HiPipo Money

Since MTN Uganda launched mobile money some 14 years ago, the money transfer and financial technology landscape in Uganda was forever revolutionized.  

The convenience, timeliness, and robustness that come with mobile money have seen millions of Uganda’s unbanked population use this service at least once every year. Imagine the idea of sending money from Kampala to someone in Lira and they receive it within five seconds!

However, it is MTN’s most recent innovation called MoMoPay that has received more reviews because of its transformative effect of Mobile Money from a channel of sending and receiving money to a mode of payment between sellers and buyers.

For instance, Joshua Ainomugisha, who works as a Dispenser at WellCity Pharmacy and Medical Center in Kyanja, Kampala, notes that with MoMoPay, businesses have been saved the hustle that comes with cash transactions such as looking for change. With MoMoPay, clients promptly pay the exact amounts from their mobile wallets onto the business’ wallet.

“MoMoPay has also helped us to get rid of fake notes and makes bookkeeping very easy because we are no longer talking about shortages as all payments are on our MoMo line,” he says.

Further, Julian Atugonza, a Chef at Food Shack, also in Kyanja, Kampala notes that customers are very happy with MoMoPay as it saves time for all parties involved in the transaction.

“It quickens our work because as they are paying through MoMo, we are also finalizing the dish they have ordered,” she says. 

MoMoPay explained.

Stephen Mutana, the Chief Strategy and Stakeholder Officer of MTN MoMo notes that most people initially understood mobile money as a cash-in and cash-out platform. They, therefore, decided to add more value to it by making it more transactional and inclusive through MoMoPay.

“We noticed that people were sending money to pay each other. So, we did some research and found that there was room for businesses to accept digital money. We then launched MTN MoMoPay,” he says.

“There are various ways of paying via MoMoPay. You can input a merchant code into your mobile phone and pay or the shopkeeper puts your number in their device and you receive a prompt to enter your pin and the money is removed. You can also pay using the MTN MoMo APP where you press MoMoPay and scan a QR code before inputting the money billed by the shopkeeper,” he explains.

He however warns customers about rampant online fraud.

“We have seen an increase in online fraud – usually where people use all sorts of social engineering. I want to emphasize that; never share your pin with anyone. Not any bank or MTN MoMo or any other FinTech will ever ask you for that,” he says.

Meanwhile, Adams Kibet, the acting Chief Commercial Officer for MTN MoMo Uganda notes that the convenience that comes with MoMoPay has seen the uptake numbers rise within a few years.

“There are approximately 540,000 customers using MoMoPay on a monthly basis. We have about 275,000 active merchants monthly. We do an average of UGX 140 billion in a month – in terms of the value of transactions through MoMoPay,” he says.

Kibet says that now the focus is on trying to bring more informal merchants such as market vendors, and Boda Boda riders, among others, into the fold.

“Our main focus is to ensure that the money remains within the eco-system. We are driving informal merchants – in that when they collect money from a consumer, they should not cash out the money. We want to drive that cashless ecosystem where we ensure that every informal merchant is mapped to a formal merchant,” he says.

Kibet however acknowledges that the majority of Ugandans are still stuck in the cash economy.

“The biggest elephant in the room is the cash. But with MoMoPay, we have other value proposition advantages that we give to our merchants. We try to train them to understand how risky it is to handle cash and how faster it is for a business person to accept the cashless economy,” he says.

40 Days 40 FinTechs.

MTN is the 36th participant in Season Four of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative organised by HiPipo to highlight innovative solutions changing lives for people at the bottom of the pyramid.

“I got to know 40 Days 40 FinTechs around 2020 and you gave us much hope. What I loved about it is that you are a platform for young FinTechs to come and showcase what it is that they are innovating,” Mutana said.

“This is also a platform of reassurance. You bring various stakeholders together to share ideas and experiences. We all need encouragement to know that what we are thinking about is not just an idea in isolation but something that is useful to customers and the economy,” he says.

