HiPipo Money

By our writer

While every business needs credit at one point to support enterprise growth, most Uganda Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and farmers have always been deprived of this.

This is mainly because they lack collateral and financial records that most lending institutions require before giving out a loan.

To bridge this gap, however, EverLend Uganda, a Financial Technology Company (FinTech), has innovated a non-collateral credit services model that is expected to salvage the initially excluded category of borrowers, starting with farmers and small businesses in Ibanda district, western Uganda.

Established in 2020, the FinTech offers a range of digital credit services, ranging from SME loans to agricultural loans and farm-inputs on credit.

According to the company’s Chief Executive Officer Danson Nahabwe, the innovation sought to fill a market gap, where despite being in need of some form of credit to inject in their enterprises, small businesses and farmers were often excluded.

“We do not require security to get access to credit services. We do this because we want to ensure that we are financially inclusive. For us, anyone qualifies for a loan,” he says.

For one to access a loan, they simply have to download the EverLend App on their mobile phones or signup on their website – www.everlendug.com and answer a few questions.

Basing on the given answers, the system determines one’s loan limit.

Nahabwe, however, notes, that if one wants to exceed the given loan limits, they can request to have the loan amount increased and they will get back within 30 minutes to ask for more information to assess if one qualifies for the amount they are asking for.

If one can complete the entire process online, the money is be disbursed there and then.

In addition to providing credit, EverLend also extends market information to its clients, in addition to giving them record management systems to help them improve business management processes.

While the solution is still being piloted in only one district of Ibanda in western Uganda, the number of customers who have used the service within this short period of time is testimony to the credit-drought that small businesses and farmers were facing.

According to Nahabwe, they have since served over 100 clients to date, with 90% of the clients being women.

Nahabwe explains that they intend to scale-up the solution to the entire country in future and to other East African countries, starting with Rwanda.

40-Days 40-FinTechs

EverLend Uganda is among the firms participating in this year’s edition of the 40-Days 40-FinTechs initiative, organised by HiPipo in partnership with Crosslake Technologies, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation, and sponsored by the Gates Foundation.

Nahabwe commended HiPipo for the initiative, saying that it will create for them visibility, help them learn from the world’s best players and adopt best financial inclusion best practices.

Additionally, he notes, they will be helped to scale their non-collateral credit services model.

The HiPipo Chief Executive Officer Innocent Kawooya notes that the 40-Days 40-FinTech project seeks to boost the African FinTech ecosystem to enable innovators enjoy sustainable profitability to help them design and deploy affordable and inclusive financial services for the poor.

He alludes that FinTech in Africa offers attractive opportunities and that investors are rightfully picking interest in the various startups that are offering a plethora of services, ranging from payments and lending, remittances, cross-border transfers and neobanks, among others.

“Each of these services solves unique sets of challenges that is why we have this initiative because we want to contribute towards solving the unique challenges that the everyday person faces.”

By Our writer

Travelling with loads of cash abroad to import goods has always been a big challenge for Ugandan businessmen who could at times get robbed, among the many risks associated with carrying hard cash.

As it is said that there is no challenge too hard to find a solution for, UG-Mart, a Financial Technology Company (FinTech), has come to salvage traders by virtualizing cash to make it safe for traders to travel abroad and pay for goods without having to worry about anything.

The firm that provides Business-to-Business, Business-to-Peer and Peer-to-Peer solutions, partnered with mobile money service providers and UBA Bank to provide a virtual e-wallet that allows one to deposit money and be able to transact from anywhere in the world.

“We have virtualized the cash so that it is safe; now we can move it from physical cash onto mobile money and from mobile money onto safer payment options like the prepaid card which we are doing with UBA Bank and only carry a card so that they travel light,” Patrick Kizito, the UG-Mart Chief Executive Officer said.

Kizito noted that the card is safe, given its two-factor authentication features. This means that even if it dropped along the way, the owner will not lose their money.

