HiPipo Money

Our Reporter.

There is growing demand in developed nations for schools to teach children coding from an early age. This is because most schools and parents believe that learning how to code at a young age sets up a child for a lifetime of success.

In most developing countries, including Uganda, however, the earliest one is exposed to such is at university, in case they are pursuing a computer or information technology-related course.

However, one company – Mindset Coders, has set up to change the narrative for Uganda.

Established in 2018 by Valentine Maisha, Mindset Coders imparts digital skills to children from seven to 18 years, with a view of getting them exposed to digital skills and to encourage them to dive more into tech related careers.

Maisha who also doubles as the Startup’s Team Lead, said that teaching kids how to code at an early age gives them lifetime skills that can be used even in other fields even when they don’t end up in the career itself.

She added that exposing young people to coding at an early age triggers their imagination, creativity and curiosity, given that they are often open-minded.

“We seek to empower the young people for tomorrow and ensure that every school going child in Uganda learns how to code,” she said.

Maisha said that Uganda’s education system is still traditional and the curriculum in most schools does not take into consideration the technology revolution that is going on globally.

“To change this, we are bringing tech into the classrooms by offering co-curricular programs in schools and out of school to empower the youth with digital literacy and entrepreneurship skills in bid to encourage innovation, creativity and to get a head start into the future with these skills,” she said.

She said that basic programming has become an essential skill for grown-ups and children alike and the benefits of picking up this skill, especially for kids are huge.

She said that children are taught in a fun way that make them understand what technology is, appreciate it and empower them with problem solving skills.

“We don’t do it the same way we teach adults because we want them to enjoy it and see that it is fun to do it and how you can be creative with it.

“Learning how to build games helps kids refine their design, logic, and problem-solving abilities. It also allows them to express ideas and creativity in unique ways,” she said.

The children are skilled in different aspects including creating games or telling a story using code and a bit of robotics.

Inspiration

Maisha, who was introduced to coding after her campus years conceived the idea of teaching young people to code after her young siblings and herself watched a documentary about how girls who go to the United Arab Emirates to work as house-helps were being tortured. Her sister, whom she had taught how coding could be used to solve problems, asked her whether she could code something to solve that challenge.

That triggered her mind to teach young people coding so that they can be creators of technology to not only solve other people’s problems but also earn themselves an income.

In additional to learning coding skills, Maisha, said children also get resilience, critical thinking, teamwork and computational skills.

“In coding even if you get stuck, you have to find a way to make it work because you will not have peace. That helps leaners get resilience skills,” she said.

Furthermore, learners get entrepreneurship and presentation skills in addition to innovation which comes with creativity and problem solving.

Over 1,000 people have been skilled over the two-year period.

While Mindset Coders is an EduTech, it depends on FinFech for collections and payments and it is among the firms participating in the ongoing 40-days-40-FinTechs project.

Organised by HiPipo and 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.

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 said that Mindset Coders is playing a critical role in the financial inclusion space, given their role in empowering children with knowledge that helps them prepare for self-employment and disruptive innovation.

He noted that this is a step in the right direction, given that even in Hollywood, majority of the best films are edited by either children or women given that they are always passionate about what they do.

Our Reporter.

While previously life for most Ugandans, especially those living in rural areas, would come to near standstill after sunset due to lack of electricity, the emergence of innovative lighting solutions is helping rewrite the story.

Hundreds of people now have access to solar power, thanks to products like StarTimes Solar, which is lighting up communities around the country.

Provided by digital television service provider StarTimes, the product which speaks to the day-to-day needs of ordinary Ugandan at the grass root, offers a two edged solution of lighting and a television signal to enable customers have access to information.

With an initial payment of UGX 239,000, one gets a complete package that includes a 24-inch digital television, solar panel, digital battery, four LED bulbs, phone charging cable and a satellite dish and accessories, and only pay Ush3, 000 daily installments thereafter for two years, according to Eric Obote, the StarTimes Solar sales manager. Daily payment is done through mobile money.

Additionally, customers get free access to StarTimes channels for two years.

