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.
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