HiPipo Money

For Uganda to achieve last mile financial inclusion, there must be special focus on the unserved and underserved. This means that there must be equitable distribution and access to financial services.

Several innovators have developed and rolled out solutions aimed at democratizing savings and borrowing. But more efforts are needed if financial inclusion is to be achieved.

Among the platforms that are enabling people at the bottom of the pyramid to be able to save and access digital credit services is PesaSave.

According to Steven Emalu, the Co-Founder and Team Lead at PesaSave, they started PesaSave to address the challenges faced by those unable to be served by formal financial systems. He noted that around 2022, together with his colleagues, they tried to access credit from a bank, only to be locked out by the much paperwork, business data and lack of collateral accepted by the bank. This inspired them to start a platform that would offer an alternative to the unbanked, unserved and underserved.

“At PesaSave, we build financial technology solutions for the underserved and unbanked populations with a large focus on the Youth. We do this through the PesaSave Application that allows individuals mainly the Youth to create specific targets towards their financial needs and they periodically save towards achieving these goals. The Application is easy to access and use thus its users don’t need to travel to deposit their savings and the platform is transparent thus allowing them to track their savings,” Steven Emalu said.

He added: “We also work with groups of individuals mainly in informal sectors. These join as a group and start saving. Through these savings, they are able to meet their goals and also access credit. We are trying to create an alternative to credit as these unbanked and underserved groups are not able to access credit from formal financial institutions.”

Emalu highlighted that individual saving is open to any adult interested in saving money towards meeting a specific financial goal while group savings are for individuals that come together and agree to save as a group, agree on the saving period and the purpose of the savings.

“Both individuals and groups are able to access affordable credit against their savings. We ensure that when a group saves, individual members are able to access part of these savings as credit at an interest and terms determined by each group. Well as the credit has no collateral, those borrowing must have guarantors. So far, we are serving about 28 groups and over 600 individuals.”

He noted that to execute this work, PesaSave has partnered with licensed operators such as PayTota to support their payments and collections. He revealed that before the end of the year, they will also have a commercial bank partner and thus serve their customers better.

PesaSave has featured on Day 28 of the annual 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Not a day passes without an event in Uganda. It is either a music, dance and drama show or a themed party, or a sports activity or a professional gathering or cultural gathering, name it.

For all these events, there is one unique problem; the pain involved in accessing tickets. Save for a few events, in most cases, buying tickets and accessing the venues for these events is always a huge mess. This is usually because the tickets are manually sold and physically checked before one can actually attend their event of choice. This old way of doing things comes with so many problems top among them being fraud, theft, commotion and confusion.

That said, all this can be cured by one solution – digitized ticketing systems that allow revelers to book their seats, pay for tickets from wherever they are and turn up on the event day with digital tickets that only need a scan to confirm authenticity before they are let in.

Among the companies that are offering the digitized tickets alternative is Ticket Yo; a start-up that is focused on managing ticketing for events.

“We are an events’ ticketing platform. We are simplifying and streamlining the ticket acquisition process with in the Uganda Entertainment Industry. We help event organizers get their tickets in the easiest and fastest way possible to their target audiences. As an event organizer, you register with us, list your tickets and make them available. We then create for you a dashboard that indicates the numbers of visitors on your link, actually sales and money collected,” John Allan Ojera, the Founder of Ticket Yo said.

He added: “For the customers/revelers, they simply go to our website, choose the event they want to attend and then enter their emails and mobile numbers so that we are able to deliver to them the tickets digitally once they pay. A customer can then pay with either mobile money or bank cards after which they get a confirmation of payment. We then generate a ticket encrypted with security features and a unique QR code which we then share with the customer. This is what the customer presents on the event day.”

Ticket Yo has featured on Day 27 of the annual 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Uganda is blessed with hundreds of talented and competent Artisans. However, many of these are unable to showcase their skills due to absence of a ready and stable market for their services.

While their services are needed by different customers on a daily, linking up with these customers is usually a problem. It is this gap that Uncle Bob was established to close with the help of technology.

