In the last 4 years working in digital currency in Africa. I have done app after app to solve problems here locally and solutions that can scale. The solutions have included;
- Creating a wallet that allows digital value to be remitted from one user to another.
- Peer to Peer Lending System within the wallet.
- Crowdfunding.
- Utility Payments.
- Mobile Money Gateway.
- Visa Gateway.
SocialPay
This Platform extends the mobile money platform (peer to peer remmitance) and wraps it to work well with eCommerce or mCommerce. Any user can create a link to product and generate a short link that is automatically sharable to all the social media outlets. This lowers the cost of setting up an ecommerce platform to sell everyday goods. We also did a Woocommerce plugin for extending payments to allow mobile money (our local digital currency). This platform is built ontop of Easypay API and showcases the Easypay API. Here is an infographic to explain how it works
Mafuta
This is a platform that wraps the whole idea of peer to peer lending to work with drivers and fuel stations. Basically, you can borrow money to buy fuel and payback later. You can pay back later using Mobile Money. This App also runs on the EasyPay API.
These ideas in theory would work well and we had a bit of success piloting these. The biggest issue is that awareness of the public on such products comes at a terrible price. We have tried engaging investors around the world and no one is interested as they see Africa as a risk. The truth is that it maybe, but the rewards can be overwhelming.
Mobile Money esp. mpesa has been Africa's biggest success story to the world. The numbers exist and Africa is embracing the technology. Below is statistics on Digital Cuurency growth of just mPesa in Kenya.
So, why do african tech startups always get ignored?