Though expensive, quality healthcare is a basic need and somewhat a human right! Unfortunately, in low developed countries, quality healthcare is a preserve for the rich and those connected to big organizations that offer health insurance packages.
This thus leaves out the less privileged who, unfortunately are the overwhelming majority.
In a move to mitigate this and effectively close the access to quality healthcare gap, innovators are developing solutions that enable even the poor to save in preparation for the bad, ‘rainy’ days.
One such platform is clinicPesa; an African financial technology start-up that enables its customers to save as low as UGX 500 towards their healthcare needs in addition to extending healthcare loans to customers who come face to face with high medical bills over and above their savings.
“What we do at clinicPesa is that we enable those without access to healthcare financing to save for healthcare. We are a digital wallet that enables our customers to save and also use our loan offerings to pay and clear their medical bills at so many healthcare facilities that we have partnered with across the country,” Eng. Chrispinus Onyancha, the Founder and CEO at clinicPesa noted.
He added: “To implement this, we have partnered with MTN MoMo and those without smartphones only dial *165*44# and get started. Those with smart phones, only have to download our APP from the Play Store, create an account and they are good to go.”
Among the key unique features that this platform offers is the clinicPesa Mamas; a product designed to help expectant mothers plan and effectively prepare for the entire pregnancy journey from antenatal to delivery and postnatal care.
“clinicPesa MaMa’s is a behaviorally driven mobile money maternal health savings account platform that empowers expectant women and couples to access timely savings towards maternity care, birth preparedness kits, up keep, as well as afford transportation to the healthcare center, hence enabling them afford safe child delivery.”
Eng. Onyancha noted that clinicPesa is currently available in over 2700 healthcare facilities spread across Uganda.
“We started in 2017 and today, we have over 1.6 million customers on our clinicPesa platform. In the past 12 months alone, we onboarded over 800,000 new customers. We partnering with over 2700 healthcare centres spread across all corners of the country. These include clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies.”
He revealed that clinicPesa is both licensed and regulated by the Bank of Uganda.
“We hold two bank of Uganda licenses. That is the payment system operator license and payment service provider license. The regulations by Bank of Uganda mean that people’s funds are protected and safe from misuse.”
clinicPesa has featured on Day 23 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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