FinTechs initiative seeks to celebrate and shine a light on FinTechs that are transforming millions of lives.

He commended True African, saying it has an inspiring story.

“Part of the HiPipo story was inspired by True African. The True African story and their understanding of the digital-financial inclusion sector is important in this journey. True African has been here, and done so many successful projects. These have been 18 years of developing the digital financial sector,” Kawooya said.

He added: “We are happy that True African has kept going and growing with the industry; the millions of messages you have sent, the solutions you have created have served and saved millions of people.

True African has won several accolades including Top 100 Mid-Sized Company organised by KPMG and Daily Monitor, 2009, Top ICT SMME in Africa, Africa IT Achievers, 2007 and ICT Innovation Awards, UCC 2004.

 

Our Reporter

Many small farmers in Uganda usually sell their produce at giveaway prices as middlemen often exploit them by offering low prices even when the prevailing market prices are higher.

This mainly happens because of lack of market information. However, this could soon be history, if all farmers adopt online technologies that seek to connect them to buyers.

One of such online platforms is Lusuku Online www.lusuku.ug , a fresh produce e-Market platform that gives farmers direct connection with buyers.

Lusuku, which in English means garden, seeks to empower local farmers and producers through connecting them to a vast pool of buyers they would not have accessed easily.

According to Medhi Matovu, the founder and chief executive officer Lusuku Online, digital visibility offers transparency of market prices which encourages proper planning and healthy competition that benefits both the buyers and sellers.

“Using our agile web application, we avail fresh products to customers delivered to and at their convenience at very competitive prices, for both bulk and small orders using our secure online payment option of Mobile Money or cash at delivery,”Matovu said.

He noted that majority of its clients are small-scale women farmers, given that most farmers in Uganda are women, who now concentrate on farming while Lusuku secures market for their produce.

“We told them to concentrate on the farming and we focus on getting for them market. We give them guarantee that we shall get them a ready market,” he said.

Lusuku Online is one of the FinTechs participating in the 40-days-40-FinTechs initiatives organised by HiPipo under its Include EveryOne programme, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop.

The initiative seeks to enable FinTechs to innovate solutions that facilitate cross-network financial transactions at minimal risks to enhance access to financial services.

Running for 40 days, the project will see the participating 40 FinTechs acquire interoperable development skills to improve access to financial services, using the Mojaloop open source software.

Matovu applauded HiPipo for the 40-days-40-FinTechs project, saying it is in line with their effort of deepening financial inclusion.

“We have heard about interoperability with Mojaloop and we will see how it can fit our case,” Matovu said.

The HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya said that the current circumstances brought by COVID-19 require that there is one functional network to ensure efficient and uninterrupted supply.

“We need an effective marketing, distribution and payment network. A platform like Lusuku is prime because it is linking farmers to a direct market. We all wish to have fresh products delivered at home from the garden; Lusuku is doing that. But importantly, it is ensuring that farmers get good earnings from their harvests,” he said.

Kawooya said that creating a solution for farmers is noble given that Uganda is an agro-based country.

“Agriculture is our backbone; it is thus important that Lusuku works on interlinks and integrations with other platforms – cards and mobile money among others. HiPipo pledges to give Lusuku unlimited publicity,” he noted.

Our Reporter.

While financial management skills are key for the survival of any enterprise, most micro, small and medium size enterprises and savings groups lack this key aspect. This has seen many die before even celebrating their first birthdays.

However, Computing Palace Technologies, an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) firm that specializes in software development, thinks many of these enterprises would be saved if they adopt financial management skills by simply investing in management systems.

Computing Palace Technologies deals in a range of ICT oriented services including software development, development of financial products, websites design and hosting services, ICT consultancy, internship training, and customized ICT training. The firm is out to help enterprises embrace better management systems for their own survival, according to the firm’s chief executive officer Felix Balintumye.

The firm has over the years developed different management systems including Sacco management, School management, Hospital management, and Church management systems, to among others register members/clients and help them keep in touch and to monitor revenue or donations that the different organisations receive.

Computing Palace Technologies is among the participants in the 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative that has been organised by HiPipo under its Include EveryOne programme, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop.

Balintumye said the firm competed for a slot in the project so that they can be empowered on how to integrate mobile payments in the different systems they have and the web platforms developed for their clients, who need financial payment solutions.

He said one of their latest products is an e-commerce platform, which they want to integrate using the Mojaloop software. He added that they also plan to innovate more solutions using the Mojaloop software to support women’s saving groups and saccos.

“The beauty of Mojaloop is the interoperability that we want to see which can be accessed via mobile phones, especially for women.

“In the interest of improving our services, we believe that Mojaloop is the right tool for us to scale up. The main challenge has always been interoperability of data. The fact that Mojaloop is actually Open Source makes it even more suitable for us,” he said.

Balintumye also said that while Finance minister Matia Kasaija announced that he would provide Shs94b credit through Saccos and Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) to support micro and small-scale enterprises that have cash-flow challenges resulting from COVID-19, most of the saccos and MFIs do not have financial management skills and thus, will require their services.

The 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative seeks to enable FinTechs to innovate solutions that facilitate cross-network financial transactions at minimal risks to enhance access to financial services.

Running for 40 days, the project will see the participating 40 FinTechs acquire interoperable development skills to improve access to financial services, using the Mojaloop open source software.

