HiPipo Money

Our Reporter.

The payment industry is increasingly experiencing a high level of disruption that is reshaping the payments space, thanks to a surge of new technology-driven processes.

Operated by Financial Technology Companies (FinTech), the digital applications are enabling users to take payments to the next level in terms of speed, efficiency and convenience.

And one firm that has greatly contributed to this disruption in Uganda is Craft Silicon, a Kenyan headquartered FinTech that provides customized banking solutions for the financial sector across the world.

Craft Silicon was founded in 2000 when Kamal Budhabhatti developed an application to help manage expenses. It was then adopted by Micro Finance institutions before it later evolved into a core banking system dubbed the Bankers Realm in a space of two years.

Over the years, the FinTech has risen to become a market leader owing its success to the innovativeness.

It has over 35 commercial banks and 150 Micro Finance institutions on its core banking and core Micro Finance products, respectively.

According to the firm’s Uganda team leader John Baptist Ochieng, the FinTech is inspired by the desire to innovate so as to make financial products available and accessible to the target audiences easily and conveniently.

In addition to the core banking system, the firm is also a key player in the mobile banking; it has innovated mobile banking platforms for over 150 banking customers, connected to over 14 African countries. According to Ochieng, the company handles over 1.6 million transactions daily.

Under the mobile banking platform, one is able to pull money from their bank account into the mobile money wallet and vice versa.

It also facilitates bill payments for utility companies such as National Water and Sewerage Corporation and Umeme, buying airtime and loan access via mobile phones.

“As need arises every day for financial inclusion, we innovate around that to see that everyone can access their money or pay bills, loans and the like,” Ochieng said.

Other products are self-account opening for connected banks, agency banking, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) for SMEs, an e-voucher system for farmers being implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries and a payment gateway for the  National Information Technology Authority that allows interoperability for all government ministries, departments and agencies.

It is also working on another product that targets merchants’ payment, where one can pull money from bank account and pay directly for goods and services.

“We are committed to growing financial inclusion in the country and Africa as a whole,” Ochieng said.

Efforts.

Different stakeholders including the government and the private sector are playing a critical role to ensure that they reduce the number of people who are still financially excluded.

According to the 2018 FinScope survey, financial inclusion in Uganda increased to 78%, driven mainly by mobile money services.

The HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya said that technology in Africa is a prime sector that everyone wants to be a part of and that it is playing a critical role in transforming millions of lives through financial inclusion.

He commended Craft Silicon for a great team of energetic youth, which he said are doing everything it takes to ensure that the world achieves full financial inclusion.

“We are truly excited to engage with Craft Silicon in the great series of 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative because it is only right that we shine a spotlight on a company that has played a tremendous role is breaking down digital barriers and bringing millions of people on the continent into the digital transactional space,” he said.

Craft Silicon 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 latest technology such the Mojaloop open source software.

By Our Writer

The Ugandan economy is heavily weighted in international trade, especially as an importer, mainly from China.

Despite this, traders were finding challenges with cross-border payments as they involved multiple parties, currencies, regulations and risks.

However, in a bid to make international payment more accessible and efficient to businesses, Ugmart, a Financial Technology Company (FinTech) has come in to bridge the gap.

The company focuses on providing secure and seamless electronic payment solutions for both small and medium enterprises and large enterprises, delivering reliable merchant services that allow businesses to transact seamlessly.

The company provides financial technology that includes payment solutions along with mobile and web application development. These range from prepaid credit cards, Mobile Point-Of-Sale (POS) to e-wallet payments.

The e-wallet product for instance is a merchant product that allows one to put money in the wallet and be able to transact from anywhere in the world.

According to Patrick Kizito, the Ugmart chief executive officer, the wallet offers an easy way to move money around the round, ensures safety of one’s funds, eliminates exchange rate risks and offers flexibility.

Ugmart works with a number of electronic money issuers including Visa, MasterCard and UnionPay, among others.

Additionally, the company offers a WebPay product that allows businesses to receive money from a different electronic money service provider from across the world and be able to push the money onto a bank account, in that country’s local currency.

This product is mainly for businesses such as supermarkets, restaurants and schools, among others.

Further, UGMart has a wallet product for schools that enables parents and pupils to manage pocket money effectively. The product enables parents to deposit their kids’ pocket money on an account which is accessible at the school through a POS machine and a unique smart card for each student.

Ugmart currently has over 200,000 users collectively, according to Kizito.

Ugmart is among the FinTechs participating in the 40-days-40-FinTechs project, an initiative organised by HiPipo under its Include EveryOne programme, 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 said: “I am excited to hear that Ugmart is helping people to trade across the seas, especially with China using a wallet that is dedicated to ensure that their money is safe and accessible wherever they are.”

He added: “The fact that you are already onboarding a number of service providers – union, visa, mastercard, mobile financial services, you are already thinking of making sure that everyone is included.”

He noted that as a people-centric brand, HiPipo is mindful and would like to ensure that it supports FinTechs which are using technology to solves the challenges facing Africa so as to play a role in the fight against poverty.

The 40-days-40-FinTechs initiative is expected to climax with the FinTechs Landscape Exhibition on July 16-17, 2020.

Kawooya noted that while the initiative seeks to shine a light on prime stories that are changing millions of lives across Africa, it will also validate the fact that Africans do not just copying technology from developed countries, but rather innovating solutions that speak to the challenges facing Africans.

“The financial technology that the western world is thinking about is meant to solve challenges of the future, may be 20 years from now but not the current challenges facing Africa. It is Africans that are innovating the exact solutions that we need now,” Kawooya said.