Obote said that the product that was conceived in January 2019 but officially launched in May the same year, starting with the central region has since expanded to almost all parts of the country.

It currently has 26 branches across the country.

“Our focus is reaching people at the grass root level. The companies that were providing solar solutions previously were unable to give the right products to people in villages but we do,” he said.

The StarTimes Uganda public relations manager, Cleopatra Koheirwe said the solar product is most beneficial to women, given that they are in most cases the ones who are always helping children with homework yet most people in rural areas do not have electricity.

Obote and Koheirwe were speaking during an interaction with HiPipo, during the ongoing 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative.

The initiative is organised by HiPipo, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation.

It 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 said StarTimes Solar is in line with the HiPipo agenda of using financial technology to transform lives.

“The reason we think of technology and innovate each single day is because we want to ensure that we create technology that solves problems which humans would not be able to solve easily,” Kawooya said.

He added: “StarTimes came from a digital inclusion point of view and is now offering value-added services. Understanding your customers’ problems and work towards addressing them changes people’s lives.”

He noted that allowing their customers to affordably make payment for solar at minimal instalments of UShs3,000 per day, using mobile money relates to HiPipo’s tagline of prime stories in financial technology that are transforming millions of lives.

Kawooya, however, said there is need to synchronize more to enhance interoperability.

“Today we want to ensure that as the product grows, it seamlessly allows anyone to have StarTimes solar. And if someone is banking with Finance Trust, they do not have to be asked to have mobile money; they should be able to pull with whichever payment provider, using an interoperable system like Mojaloop, which allows every user and customer to pay you conveniently.

He pledged that as they shine a light on this story, they would help StarTimes to ensure that its solar product is fully adapted to increase access to solar energy across the country.

Our Reporter.

Reimagining finance in emerging markets by extending financial services to the underserved and the excluded has been JUMO’s goal since inception.

This explains why it chose to specialize in social impact financial products where small businesses that are financially excluded can access loans and savings products.

Launched in 2014, the company so far reached 16 million people, with 60% of them working under small and medium size enterprises (SMEs).

During the same period, they have disbursed over $1 billion and record over 51 million interactions with customers monthly.  Over 120 million people have been connected to financial choices while the cost of transaction has been reduced significantly.

JUMO has operations in over 10 countries including South Africa, Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Pakistan, Tanzania and Zambia with plans to open shop in Benin, Ivory Coast and Nigeria by 2021.

They use advanced data science and machine learning to create the fastest and leanest financial services infrastructure, according to Joel Muhumuza, the country manager JUMO Uganda.

The stack, according to Muhumuza, has three main components including the Advanced Data Engine, the End-to-end banking technology and the Flexible-operating platform.

Under the Advanced Data Engine, the company uses rich individuals’ data obtained through mobile phones to create information that creates insights while the End-to-end banking technology is used to analyse and understand one’s behaviours to assess one’s creditworthiness.

Products

Using the stack, the Financial Technology Company (FinTech) partnered with stakeholders including mobile money service providers, to offer various financial inclusion products including credit, savings, insurance and Points.

Under credit, the FinTech offers entrepreneurs quick access to funds or asset finance while under the savings product, it builds and operates short-term, structured and long-term savings products that bear interest for savers.

Under its insurance product, it works with underwriters and insurance firms to create standalone or wrapped insurance products to safeguard people’s incomes, families, assets and businesses while under Points, it innovated a white label points programme that is used as a tool to drive and incentivise mobile transactions and empower people to build a personal digital financial profile.

It should be noted that JUMO, which is among those participating in the 40-days-40-FinTech initiative, also partnered with Airtel Uganda and launched Wewole, a micro-credit solution that provides a convenient way for Airtel Money customers and agents to access loan facilities via the Airtel Money platform.

“Our goal is to be a financial, digital bank that utilizes digital information to provide financial services,” Muhumuza said.

He alluded to the billions of people who still lack access to financial services, due to, among others, lack of the needed infrastructure.

“We thought there was need to connect entrepreneurs to the finance they need to grow and prosper,” he said, noting that the potential lies in people having mobile phones and mobile wallet that can transact and develop a financial identity.

