On this week's episode of the #IdeationCorner is John Mark Ssebunnya, a Fintech Platforms Architect.
He breaks down the role of #Fintechs in financial and
digital inclusion across Africa as well as the impact they have on the
attainment of the #SDGs.
Sharon Tumusiime is the co-founder of PALIT, a carpentry workshop that makes creative woodwork and furniture. PALIT makes furniture from Ugandan natural wood for homes, offices and for special projects. In this episode, she breaks down what it takes to thrive in the carpentry sector.
Include
Everyone program is a collection of related financial inclusion outreach
projects including hackathon, expo, summit, awards and research. The projects
are managed in a synchronized way to obtain maximum benefits of ensuring
impactful engagement of financial
inclusion stakeholders to effectively promote approaches that will enable
financial inclusion for everyone.
The 2019
Include EveryOne Summit was held on 20th September at Mestil Hotel, Kampala. It
was attended by over 300 digital and financial leaders from across Africa.
Innovation
is the foundation block of any successful enterprise.
In this
episode, I sat down with CK Japheth, the founder and CEO of the Innovation
Village.
The
Innovation Village is Uganda’s launchpad for leading innovators and
entrepreneurs co-creating the future through the smart application of
technology.
Watch and
share widely.
Technology
is taking the lead in global development.
In this
episode, Valentine Masicha tells us how her organisation - Mindset Coders, is
preparing kids and teens for the future.
Enjoy and
share any feedback.
Welcome to the first episode of the Ideation Corner where I host expert personalities who have conceptualised ideas, developed ideas and implemented ideas.
In this
episode, I hosted Innocent Kawooya the co-founder and CEO of HiPipo. Enjoy and
I look forward to your feedback.
Hotel Africana, attracting over 1000 Women in Trade and Business from allover Uganda.
It was organized by URA in partnership with Kampala City Traders Association (KACITA) Women's League.
I delivered a speech on what Women in Trade must do to be competitive not only in Uganda but also East Africa and the rest of the world.
Enjoy and remember to leave a comment.
The
COVID19 pandemic is literally changing the way we live our daily lives. Several
countries have imposed stringent lockdown measures as ways of combating the
dreaded disease.
These
Stay at Home restrictions have resulted into the slowing down of the social and
economic life, with most activities coming to a near standstill and haunting
images of empty streets from Lagos to Kampala, to Cape Town to Addis Ababa
becoming part of the ‘new normal’.
Unlike
other global crises, such as the 2008 financial crisis, or the 2014 commodities
crisis, which put stress on capital markets and the macro and formal economies,
the COVID19 pandemic has impacted both the formal and informal economies.
These
lockdowns and curfews have had a disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable
people of our societies; particularly the women and the urban poor, who are
mostly engaged in informal activities with a daily income, and do not have the
luxury of working from home.
Majority
of the daily income earners, as well as micro and small entrepreneurs will not
be able to meet their loans obligations because their sources of income have
literally dried up due to the lockdowns. Also, the collection of microfinance loans,
which usually happens on a cash basis during weekly groups’ meetings, has come
to a halt as authorities have put in place strong social distancing guidelines.
Most
of these people have not only lost their livelihoods, in this COVID19 lockdown,
but have also lost the capital that they had for their informal activities.
Such capital normally ranges from between USD30 to USD100. Therefore, because
of this pandemic, a large section of the population is likely to fall further
into poverty.
The silver lining is that if there ever was a time for FinTech to
innovatively save the poor, it is now.
FinTech
refers to the integration of technology to develop financial services with
limited operational costs and with the capacity to bridge the financial
inclusion gap.
The
tenets of financial inclusion strive to remove the barriers that exclude the poorest
of the poor from participating in financial activities. Therefore, FinTech can
also help mitigate the economic cost of lockdowns and avoid irreversible damage
to the social economic fabric of our societies.
The World Bank notes
that financial inclusion means that individuals and businesses have access
to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs,
including transactions, payments, savings, credit, and insurance, delivered
responsibly and sustainably.
The access to a transaction
account is the first step towards financial inclusion because it allows the
most vulnerable, including women and people with disabilities (PWDs), in
society to save money, send and receive payments.
Therefore,
it is the low cost fintech solutions that hold the key to reaching out to the
over 1.7billion people worldwide who are still excluded from formal financial
services.
FinTech
solutions can be developed to serve the most vulnerable individuals in society
through salient features such as mobile money wallet to wallet, products and
services payments, saving and credit facilities plus cross border remittances
among others.
So far,
the mobile money developments seem to be the most utilised feature of FinTech worldwide.
According to Statista Data, the global mobile money payment market had surpassed
USD1trilion by the end of 2019.
The
wide embrace of FinTech across the African continent is significant and various
reports indicate that mobile money has been one of the most revolutionary
technologies launched in Africa in recent years.
It
is a fact that digital financial services are the leading drivers of financial
inclusion for the unbanked in Africa. As of 2018, Nigeria had
approximately 172million phone
subscribers, which provided
over 90 percent of its citizen’s access to digital transactions on mobile
phones.
Also, in
Uganda, the 2018 FINSCOPE report indicated a 78
percent (14million people) surge in the country’s financial inclusion rate
majorly supported by mobile money services.
Indeed, a lot of progress has been made towards
financial inclusion, and 1.2billion adults worldwide have got access to an
account since 2011. However, according to data from Findex 1.7billion people
are still unbanked.
Therefore, despite the commendable strides made
by fintech, a wide gap remains for women, PWDs, rural populations, as well as
the young and urban poor.
Women are particularly disadvantaged because of
the digital gender divide. A recent study, conducted in 86 percent of
low-income countries, found that more men own mobile phones than women. The
study also found that 58 percent of these same countries have a gender gap of
more than 5 percent.
Unfortunately, this gender gap prevents women
from fully and gainfully participating in the economic activities. The fact is
that even when women own a mobile phone, which can enable them to access FinTech
services, they are generally less likely than men to connect to the internet.
This detrimentally curtails the transformational impact that fintech can
provide.
Based
on the foregoing, financial inclusion will only be attained if FinTech operators
focus their services and developments to solutions that can help women, PWDs, the
low-income earners, the urban poor, the unbanked, the underbanked, as well as
the small and medium-sized enterprises.
This
Coronavirus crisis provides an opportunity for FinTech players to adapt and innovate
financial inclusion solutions that support the most vulnerable and limit the
long-term negative impact, as well as provide buffer against future similar
crises.
It
also gives the rest of us a chance to back and, where possible, present a case
for prioritizing FinTech as the silver bullet for acing the financial inclusion
challenge.
By
prioritizing FinTech, we will have ensured that the most vulnerable people of
our societies do not only survive the COVID19 pandemic, but also, that they are
given a fair chance to thrive after the pandemic.