The card also eliminates other risks such as counterfeit, exchange rate risks and paying insurance.

As a FinTech that strives to boost financial inclusion in the country, UG-Mart targets vulnerable groups such as women, Persons with Disabilities and people in areas with no internet connectivity and financial services providers, using easy Know-Your-Customer (KYC) requirements.

Kizito explains that there are many people at the bottom of the pyramid who are still financially excluded, partly because they are intimidated by the lengthy processes such as paper work involved in accessing financial services.

UG-Mart has, however, simplified the process, as anyone with a national Identity Card and phone number that can be verified through the existing platforms, can access financial services, according to Kizito.

“There are over 1,000 Saccos in Uganda that operate beyond a stretch of a kilometer; it is very expensive for someone with a small business deep in the village who wants to save their money to pay Shs 5,000 on a Boda-Boda to take it to a Sacco. We have thus enabled them to get that money onto the mobile phone and send it to the Sacco,” he noted.

40-Days 40 FinTechs

Ugmart is among the companies participating in the ongoing second edition of the 40-Days-40-FinTechs initiative, organised by HiPipo under its Include EveryOne programme, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation.

Kizito said this is a great initiative that has supported the FinTech industry operate better, safer and has also been able to keep up with the latest technologies through  interactions with all industry players.

“The initiative has greatly supported FinTechs like ourselves in that as much as we strive to give solutions, we may not have the entire technology we need in order to sustain such huge projects,” he noted.

The HiPipo Chief Executive Officer Innocent Kawooya said that FinTech in Africa offers attractive opportunities, adding that investors are rightfully picking interest in the various startups that are offering a plethora of services, ranging from payments and lending, remittances and cross-border transfers.

“Each of these services solves unique sets of challenges. For example; with cross-border payments comes the opportunity to erase the outrageous rates and bureaucratic bottlenecks that stymie transactions and thus trade among African countries,” Kawooya said.

According to Kawooya, the 40-Days 40 FinTechs initiative seeks to give exposure to the best emerging and transformative innovators of Africa.

UG-Mart can be accessed on www.ugmart.ug

By Our writer

Despite the increasing use of mobile money services across the country, most Ugandans, especially those in rural areas, still find it hard to access these services due to long distances to trading centres where these services are always located.

This is in addition to the high transaction fees.

In bid to solve this challenge, however, Cytrone Limited has introduced a Payclide; a solution which has made access to financial services safe and more convenient. Cytrone is a payment technology company that offers a domestic, open-loop multilateral system that facilitates electronic payments.

According to Bob Moses Oyuru, the firm’s founder and Chief Executive Officer, Payclide’s beauty lies in their web and mobile Application that provides a merchant aggregation system and peer-to-peer mobile payment platform that can be accessed anytime, anywhere.

Oyuru notes that Payclide comes with a wallet which allows people to save money, send to friends and family or withdraw it any time, pay utility bills and access banking services.

The firm has partnered with mobile telecommunication companies and banks such as MTN and Airtel, KCB bank and integrated with Interswitch for bank settlements, according to Oyuru.

Payclide also allows merchants to accept payments from mobile money and cards and also settle the received money into the bank without necessarily having to travel to the bank.

According to Oyuru, transferring money using Payclide is currently free of charge while a small percentage is charged to settle funds into the bank.

Oyuru explains that people have been 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 is 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.

40-Days 40 FinTechs

Payclide is among the firms participating in the ongoing second edition of the 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative, organised by HiPipo, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation and supported by the Gates Foundation.

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

Oyuru applauded HiPipo for the 40-days-40 FinTechs initiative, saying it has created visibility for Uganda’s nascent FinTech industry.

“Most start-up companies do not get the audience that they expect to get but this initiative has given us that visibility,” he noted.

He added that they were also introduced to financial inclusion best practices such as Pricing Transparency and use of Tiered Know-Your-Customer (KYC), in addition to latest technologies such as Mojaloop which he says has not only benefited Payclide but the economy at large.