Uncle Bob is a digital platform that reimagines connections in a lively marketplace, uniting professionals from various fields with those seeking their expertise, turning connections into collaborations and dreams into reality.

Its key features include Home Solutions, Business to Business solutions, Artisans and Stores.

“Uncle Bob is a mobile APP that links customers to Artisans. What we do is that we onboard young men and women on Uncle Bob and make them available to customers who need their services. A customer only needs to download our APP, create an account, make a request for a service provider and we shall automatically link them to a professional service provider. Before we onboard any service provider, we take them through a series of competence assessment to ensure that each Artisan is qualified for the service s/he says they offer,” Denis Tusubira Kamira, the Project Coordinator, Uncle Bob said.

He added: “For example if a customer is looking for electrical services, when they log on to the APP, they will find different services. The customer will then select “Electrical Services,” and a dropdown of the various services under Electrical will appear. The customer will then select the exact service they need, when they need it and then submit the request. We usually encourage the customers to first submit an inspect and quote request so that the Artisan first shows up, gets to know the details of the job and then issues a proper quotation for this job.”

Mr Tusubira emphasized that Uncle Bob not only connects the Artisans to customers but also follows up to ensure that each job was completed before the service providers get paid.

“The platform has integrated with two Aggregators – Yo Uganda and Pegasus. When a customer makes a payment via mobile money, it is deducted and received on our account and the job will be accepted on the system. Once the job is done, we get a confirmation from the customer that job has been completed after which we transfer the payment to the Artisan. In future, we intend to integrate directly with mobile money operators so that to make our services faster and seamless for Artisans and customers.”

He highlighted that Uncle Bob has so far identified about 5000 Artisans with in Kampala, Mukono and Wakiso, and onboarded over 3,500 Artisans. He noted that Uncle Bob is supported by Mastercard Foundation and Private Sector Foundation Uganda through the Lead Firm Structure program.

Uncle Bob has featured on Day 26 of the annual 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Uganda is an agro based economy. As a result of this, efforts to modernize agriculture and make it much more profitable are always welcome. 

In the last one decade, several initiatives aimed at transforming agriculture have been rolled out. While many have yielded positive results, some failed badly. However, those focused on digitizing the agricultural value chain continue to flourish.

Among the entities that are offering digital services to hundreds of farmers is MobiPay; a platform that seeks to revolutionize the agricultural sector, making it more efficient, transparent, and inclusive.

“We are an Agri-FinTech that provides technological services to farming communities. Part of our main work is to ensure that farmers can have access to digital services, able to receive payments for their products, able to pay for inputs digitally and also access a wider market. We were established in 2016 and went to the market in 2017. We have both the MobiPay and Agrosys platforms which are both integrated to offer seamless services to farmers,” Eric Nana Kwabena Agyei, the Founder of MobiPay AgroSys Limited said.

He added: “Together with my co-founder we did some study in 2015. We wanted to find out if financial institutions were willing to lend to smallholder farmers. What we found out was that small holder farmers had a major risk because they didn’t have data of what they had been doing. We noticed that this high risk made it hard for financial institutions to lend to the farmers. Even input providers couldn’t extend credit due to lack of data. So, we decided to create a platform that would use technology to make farmers credit worthy and able to access all these services.”

Mr Nana Kwabena noted that currently they are operating with about 400,000 farmers across Uganda with about 25 per cent of these being active currently and happy with the MobiPay service.

“We are working across 86 districts in Uganda. We have offices in the East, North and Kampala. We are also working with about 240 agents. Most of the farmers we are working with belong to cooperatives. But a farmer who doesn’t belong to any farmer group or cooperative can directly reach out to us and we shall gladly serve them. But currently, over 90 per cent of our customers come from farmer groups.”

The key services that MobiPay offers are access to inputs, market match & access to market information, access to Agricultural training, Agriculture diagnosis and access to Agronomy services.