Mutana also appreciates the initiative for selling the Ugandan brand across the region and beyond.

“We are in one of the best regions in FinTech innovation. Our neighbour Kenya is a world leader and we are very close to Kenya. So, East Africa is seen as a basket or home of FinTech innovation. The 40 days 40 FinTechs initiative helps us to elevate the great work that is going on, the skills that are available in Uganda, and most importantly, the life-changing and impactful contributions by youth, women, and men in our society,” he says.

In the meantime, HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya observes that the emergence of groundbreaking innovations from prominent brands like MTN MoMo serves as a promising indication for FinTech startups to explore existing opportunities and devise specialized solutions.

“MoMoPay represents a product nested within another product, highlighting the numerous challenges that can be addressed by FinTech companies when they critically examine society,” Kawooya noted.

Mutana thus called for more frequent engagements that should even involve institutions of learning.

“I know students come to the 40 Days 40 FinTechs event but nothing makes me happier than seeing young minds engage with technology with all the benefits that we can get from it,” he said.

40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative is run by HiPipo in partnership with Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies with generous support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

When Doreen Nanfuka started an events management, company called Fuuka Star a few years ago, her most immediate challenge was about the cost of ticketing. This is on top of the hustle of printing tickets and incorporating security features to avoid fraudsters.

Then she soon learned about Ticteq, an online events solution that among other things sells online tickets for events. Since then, she decided to incorporate digital tickets into her events.

“Trust me Ticteq has helped us in saving money because we don’t have to use paper to print. It is also automated. We use their dashboards to withdraw our money through mobile money or send directly to our bank accounts,” she says.

With Ticteq, they just need a scanner that validates a QR code of tickets at event entrances.

“I encourage all event managers to sign up for Ticteq as signing up is free. There are no contracts needed yet they provide us with all information we need, and access to their tools to help us manage our businesses,” she says.

What is Ticteq?

Ticteq is a system that helps fans purchase tickets online starting from Sports, Theatre shows, Music concerts, Cinemas, Comedy shows, Festivals, and Award ceremonies, among others.

According to George Katuramu, a Ticteq director, Ticteq is a subsidiary of Xopa Limited that allows Events Organizers worldwide to register an account and start transacting with a personalized dashboard to enable them to monitor their event performance.

“They then start creating the events and attach them to the tickets they want. When they create these tickets, the links are generated automatically and they start sharing them with their users,” he says.

Katuramu says that for the time they have been operating, Ticteq has managed to sell more than 200,000 tickets with a transaction value worth more than Shs 400m.

Besides ticketing, Katuramu notes that they also offer crowd-funding services for noble causes such as education services, healthcare services, etc.

“Crowd-funding uses the power of social media and the internet to enable people to raise money, assist others in overcoming adversity, and achieve aspirational goals. You can do anything from funding your own surgery to helping a student realize his or her dream of attending college – and so much more,” he says.

Ignorance.

Katuramu however notes that the first challenge that the FinTech industry is facing is ignorance.

“Many people don’t know the digital world. People think that things that are done digitally are associated with fraud,” he says.

Even Nanfuka agrees.

“The challenge with Ticteq is that people don’t know that these platforms exist. Even when you buy tickets online some people, prefer to use the old way of printed tickets which is costly,” she says.

Another challenge is the high percentage cut by payment gateways.

“The percentage is a little bit high because we get a percentage for each ticket we sell to the customers. So, the gateways can charge you like 3 percent per ticket sale yet you also need to take a percentage like 2 or 3 percent. This becomes a little bit high and people end up finding it costly to buy tickets online. If the gateways could reduce the percentage of the charges, I believe more people will start buying online tickets,” he says.

Ticteq is the 35th participant in 40 Days 40 FinTechs season 4 organized by HiPipo in partnership with Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies with generous support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Katuramu says the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has solved the issue of exposure and ignorance.

“This is something that has been missing in the FinTech industry, especially in marketing. For example, if someone has a good product, the initiative gets known to the public. This has been a hustle for us but when we come for the 40 days 40 FinTech, the public knows how our products work,” he says.

