HiPipo Money

By Our writer

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.

By Our writer

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.