MobiPay has featured on Day 25 of the annual 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Many businesses in Uganda have in the last four years expanded from merely physical businesses to embracing e-commerce as a reliable way of trading. While many businesses have accepted e-commerce, most of them continue to face several hurdles when it comes to receiving and making payments. This mainly affects the micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) that don’t have the capacity to invest in ‘inhouse’ payment management systems.

However, there are players on the market that have innovated solutions to address this and make e-commerce a worthwhile undertaking. Among the organizations that are offering reliable payment management services for businesses is Flutterwave – one of Africa’s very few Unicorns.

“Flutterwave is Africa’s largest payment company. We facilitate seamless payments across Africa. In Uganda, we offer different products. These include a send APP – which is a platform that allows people mainly those in the diaspora to send and receive money across the continent. We also have Flutterwave for Business which is our flagship product. This allows businesses to be able to accept payments and make payments off our platform 24/7,” Arnold Kwesiga, the Flutterwave AVP for Global Expansion, Payments and Partnerships for East Africa said.

He added: “Flutterwave for business offers a 24/7 shopping experience. It gives more than value for money as it provides a one stop center for displaying and selling products, receiving payments and making payments. You are able to look at your business dynamics and performance all on the same platform.”

Kwesiga noted that small businesses only need minimum requirements before they get onboarded and start transacting on Flutterwave.

“For small businesses, we only need to know the kind of business they do, their registration and legal status. Once we receive this and conclude our due diligence, we will then onboard the business on our platform and give them a merchant ID. After this, we then guide the business on how to transact. We are able to collect their payments whether it is through mobile money on bank cards. Similarly, after collecting this money, we then settle the business based on their payment and time preference – this may be mobile money or bank transfer.  Some businesses want to be settled weekly, after two weeks or monthly.”

He further noted that Flutterwave is fully regulated and licensed by Bank of Uganda under the National Payment Systems (NPS) Act, 2020.

Flutterwave has featured on Day 24 of the annual 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Though expensive, quality healthcare is a basic need and somewhat a human right! Unfortunately, in low developed countries, quality healthcare is a preserve for the rich and those connected to big organizations that offer health insurance packages. This thus leaves out the less privileged who, unfortunately are the overwhelming majority. 

In a move to mitigate this and effectively close the access to quality healthcare gap, innovators are developing solutions that enable even the poor to save in preparation for the bad, ‘rainy’ days.

One such platform is clinicPesa; an African financial technology start-up that enables its customers to save as low as UGX 500 towards their healthcare needs in addition to extending healthcare loans to customers who come face to face with high medical bills over and above their savings.

“What we do at clinicPesa is that we enable those without access to healthcare financing to save for healthcare. We are a digital wallet that enables our customers to save and also use our loan offerings to pay and clear their medical bills at so many healthcare facilities that we have partnered with across the country,” Eng. Chrispinus Onyancha, the Founder and CEO at clinicPesa noted.

He added: “To implement this, we have partnered with MTN MoMo and those without smartphones only dial *165*44# and get started. Those with smart phones, only have to download our APP from the Play Store, create an account and they are good to go.” 

Among the key unique features that this platform offers is the clinicPesa Mamas; a product designed to help expectant mothers plan and effectively prepare for the entire pregnancy journey from antenatal to delivery and postnatal care.

“clinicPesa MaMa’s is a behaviorally driven mobile money maternal health savings account platform that empowers expectant women and couples to access timely savings towards maternity care, birth preparedness kits, up keep, as well as afford transportation to the healthcare center, hence enabling them afford safe child delivery.”

Eng. Onyancha noted that clinicPesa is currently available in over 2700 healthcare facilities spread across Uganda.

“We started in 2017 and today, we have over 1.6 million customers on our clinicPesa platform. In the past 12 months alone, we onboarded over 800,000 new customers. We partnering with over 2700 healthcare centres spread across all corners of the country. These include clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies.”

He revealed that clinicPesa is both licensed and regulated by the Bank of Uganda.