Now in its fourth season, HiPipo’s 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has become a household name in the financial technology space of the East African region. In the last three editions, more than 100 FinTechs have been showcased, highlighting stories changing people’s lives, especially in the under-served sectors.

Deborah Mulungi had gone shopping in a local supermarket when she met a fine lady wearing a T-shirt with the inscription – Izere Education. Curious, Mulungi stopped this lady and asked her what Izere Education stood for.

“She told me about many things but I had never heard about Early Childhood Development. She told me that they work as a social enterprise aimed at transforming education in under-served communities to realize quality 21st-century learning outcomes for all,” she recalls.

But the most amazing part of this Edu-Tech platform was that parents were being empowered to save money using their phones and later pay school fees for their children.

“I got interested. I enrolled my sibling in this program and it has been of great impact. If they talk about nurturing children, especially helping them to develop 21st-century skills, it is remarkable,” Mulungi says.

“They give children the ability to be creative, innovative, and confident,” she says.

“The good thing is that you can enroll your child and pay in installments. You may not prioritize it, but if you see what your child goes through, you need to invest in it. If you are appreciative of personal development, then you can be willing to sacrifice what you can to ensure that your child grows up as a responsible person in this competitive world.”

Edu-Tech.

Shamim Nirere, the Team Lead at Izere Education, notes that most times, these quality learning opportunities are missed by the have-nots because of the extra money one is supposed to pay for an extra enrichment class.

So, they decided to come up with a mobile solution under the Edu–Tech platform targeting parents struggling with school fees in public institutions, which are expected to be cheap.

“We have set up an Edu–Tech platform powered by FinTech solutions and reaching schools to extend our solution, communities to set up innovation spaces for young people, parents to enroll their children in our online academy and pay online, and trainers to get their money electronically,” she says.

“We are now getting to the ground in communities to get parents to save some money on their mobile money wallets for school fees.”

And Mulungi emphasizes that every parent should give this service consideration because it offers much more than ordinary routine classroom education.

“A parent who thinks that a child’s destiny is determined by academics, I don’t think that is right. Google can give us the academic answers that we need but in the 21st century, we need competitive skills to survive,” she says.

Strong strides.

Started in 2016, Izere has evolved to offer solutions that drive communities to the vision of quality 21st-century learning outcomes.

Nirere says that when the world was met with the Covid-19 pandemic, they got a boost in numbers and 2020 was their best year because most people realized that they can do much with technology like studying, paying online, making orders, etc.

“We have so far reached close to 5,000 young people and hope to reach 20,000 by the end of 2023. This is because we are running community programs and reaching a wide range of young people in 10 districts in Uganda online,” she says.

She adds that they are currently working with different aggregators and payment gateways such as SchoolPay and Flutterwave.

“But in the near future, we shall design and roll out our own wallet that will make payments much easier for the users of our solutions – content creators, teachers, parents, and students.

Nirere nonetheless says that the biggest challenge is the inability of some parents to understand their service of holistic education.

“The journey of enrolling young people on our platform is not an easy one. First of all, some schools provide mainstream education with traditional subjects. So, parents often ask if we are a school and not many understand what we do,” she says.

“But Covid-19 was a time for people to understand that there’s so much learning that can be done online. They later realized that there’s a new set of skills that our people need,” she says.

She also appreciated the organizers of the annual 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for shining a light on players in the FinTech space.

“This is helpful because most times, people build in silos yet whatever they are working on is already out there. It has also made it a lot easier to see people do things differently and share ideas. It has also helped to demystify FinTech,” she says.

Izere Education is the 34th participant in this year’s 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative organised by HiPipo in partnership with Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies with generous support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Now in the fourth season, HiPipo’s 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has become a household name in the financial technology space of the East African region. In the last three editions, more than 100 FinTechs have been showcased, highlighting stories changing people’s lives, especially in the under-served sectors.

