SPECIAL REPORT: Solar Kits for Reselling Power, Internet Access; Staff Training by Subscription; Free Business Planning Software on Offer as 30 Firms Showcase Inclusive Finance Products at SAM Innovators’ Village (Part Two)

Thirty organizations shared their latest products during the Innovators’ Village at the SAM conference held recently in Burkina Faso. Among these was Qotto, a provider of kits that bring solar power and internet to off-grid households. The kits include battery packs and can be used to run appliances such as lamps, televisions and telephone chargers. The system includes an app for tracking usage and allowing Qotto and the owner to share revenue from selling phone recharges or wireless internet access to neighbors.

Eclectics International offers a core banking system for financial services providers (FSPs) that was designed “by Africans for the African market.” Its features allow for loan disbursal via mobile money, as well as integration with automated teller machines (ATMs). Its mobile functionality for agents reduces the amount of time spent in the office entering data. In addition, its paperless document system can replace all paperwork. Staff can use tablets in the field via 2G, 3G or 4G networks, or they can work offline and allow the system to sync later when better connectivity is available. The cost of the system, which Eclectics has deployed 1500 times in 23 countries, can be shared among multiple organizations. In one instance, a new client raised its customer count by 10 times in a single year.

Gateway Academy offers FSPs consolidated access to an array of digital training providers. Classes, which last five to six weeks, cover topics such as leadership, customer centricity, digital financial services, working with agents and working with clients who lack credit histories. The facilitation of the classes is asynchronous, and work can be completed offline to be synced later. The service includes a tracking system for human resources staff to observe their colleagues’ progress. Payment is based on a yearly subscription model. Courses are available in English now and are due to be available in French beginning in 2020.

MSC (MicroSave Consulting) offers support regarding social and financial inclusion in India and 10 African countries. It assists FSPs with acquiring practical skills, becoming more customer-centric, accessing research to maximize effectiveness, and undergoing strategic and digital transformations.

Representatives from Musoni described their firm’s core banking system, which is deployed at FSPs in Africa and Asia. Its features include access for customers to view balances and perform transactions remotely, as well as to receive confirmations via SMS (text messaging). The staff app can function offline and then sync when connectivity is available. The Musoni System is a software-as-a-service, so pricing is based on a subscription model.

Hedera offers tools for measuring impact; an e-learning platform; and “Hedera Connect,” which helps FSPs, investors and consultants meet and communicate. The organization defines good data as being consistent across both countries and client segments; easily viewable, such as in a dashboard layout; and automatically distributed to stakeholders, such as investors. In addition to financial indicators, Hedera tracks criteria such as access to water and energy.

The Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT) is a foundation offering the “Catapult: Inclusion Africa” program for startups active in financial inclusion in Africa. The program is now accepting applications to spend a week in Luxembourg meeting with investors. Of the 11 participating startups last year, five each secured investments of EUR 1 million (USD 1.1 million) to EUR 5 million (USD 5.5 million).

Microfact offers free tools for FSPs to track financial and social indicators. One of these is Microvision, which helps smaller and midsize FSPs build five-year projections. It “provides a general framework for strategic and operational planning, but it also simulates the impact of different parameters on…overall activity.” Training sessions are available at rotating locations worldwide in English, French and Spanish.

This article is part of a sponsored series on SAM (the French acronym for African Microfinance Week), a major conference dedicated to financial inclusion in Africa. The most recent SAM took place in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, from October 21-25, 2019.

ADA, an NGO based in Luxembourg, co-organizes SAM every two years with the support of Luxembourg’s Ministry for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs. The SAM steering committee members are: ADA, Luxembourg’s Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, the Microfinance African Institutions Network, the African Rural and Agricultural Credit Association, and the Fédération des Association Professionnelle des Systèmes Financiers Décentralisés de l’Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine. We invite you to learn more about SAM at http://www.sam.africa.

MicroCapital has been contracted to promote and document each SAM since 2015.

Additional Resources

SAM
http://sam.africa/

Other MicroCapital coverage of SAM and vignettes demonstrating its value to participants
http://www.microcapital.org/category/semaine-africaine-de-la-microfinance-sam/

Vignettes demonstrating the value of SAM en francais
https://www.ada-microfinance.org/fr/evenements/semaine-africaine-microfinance/objectif-sam-2019/paroles-de-nos-participants