40-days-40-FinTechs

The 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative organised by HiPipo, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation 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 companies acquire interoperable development skills to improve access to financial services, using the Mojaloop open source software

The HiPipo chief executive officer Innocent Kawooya expressed his excitement about JUMO’s financial inclusion efforts, saying that its products are taking a lead in democratising lending and borrowing.

“We are excited to interact with JUMO, a company that is enhancing financial inclusion in over 10 countries and serving more than 16 million customers.”

“While many have not heard about the word JUMO, I am sure they have interacted with Wewole by Airtel Uganda because thousands of Ugandans are using Wewole to get micro credit anywhere, anytime,” Kawooya said.

He noted that JUMO is implementing the core Financial Inclusion principles of Equality to Access, Affordability, Reliability and Availability.

JUMO’s background

JUMO was founded in 2014 in London by Andrew Watkins-Ball. The founding team started working to prove that data can be used to predict the financial behaviour of millions of people without access to finance.

Credit risk, engineering and other capabilities were then developed with industry-leading talent.

The first ecosystem partnerships were established with Tigo, Airtel and MTN to bring short-term loan products to people and small businesses in Kenya, Zambia and Uganda.

In 2016, the company had its first funding partner – Letshego Bank, Ghana – introduced to the operating platform, enabling payment and capital providers to work together to build products.

The following year, it won the Mastercard Foundation Clients at the Centre Prize, recognizing its outstanding value for customers. Additionally, Google selected it, alongside five other African startups, for its Launchpad Accelerator programme, winning The AppsAfrica Changing Africa Award, in recognition of the game changing initiatives across Africa.

Our Reporter.

The evolution of Financial Technology companies (FinTechs) is increasingly playing a critical role in salvaging informally operated Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which for long were unable to access credit from banks and Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs).

One such FinTech that has come in handy to serve businesses operating in this grey area is Swipe2Pay, a Ugandan payments solution that empowers SMEs to accept mobile money as well as card payment options.

According to Solomon Kitumba, the founder and head of products at Swipe2Pay, the FinTech offers a mobile point of sale that helps SMEs to sell smarter cashlessly and manage their businesses better.

The firm built a payment layer that allows SMEs accept payment from any mobile money service provider in Uganda, M-Pesa from Kenya and is also said to be in final stages of integrating with Interswitch to enable SMEs accept card payments.

To simplify the process, Kitumba said they built a one-step checkout process, where a client enters their phone mobile money registered number on the business owner’s phone and then enters a PIN code to approve the transaction, instead of the old cumbersome one process of using a USSD code.

“It’s important for us to be in the market; there is more than 16 million underserved SMEs in East Africa, with a USD 1b daily mobile money market. Many of these have never received even a single electronic payment ever; so we have helped people sale electronically for the first time through our platform,” he said.

Credit score

Shifting SMEs to take on payments from both mobile money and cards, will also help SMEs to be easily credit scored so as to enable them access credit against their sales.

According to Kitumba, one of the biggest challenges SMEs are grappling with is limited access to credit from banks and Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs), mainly due to lack of proper records and their informality. Swipe2Pay helps them streamline business processes, where SMEs are helped to manage sales and expenses, inventory and stock, employees as well as managing multiple locations.

“We work with SMEs because chances are high that they are not being looked at by the banks and MFIs because of their informality, with no books of accounts yet those are some of the things banks look at to make lending decisions.

“The Swipe2pay platform, however, allows SMEs to keep track of their cash flow, and manage stock and inventory, in addition to generating comprehensive business performance data that is used to determine their creditworthiness, building alternative credit scoring models and easing access to finance,” Kitumba said during an interaction with HiPipo, during the 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative session.

He added: “The Uganda annual microfinance market is over USD 4billion; still SMEs are not having a piece of this cake. Therefore, we believe that with the right tools and incentives, they should be able to accept cashless payments and also tap into receiving credit from banks and MFIs.”

In numbers

In one and a half years, the FinTech has signed up over 1,300 SMEs with more than 10,000 transactions, estimated in the excess of USD 281,000, done on its platform.