“Telecoms initially required agents to have certain kinds of documentation like trading licenses, bank accounts and certificates of registration, to have the agency business, which most of them, especially those who are individual users couldn’t provide.”

“With the Tiered KYC, we now have several agents because the number of necessitated documents was reduced to either a national identity card or a trading license. This has given, especially the women a boost in their financial health.”

The HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya notes that this edition of 40-Days 40 FinTechs is Uganda’s most comprehensive foray into things like distributed ledger technologies, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Automated Customer Relationship Management, cash management and lending platforms.

He, however, adds that a connecting thread will be how FinTechs urgently need interoperability and how open source frameworks such as Mojaloop, are here to help, including guiding on how emerging frameworks such as LevelOneProject principles can be used to engender sustainable financial inclusion impact.

Payclide can be accessed on www.payclide.com

By Our writer

Offering the best services to customers is always at the heart of every business that wants to grow and live beyond its founders.

To realize this, businesses have to invest in offering the best customer experiences which in turn breeds customer loyalty.

And that is where Flutterwave comes in – a technology company that set out to simplify payments to enable businesses within Uganda and globally trade without worrying about how to get paid.

The firm, which currently operates in over 33 countries, serves over 10,000 merchants in Uganda, including 3,000 businesses, according to Nielsimms Sangho, the Flutterwave Uganda Country Lead.

They operate in partnership with companies such as Paypal, MasterCard and AliPay, among others.

“We are doing this to change the way businesses transact with their customers both in Uganda and in other parts of the world,” Sangho says.

In addition to providing a payments gateway, Flutterwave has also built a number of other products such as the Flutterwave Stores which provides a platform for businesses to sign up, upload and sell their products free of charge, without having to build a website.

This, according to Sangho, seeks to enable them serve the merchants better.

Women’s grant

In a bid to support the growth of women-owned businesses, Sangho says Flutterwave runs a women’s day grant, an annual competition that runs throughout March, where between five and 10 businesses from across the markets where the firm operates are given grants of between $5,000 and $10,000. This, he explains, is to help these women build strong businesses that can compete favourably in the men-led market.

Flutterwave, which initially set out to build a payments gateway for micro and small businesses, is among the companies participating in the ongoing second edition of the 40-Days 40-FinTechs initiative.

The #40Days40FinTechs initiative is organised by HiPipo in partnership with Crosslake Technologies, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation, and sponsored by the Gates Foundation.

Having participated in the first edition, Sangho notes that this platform is helping shine a light on the industry by creating public awareness and gradually building the needed trust for the growth of FinTech.

“As businesses in the financial space, we operate on trust; it is a trust business. People need to see you working and then they can trust you to process their money,” he says.

“And this is what the 40-Days-40-FinTechs platform has done; it has showcased us and what we are doing to the entire world. This has been a springboard for us,” he explains.

He adds: “We for instance have merchants who came to use our services after seeing during the first edition of the 40-Days 40 FinTechs. So, the initiative will help build trust in the entire ecosystem.”

While it currently does next-day settlements, Sangho says they are exploring how to it even faster, how to accept all devices and how to use USSD so as to involve all businesses that want to transact with them.

Sangho says that the existing market challenges provide an opportunity for FinTechs to innovate more to address them. 

“Inclusivity is a big problem; between 70 and 80 per cent of Ugandans are unbanked but this is an opportunity that we need to exploit,” he says.

He, however, adds that there is also need for increased public awareness about financial technology to boost usage.

Meanwhile, the HiPipo Chief Executive Officer Innocent Kawooya applauded Flutterwave for playing a great role in financial inclusion across Africa, as its products and services are impacting thousands of people at the last mile.

He further noted that FinTech in Africa offers attractive opportunities and investors are rightfully picking interest in the various startups offering a plethora of services, ranging from payments and lending, remittances and cross-border transfers, among others.

Flutterwave can be accessed on www.flutterwave.com