Our Reporter.

Making financial services available to more people by lowering costs and barriers to access is increasingly becoming a key focus area for Financial Technology Companies (FinTechs) that seek to ensure financial inclusion for all.

Their transformative power owes to their ability to serve the once financially excluded people, using technology to facilitate mobile payments, provide loans, bill payments and money transfers, among others.

One of the entities with potential of becoming prominent in that space is Enabling Finance, a Najjera-based money lending finance company providing affordable and easier financial services to the public.

The firm started in 2014, offering personal secured loans to university students before venturing into short-term market loans.

However, this saw the company suffer a major setback, as most borrowers did not repay the loans, pushing the company in liquidity challenges.

This, however, did not water down their spirit as they bounced back in 2017 with an innovative solution dubbed FINABLR, tier IV money lending network application that connects diligent borrowers to professional moneylenders under a friendly and enabling environment.

This product, according to Luke Yyeyo, Enabling Finance founder and chief executive officer, has proved to be a game changer to both individuals and businesses that want easy access to loans.

“As we were working to grow our portfolio in 2017, we realised that technology was the solution to lending issues faced in the past and that is when we developed FINABLR,” Yyeyo said.

FINABLR, according to Yyeyo, is flexible, allows private individual lenders to partner with the company since the country’s law does not allow unregistered lenders to get involved in the lending business and any one can apply for a loan.

Additionally, it prepares clients that could be ineligible for the current loan for future financial acceptance, enables lenders to fill in gaps for other lenders that cannot meet their professional take and also offers affordable interest rates to borrowers.

The company’s goal is to provide refined financial services using state of the art technology and methods, delivered through world-class customer care so as to economically empower the population.

To apply for a loan, one is on boarded on the FINABLR application through a website; one submits the loan application on the app, indicating the purpose for which they want the funds.

Enabling Finance is one of the financial players taking part in the 40-days-40-FinTechs project, an initiative of 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.

40 days-40-FinTechs project

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.

“We are pleased to be part of the 40-days-40-FinTechs project. As a young company, such engagements help us improve our product and platforms. We are able to learn best FinTech practices,” Yyeyo said.

He added: “We have had a great discussion about Mojaloop and interoperability; our developers have their work cut out. New technologies are available. It is up to us to make good use of them. I thank HiPipo for organizing this.”

The HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya applauded Enabling Finance for democratizing money lending, saying that it creates an ecosystem that allows anyone to borrow and lend freely, which will in turn result in a democratic network that will change the narrative, especially about moneylenders as being shrewd people.

“We are talking about an economy that includes everyone; so we are talking about solutions that are enabling the last man at the bottom of the pyramid to access financial services,” Kawooya said.

He added: “We are speaking to how we can collaborate with technology providers and cut your costs and then have interoperable solutions to make it easy for lending from anywhere using technology. It is not something that can be done in one day because it is a long journey but as long you plan ahead of time, you get there.”

Our Reporter.

While most Ugandans describe land as the key to wealth, leaving it idle for years is not a smart idea.

In Uganda, it is not unusual for one to leave their piece of land vacant for years because they do not have funds to develop it.

Even though it appreciates in value over time, the returns may not be commensurate if it had been developed.

To help more Ugandans harness the potential of their land assets, Buladde, a Savings and Credit Co-operative organisation (Sacco) was born in 2016, to help the Buganda Land Board staff to improve their security of tenure, develop their land and improve their way of living through savings and borrowing.

“We discovered that most people did not have money to secure their land, they cannot get money to survey their land or even finish their houses. So we decided  to start a Sacco where people could save and take credit to develop their land,” John Mark Golooba, the  Buladde Financial Services manager said.

From 80 members in 2016, Buladde currently has a total membership of 2,553 members as of December 2019 and about sh1.12 billion has been disbursed out in loans in the last 4 years.

Although credit was initially for land-related developments, Golooba said that they later realised that people need credit to do other developmental projects such as business.

Despite the growth, Golooba said the Sacco has been grappling with a number of challenges including some people wanting to access credit yet they do not want to save.

“Most of our people do not have a good saving culture and we discovered that such people also find it had to re-pay loans. However, Buladde came to change this narrative; we empower our members to develop themselves, borrow at affordable rates and repay in a convenient period,” Golooba said.

He, however, said that the saving culture is constrained by the manual process of saving and accessing credit, which makes it hard for members from far districts such as Masaka to diligently save and also access their savings when they need to.

Technology

Golooba, however, noted that the Covid-19 pandemic which forced the government to institute measures to constrain movement of people has opened their eyes about the importance of adopting the use of technology.

“Technology is very important for Saccos; banks and mobile money come in handy as we deliver our services. We are pleased to be part of the 40-days-40-FinTechs project and looking forward to improving our systems to further serve our clients,” he said.

Buladde is one of the entities participating in the 40-days-40-FinTechs project, an initiative of 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 Buladde for the initiative to promote savings and credit through a niche product – land, but urged them to embrace technology, saying that currently, it relates to every sector.

“This is an intriguing product; you realised that you are in control of land that is usually an asset for security in every financial institution. If you are to give a loan, you know where to start from in case you need any recoveries. This is a niche centric product that is not only helping people understand finance but are also helping people learn good financial habits like savings,” Kawooya said.

He added: “The main role of financial technology is to improve financial inclusion and you are already doing that; you are already encouraging very many people to save money and also extending out credit to help people improve their businesses.”

Kawooya pledged to help Buladde get a test platform free of charge within about six months, so as to onboard its members on a digital system, powered by Mojaloop.

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.