Additionally, the platform has over 2 million items in stock on the platform, with over 2000 individual item categories.

The HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya said collaboration and synergy is important if the world is to achieve full financial inclusion.

“We understand that we cannot be alone in the ecosystem. With over 371 tribes in Africa, you cannot connect everyone alone. That is why we thought it wise to have an initiative like 40-days-40-FinTechs because we believe that by allowing everyone to play their role, we will collectively achieve full financial inclusion,” Kawooya said.

He pledged that HiPipo will over the next four years support FinTechs like Swipe2Pay to ensure every one of those 16 million SMEs that have never received a digital payment, does so.

Additionally, he said that HiPipo would advocate to ensure that the ground is leveled for every player, irrespective of size to compete favorably.

“But as long as you are able to create innovative solutions that speak to the needs of our communities or businesses, then we should be able to have everyone have a platform and be able to provide their service as much as they can.”

About 40-days-40-FinTechs

The 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative is organised by HiPipo, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation.

It seeks to enable Financial Technology Companies 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.

Our Reporter.

While Sub-Saharan Africa countries are among the largest recipients of diaspora remittances, the region also suffers with some of the highest transfer costs than any other region in the world.

A 2018 World Bank report shows that on average, the cost of sending USD 200 to and from a country in the region was almost USD19, which is more than 20% higher than the charge for a remittance to any other region.

Frustrated over exorbitant charges and lack of innovation in the African-diaspora remittances, Douglas Kimani set out to start Frontier Alliance Limited, a technology company that is passionate about digital transformation.

According to Kimani, money transfer solutions have remained the same over the years, characterized by high fees and low exchange rates.

Based in Winnipeg, Canada, Frontier Alliance offers financial inclusion products in remittances and direct bill payments from anywhere in the world, thus eliminating middlemen, who most times misuse the hard-earned cash.

Kimani explained that while direct bill payment services have been out of reach for many Africans in the diaspora, Frontier Alliance’s products are set to provide the much-needed bridge to ensure that remittances fulfil the intended purposes.

“Diaspora remittances do not always fulfil the intended purposes such as settling education bills, hospital bills, utility bills because they are sent through a third party. But our direct bill product will close this gap by paying the service providers directly,” Kimani said.

He added: “Our promise is to provide real time money transfer service with direct bill payments, securely and conveniently, cost-effectively or at no-cost while providing traceability of the funds with good stewardship.”

The Financial Technology Company (FinTech) focuses mainly on financial services, health care and education while leveraging social, mobility and cloud technologies.

Kimani, whose company is among those participating in the 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative, applauded the project organisers, saying that the idea of promoting interoperability, especially within Africa, will help lower transactional costs further and make financial services more accessible.

“Interoperability and Mojaloop in the African financial inclusion journey is critical; Mojaloop is providing the missing link that Africa needs. Different partners are provided with a level playing field to start from,” he said.

He added: “Whether a company is a startup or a multi-billion dollar company, this will help innovation acceleration while observing global best practices.”

Kimani noted that being an open source software, Mojaloop has provided an opportunity to different stakeholder categories to be involved, through the use of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and open standards architecture, with level one principles.

As Frontier Alliance scales to meet the different user demands, Kimani explained, it will now be easy to integrate with Mojaloop and leverage other partners in the ecosystem to advance financial inclusion.

About 40-days-40-FinTechs

The 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative is organised by HiPipo, in partnership with Crosslake Tech, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation.

It seeks to enable Financial Technology Companies 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 Frontier Alliance for the innovation, saying that developing more interoperable digital payment solutions will play a major role in scaling uptake of digital financial services and improve the levels of financial inclusivity.

“Frontier Alliance is designing digital remittance solutions that will help increase direct foreign investments for several African economies and markets,” Kawooya said.

He added that the idea of eliminating middlemen will help create a trusted Africa – Diaspora reliable merchant and service provider network of schools, medical facilities, that helps every payer to pay directly and exactly for only what they wish to, conveniently from any part of the world.