“We hold two bank of Uganda licenses. That is the payment system operator license and payment service provider license. The regulations by Bank of Uganda mean that people’s funds are protected and safe from misuse.”

clinicPesa has featured on Day 23 of the annual 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The hard-economic times mean that every now and then, many people are always seeking for financial assistance. Family and friends are always the most immediate people for seeking for financial help but in circumstances where they too are broke, then borrowing from money lenders is the only way out.

Unfortunately, getting money from credit institutions is a nightmare. Financial institutions like Banks, Saccos and microfinances are closed to members, ask for so much paperwork and their processes can drag on for weeks and months thus defeating the actual purpose of seeking for the loan. On the other hand, loan sharks always have money available immediately but their interest rates and terms are unrealistic and indefensible.

Nonetheless, in the middle of this suffering and confusion, innovators are using financial technology to ease the pain of Ugandans. One way they are doing this is through developing digital loans platforms that have realistic terms and interest. While many digital loans platforms are equally unreasonable, there are a few authentic and ideal ones.

Among the few credible digital loans platforms operating in Uganda is JUMO; a market-leading banking service platform that enables real-time access to funds at the lowest possible operating cost.

Well as the brand JUMO is not a household name, its products are household names and used by millions across Uganda every day. JUMO’s flagship products in Uganda are Wewole accessible on Airtel Money and MoSente available on MTN MoMo.

“JUMO started operations in 2015. We use artificial intelligence to provide financial services in emerging markets. To do this, we partner with capital providers on one side and mobile money operators like MTN MoMo and Airtel Money on the other side. In Uganda, JUMO provides Wewole in partnership with Airtel Money. We also provide MoSente in partnership with MTN MoMo. These loans are given to eligible customers; these must be registered and actively transacting. When one is getting the loan, s/he selects their preferred repayment time, which can be weekly, two weeks or one month,” Wilfred Wabwire, the JUMO country manager for Uganda explained.

He highlighted that for the years JUMO has been providing services in Uganda, it has served over 5 million customers.

“We launched Wewole in 2017 and to date have served over 4 million unique users. We launched MoSente in December 2021 and to date have served over 1 million users. 65 per cent of our customers are MSMEs and 30 per cent are women. In terms of Youth participation; 16 per cent are below the age of 24 and 44 per cent are between 25 and 34 years. The beauty with our loans is that they are accessible through USSD thus catering for last mile customers that use feature phones.”

But even with this coverage, Wabwire emphasized that there are still millions of unbanked and unserved Ugandans that don’t have access to financial services and thus players must continue to innovate and collaborate so that these customers are reached and served.

JUMO has featured on Day 22 of the annual 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Uganda is blessed with very many quality Artisans. However, most of these are not earning as much as they would rightfully earn due to market access challenges. This market information gap is what Trillion Looks Store was established to close. It has since embedded e-commerce with financial technology (Fintech) and in so doing contributing to Uganda’s economic transformation through connecting Artisans to a wider global market.

“We are a social enterprise that works with marginalized Artisan designers to enable them produce quality products and sell them to a mass market across the globe through e-commerce.  Our platform was designed for Artisans mainly men and women who make handcrafts. We encourage them to produce quality products which we then upload on our platform for potential buyers. We started this platform in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic when Artisans wouldn’t access buyers due to the lockdown. So, we created a platform that would keep Artisans in business by connecting them to buyers. So, on one hand, we have the Artisan designers and on the other hand, we have the potential buyers,” Cerinah Kasirye, the Trillion Looks Store Founder said, adding;

“For customers, you simply log on to our platform and select a product of your choice. If it is a drum, you click on it and find its details. You then select the quantities you want after which the system will automatically calculate your bill depending on the country you are in. When you click buy now, the platform will then collect your basic KYC information and you will pay digitally through mobile money or bank cards. We shall then proceed to deliver your product with the help of our transport partners. The delivery time depends on where you are and we always communicate this with our customers.”