The HiPipo chief executive officer Innocent Kawooya said they would ensure that they equip all the participating FinTechs with the needed skills and information to understand how Mojaloop works and connect them with experts in the sector to ensure that they understand financial technology in depth.

“Part of our experienced people in Application Program Interfaces (APIs) will guide you and help you to integrate with Mobile Network Operators and banks but importantly because you have work in progress, one of the things that we will do to help is to think together, discuss and understand the solution and be able to share our advise to guide you,” he said.

Kawooya, a certified programmer, with over 15 years’ experience added that besides shinning a light on prime stories that are transforming millions of lives using FinTech, the project also seeks to ensure that it empowers organisations like Computing Palace Technology, which are sensitive and knowledgeable about systems and software development, to be able to think of another important avenue of development that can change things.

Our Reporter.

While Uganda started efforts to boost a cashless economy over a decade ago, majority of Ugandans still prefer cash.

Available statistics indicate that about 99 per cent of the economy is cash-based and only 1 per cent is cashless.

However, over the years, several Financial Technology Companies (FinTechs) have heavily invested in helping Ugandans shift from a cash to a cashless economy.

Among them is Beyonic, one of the leading fintech integrators in Africa that aims to eliminate dependency on cash by helping businesses quickly set up and manage digital payments.

The software company entered the Uganda market at the end of 2005 but started operations at the beginning of 2006.

Seeking to answer the question of accountability for organizations and donor bodies, the software company thought of ways of further supporting companies better manage their finances – income and expenditures by setting up a mobile payments platform in 2012 thus unlocking clean, safe, transparent cashless management of project and enterprise budgets.

“There are challenges for use of cash by organizations. Beyonic came to help institutions reduce the use of cash in all their systems. We are here to support and promote a cashless efficient economy,” Ian Mubiru, the Beyonic Country Director said.

He added: “As the fintech space matured, the contrast between the simplicity promised by a digital ecosystem and the cost, complexity, and risk of cash payments became increasingly stark. Payments are hard; especially in emerging markets, and particularly in the last mile. Thus, Beyonic set out to make them easy.”

According to Mubiru, Beyonic is helping free its clients from non-core roles so as to focus on making their businesses and communities thrive.

Its solutions include access, data house and pricing services.

Under Beyonic access, it enables instructions to access over 26 telecoms from across nine countries in Africa. This means that once one connects to the Beyonic platform, they will have access to over 26 networks in the nine countries including Uganda, Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, among others, from a single sign-on.

In 2018, Beyonic processed close to 10 million mobile money transactions across its system.

Beyonic was also selected as the Instant Payment Notification (IPN) Hub successor entity, effective May 1, 2020, and it is responsible for all ongoing operational aspects of the IPN Hub including future growth.

The IPN Hub was developed by the GSMA in partnership with the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) and MasterCard Foundation, to provide a single point of integration between mobile money networks and PAYG service providers in Sub-Saharan Africa, accelerating reliable access to utility services at the last mile.

Following the successful piloting and scaling of the IPN Hub, the GSMA elected to transition it to an entity that would continue to scale it sustainability and after a rigorous selection process, it was awarded to Beyonic.

The Data House solution on the other hand is used to store data that can be used for planning purposes by their different clients.

Mubiru said that a lot of data is out there but it is not well organised, thus Beyonic helps companies store and make sense of such data.

Under the pricing services, Mubiru said: “Payments and pricing continues to change over time. At the beginning of our journey, we were just supporting organizations but with time we found out that there was need to support fintechs and other players.”

“We had already developed a lot of application program interfaces (APIs) so we decided to open them up for anyone that needed to use them. We made sure that our APIs integration is as short as possible,” he said.

While others take three months to integrate, Mubiru said they ensured that theirs takes less than a month.

He said their APIs are being used by multiple partners including fintechs, e-commerce players, among others.

While they currently operate in nine countries, Mubiru said the plan is to cover over 20 countries by 2023.

Majority of its clients are women, mostly in agriculture. It is also working with a number of Saccos that offer loans to farmers.

Beyonic is among the firms taking part in the 40-days-40-FinTech initiative, organised by HiPipo under its Include EveryOne programme, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop.

The initiative seeks to enable FinTechs to innovate solutions that facilitate cross-network financial transactions at minimal risks to enhance access to financial services.

The initiative will see the participating 40 FinTechs acquire interoperable development skills to improve access to financial services, using the Mojaloop open source software.

Mubiru applauded HiPipo for the 40-days-40-fintechs initiative, saying the discussion of interoperability with Mojaloop is timely, as the market needs as much solutions as possible.

The HiPipo CEO – Innocent Kawooya said that Beyonic has played a great financial inclusion role in the markets where it operates.

“We are glad that the Beyonic products and services are impacting thousands of people at the last mile. It fits well in the 40-days- 40-fintechs initiative because theirs is a prime story that is transforming the financial sector,” Kawooya said.

He added: “Going forward, as stakeholders we must collaborate and together develop products and services that serve our people. Alone, we may fail, but as a group, we shall overcome all road blocks and collectively serve our people.”

In addition to the 40-days-40-fintechs initiative, HiPipo is also organizing a Fintechs Landscape Exhibition in mid July 2020.