HiPipo Money

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.

Talk about Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) in Uganda and they will tell you how majority die before celebrating their fifth birthday. According to experts, this is due to a number of reasons but top on the list is poor record keeping and poor inventory management.

However, a group of entrepreneurs saw this challenge and instead of joining those condemning SMEs, they chose to change their narrative by innovating ChapChap – mobile payment application to help them improve record keeping to enable their businesses stay afloat and thrive.

ChapChap, a short form for Creating Harmony Among People, is a low cost innovative digital solution that enables people to easily access financial services as well as helping entrepreneurs in making informed decisions on how to improve and manage their businesses.

According to Monica Kiconco, one of the founders of ChapChap Africa, the app helps entrepreneurs to efficiently monitor their businesses especially for those who are not always around, to run their businesses and those who cannot afford to hire professional accountants.

It thus empowers business owners to keep track of their inventory stock, sales and revenue using their smartphones.

The features that enable that include sales recording – to enable businesses record and analyse sales data so as to make informed business decisions, inventory management – to manage quantity of stock to determine when and how to often reorder for stock, the e-payment feature which allows businesses to pay for services using the mobile money and tracking expenditure on the go.

“We exist to be the leading digital platform and not only staying on top but providing convenience, user friendly platform, enhanced services, value addition and relationships and profitability,” Kiconco said.

The app is helping communities especially people in the informal sector and small businesses to make smarter business decisions that will increase their chances of making more revenue and increase their chances of survival based on the fact that information collected by the application will effectively make running and managing businesses easy.

Kiconco noted that people who have used the app appreciate its usefulness in helping them manage their businesses better.

Motivation

The ChapChap mobile payment platform was launched in 2017 in Uganda, initially allowing customers to pay for digital goods and services and do online shopping while earning cashback on their transactions.Currently, it has over 7000 active users.

ChapChap was later re-designed to incorporate a Point of Sale feature which has since been incorporated into the app.

Kiconco said they were motivated into innovating the app after a team of friends that included software developers identified a need of bringing financial services closer to the undeserved members of their communities.

It was this dream that set them on the journey to create and innovate digital solutions that would seek to serve communities in an easy and better way.

The app that now has over one thousand subscribers in Uganda is set to spread to 10 African countries starting with East Africa countries – Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda.

The ChapChap team, however, expressed concern over the fact that it is costly to develop an application of such a magnitude and equally challenging to be able to bring it to the market.

“There are so many challenges and sacrifices incurred including funding and having the right human resource. But even with these challenges, we committed and determined to achieve the ultimate goal of bringing digital services closer to the community to improve their quality of life and businesses,” they said.

40-days-40-FinTechs

ChapChap is among the Financial Technology Companies (FinTechs) that are participating in the 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative project 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.

The HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya commended ChapChap founders, saying they are doing a real transformation of businesses through digitization.

He said that HiPipo will ensure that companies which are embracing technology are helped to move a step ahead to achieve inclusive financial inclusion for everyone.

“With 15 years in the business of digitalization of Africa, we want to see ChapChap become a global enterprise and we will be glad to have contributed towards you becoming a multinational technology company,” he 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 (FinTechs), 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 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 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.

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.