Kasirye noted that since inception, they have onboarded at-least 200 Artisans and served more than 1000 customers locally and globally. She revealed that 60 per cent of customers are women.

Trillion Looks Store has featured on Day 21 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

About 30 percent of Ugandans were living below the poverty line in 2019/20, a percentage point slightly lower than the 31 percent recorded in 2012/13. The poverty rate used in the World Bank study was based on revisions made to the poverty line by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) in 2021.

As such, efforts to stop, and somewhat eradicate poverty are always a sigh of relief. In Africa, several organizations continue to roll out programs to eradicate poverty. One such organization is Village Enterprise.

Founded in 1987 and currently operating in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, and Ethiopia, Village Enterprise is a non-profit that works to end extreme poverty in Africa. Building on over three decades of experience in Uganda, Village Enterprise works with large international nonprofits and conservation partners in northern, central, and western Uganda.

“The Village Enterprise model is around something called the Poverty Graduation Model. In this model, we do business skills training with individuals we have identified are living below the poverty line. We mentor them and also give them cash grants to start their businesses. With this model, it is a group of three that starts a business and thus the cash grants go to a group of three. This money is for starting businesses or further investing in their businesses and is not paid back,” Mercy Angela Nantongo, the Digital Product Manager at Village Enterprise noted.

She added: “To qualify for this program, we go to the field and do surveys to confirm whether someone is living through the poverty lines. After this identification, we do the trainings and mentorships and those that complete these trainings then qualify for the grants. The people we serve are determined by where they stay, what they own, and the information submitted in the survey.”

Nantongo noted that they are now incorporating financial technology (Fintech) in their operations to enable the beneficiaries to have sustainable businesses.

“We have introduced a digital solution that enables our groups to do record keeping and save their money digitally. This solution enables them to do their meetings, record their money digitally, and also keep track of their goals. We also deliver our cash grants via mobile money. But we are currently exploring better ways of doing this because remember the cash grants go to a group of three and a mobile money line is usually owned by one person. So, we are looking at better ways of ensuring that when this money is sent, all the three beneficiaries rightly use it for the intended purpose without misuse from a single individual,” Nantongo explained. 

Village Enterprise has featured on Day 20 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Agriculture remains the backbone of Uganda’s economy, but its full potential is still hindered by various challenges. These include underfunding, inaccessible inputs, climate change, limited market information, and failure to modernize.

Even with all this happening, there is renewed hope as technology continues to aid the conceptualization, development, and roll-out of platforms to address these ills.

One such platform that is enabling thousands of farmers to get better yields from their gardens and ultimately earn more from agriculture is ETG Inputs.

According to Ponsiano Byansi, an agronomist at ETG, ETG Input is part of the wider Export Trading Group (ETG) that has been in operation since 1967. He says ETG Inputs specifically deals with the importation and distribution of fertilizers, crop protection products, and extension services.

“We are also in the digital space to ensure that farmers are not left behind in the digital era. We address this through our ETG one-stop solution APP that ensures that farmers have access to finance services, market information, and crop protection information. Not every farmer knows what chemical is used to kill what pest. So, through the ETG One-Sop Solutions APP, we ensure that this information is readily available to farmers. So, a farmer can make a diagnosis of their crop using the ETG one-stop solution APP. S/he can be able to know what disease they have in the garden and through the APP, they can contact an agronomist who is ready to provide real-time advice on what product the farmer should use,” Mr Byansi said.

He added: “The APP also provides the farmer with a financial management and expenses tracking platform that enables them to track down their expenses for a particular season. In addition, the APP allows us to collect Know your customer (KYC) information for customers and thus enables us to extend credit to big commercial farmers and Agro-dealers.”

Byansi noted that the ETG APP is available on Google Play store, readily accessible and usable by all farmers.

“Our vision is to offer 360 happiness and create a sustainable impact in the lives of farmers. We have about 500 Agro-dealers spread across Uganda. We have so far reached over 100,000 farmers from across Uganda.”

ETG Inputs has featured on Day 19 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.