It is no secret that the Ugandan business environment is saturated by counterfeit and substandard products in all sectors. In agriculture, for instance, grassroots farmers are perennially challenged by identifying authentic agricultural inputs such as seeds, pesticides, and equipment.

Take the example of Ssenabulya Patrick, a farmer, and trader, who notes that besides volatile weather, a farmer’s biggest worry is about being cheated with fake agro inputs.

“It is usually difficult for a rural farmer to know a genuine product. So, they just buy and later discover that they were cheated after it fails to work,” he says.

These worries are however beginning to fade since Ssenabulya was introduced to a Mobile Application by ETG, which provides authentic market information about genuine agricultural inputs, market access, financial literacy, and other extension services.

Established in 1967, ETG (Export Trading Group) is one of the largest and fastest-growing integrated agricultural conglomerates in sub-Saharan Africa, importing and exporting soft commodities to and from 49 countries including Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, and South Africa. It also has supply chain operations in China, India, America, the Middle East, and South East Asia.

“I got to know ETG through a friend who advised me where to sell my coffee. He introduced me to ETG and I found out that they are also buyers of coffee… The information on their Agricultural App is readily available on your phone. This eases the search for local agronomists in villages and when I go to buy pesticides or herbicides, I am not cheated,” he says.

According to Ponsiano Byansi, an agronomist at ETG, this organisation headquartered in Dubai has the motivation to empower Ugandan rural farmers.

“[In Uganda] we have ETG logistics which deals in transport, ETG commodities which are based in Tororo, and ETG coffee which deals in the export of processed coffee and is based in Namanve. We also have ETG inputs which deal in Agricultural inputs like fertilizers, crop protection products, and farm tools,” he says.

Byansi says that they came up with a mobile application that is a one-stop centre for all Agricultural inputs. A user just needs to download the ETG application to their phone and start accessing these services.

The ETG one-stop solution APP also has a live weather forecast which helps farmers to plan for their gardens depending on the weather forecast. For instance, if you want to apply fertilizers, you must do so immediately when it is going to rain so that you don’t incur losses.

The agronomy feature on this App provides information to farmers with a program for all crops. For instance, if a farmer is growing maize, they go to the App and open the maize program to know what they are supposed to do from the planting stage, and what fertilizers to use, until the harvesting period.

“We also have the agro-doctor feature on the App whereby if a farmer has a disease in their garden, you use the smartphone to take a photo of the crop and send it via WhatsApp to us. Instantly, the farmer gets a message about the name of the disease, pesticides to use, and more pictures of the signs and symptoms of that disease,” he says.

Byansi further adds that to ensure financial literacy and discipline, they integrated a personal finance feature named Falcon Wallet that helps farmers to plan budget management and also keep records of their finances.

“For example, most farmers invest money into their farms at the start of the season and at the end, when they sell their produce, they can’t tell if they have made profits or losses. Under the Falcon Wallet, if a farmer is planning to invest Shs 1m into their garden, they input that money into the App and every time they incur an expense, it is registered into the wallet.  At the end of the season, when selling his produce, he can also input the income. The APP will then give him a balance sheet of what he spent on and what he earned,” he explains.

Technology gap.

Byansi notes that while their mobile application has more than 40,000 users on the African continent, there are about 700 users in Uganda.

“We are working with more than 100,000 farmers in Uganda but very few use the application because many lack smartphones and several that have them have phone storage capacity limitations. So, there is competition on the apps they are supposed to retain but also an information gap,” he says.

Byansi nonetheless expresses gratitude for the opportunity offered by the organisers of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative to highlight their services and also get to know what other players in the ecosystem are doing.

“The 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative is a great initiative because it gives us a platform. It is an addition to the efforts we are trying to push because there is an information gap, financial illiteracy, and poor record keeping, among others. So, this platform will help us add a voice to the efforts to reduce these problems,” he says.

ETG is the 32nd participant in this year’s 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative.

Now in its fourth season, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative is run by HiPipo in partnership with the Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies with generous support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.