One-line solution summary:
Jamborow is Africa’s first B2B AI and Blockchain driven fintech platform focused on financial inclusion and grassroot empowerment.
Pitch your solution.
Problem:
· Massive unbanked population in Africa not included in the financial sector. 65 - 70% of the population are unbanked.
· Micro lenders, micro saving schemes and cooperatives are not automated, and cannot scale effectively.
· No insight and data-driven science around lending to attract big money for micro lenders.
Solution:
Jamborow is a Financial Technology company that provides white label solutions (SaaS) to provide access to financial services for informal, unbanked and underbanked sectors across Africa to promote economic and financial inclusion.Grassroot Data such as KYC (know your customer) and Credit footprint will better serve this segment. Users will be able to enjoy access to financial services afforded to other consumers in developing countries. This greatly enables the concept of financial inclusion services.Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Problem:
Massive unbanked population in Africa not included in the financial sector. 65% of the population are unbanked.
Micro lenders, micro saving schemes and cooperatives are not automated, and can’t scale effectively.
Banks cannot service this space.
No insight and data-driven science around lending to attract big money for micro lenders.
Massive Unbanked African Population Africa is home to a massive unbanked population. As at 2017, only 43% of African adults had a bank account.
Banks Cannot Service the SMEs Most banks in Africa do not service the SMEs and populations at the bottom of the pyramid due to their high-risk factor.
Lack of Insight around Lending Due to the lack of data, the large micro lenders, impact investors and DFIs do not have the insight on lending.
Lack of Automation Many micro lenders, micro-saving schemes, and cooperatives are not automated or lack financial inclusion softwares.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
The solution:
Jamborow is a Financial Technology platform that uses white label solutions (SaaS) to provide access to financial services for the informal, unbanked, and underbanked sectors across the African continent which in turn promotes economic and financial inclusion.
This is focused on onboarding on the unabnked, saving groups, credit unions, co-ops, village community banks and other groups that saves daily and borrow up to 3 times microloans in in their groups
The following are Jamborow solutions:
Peer-to-peer lenders (diaspora, individual lenders, etc.) now have a platform to operate.
Grassroot Data such as KYC and Credit footprint will better serve this segment.
Digitization
& Automation of Processes and KYC
Information; Artificial Intelligence Driven; Cloud-enabled SaaS Operations;
Easy to use USSD; Mobile and Web App; Access to Microfinance & Insurance
Products; Linked to Payment Platforms & Mobile Money; Credit Scoring
Algorithms; Blockchain secure and enabled.
Massive opportunity for lenders to access this demographic with attractive interest rates.
Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
Explain how the problem, your solution, and your solution’s target population relate to the Mission Billion Challenge WURI West Africa Prize and your selected dimension.
Jamborow is digitizing KYC data of the unbanked population across Africa and creating credit footprint for financial inclusion.
We are focused on Financial inclusion for the underbanked / unbanked SMEs / MicroSMEs grassroots population of Africa by digitizing the policies, pracitices, processes, savings / borrowing as well as peer2peer lending practises.
We also help build a credit footprint for the grassroots via our credit scoring algorithms in order to move this populace of this demographic into the formal sector of financial servies for economic empowerment
Where is your solution team headquartered?
Lagos, NigeriaWhat is your solution’s stage of development?
Who is the primary delegate for your solution?
Moses Onitilo, founder and CTO
If you have additional video content that explains your solution, provide a YouTube or Vimeo link here:
Which of the following categories best describes your solution?
Describe what makes your solution innovative.
THE COMPETITION
Tala is a digital finance app that provides credit Anyone with an Android smartphone in their markets of operation can apply for a loan and receive an instant decision, regardless of their financial history.
Branch International has created an algorithmic approach to determine credit worthiness via customers' smartphones While this tech forward approach requires transparency and trust, it also enables a fair, secure and convenient path for customers to build capital and save for the future. – USA.
Carbon empowers individuals with access to credit, simple payments solutions, high yield investment opportunities and easy to use tools for personal financial management Their mission is to empower all people with the financial access they need to pursue a life of dignity and prosperity. – Nigeria
Jamborow’s competitive advantage lies with the business model and strategic partnerships and social impact that will enable us to reach the Grassroot population right from the source. As you can see from the above summaries of our identified competitors, our solution will be a one stop shop providing access to a number of financial service offerings to a brand-new demographic rather than just offering predatory loans and payments. Whilst providing these much-needed services via our technology, Jamborow remain unexposed to credit risk, thus preserving our investors capital. The company’s goal is to contribute to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) by providing financial and economic inclusion and financial education or literacy.
Provide evidence that your solution works.
The Jamborow UI / UX Graphical Interface
There are two user types on Jamborow. The single user account and the organisation account.
Any user type account may have wallets, create and or access loan packages, credit scoring for the lending process, record of the transactions on the blockchain, graphical analysis and reports.
Funds disbursement and top up channels can be via USSD, card and bank transfer. Organisation accounts permit creating groups between members of the organisation.
Single user account dashboard overview
Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:
What is your theory of change?
How can your solution be incorporated into social protection and service delivery systems in West Africa?
Our solution allows the grassroots economy to move from the informal secotr of the unbanked into the formal sector of financial inclusion and economic empower. We have not only built a financial inclusion software but an ecosystem of savings groups, lenders, digital banks, insurance companiues, ecommerce companies, product companies that will support, empower and enable the massive unbanked population of Africa into the formal secotr and also build credit footprint to enable economic empowerment.
Ecosystem diagram:
Describe how 'user friendly' your solution is to incorporate into social protection programs and delivery systems in West Africa.
The ease of use of our solution is paramoun to design as this intended for the grassroots of Africa which are largely illiterate but have access to feature and smart phones. We have created a solution that uses USSD technology for transactions with ease of use and training for end-users.
Jamborow - How it works
Explain how your solution is interoperable with existing technologies and open standards.
We have built and integrated our APIs with various partners like AIICO insurance, Advance Bank digital bank, Flutterwave - mobile money payment and settlement solution, Impala pay payment solutiuon, Jambopay payment solution, Riby cooperative bank solution etc.
How does your solution account for low connectivity environments and for users with low literacy and numeracy levels?
Our solution is USSD technology based which is easy to use for low literacy population in our demographic. Ability to use simple USSD short codes with1-5 menu items in various ethnic languages built in.
Select the key characteristics of your target population.
How many people does your solution currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?
Currently serving 2.3 million
In one year will be serving 11 million
In 5 years will be serving 27 million
What are your goals within the next year and within the next five years?
Our goal for the next 5 years is have 27 million users from the various savings groups in 44 countries to be financially inluded and economically empowered in the formal sector of Africa and have a credit footprint to add to be able to alleviate this members in various savings groups of the unbanked population of Africa. We will ensure that the 27 million people on our platform are banked digitally and have access to financial services and financial literacy.
What barriers currently exist for you to accomplish your goals in the next year and in the next five years?
Funding to scale the business and talent acquisition which are related.
We have spent the 2 years prior to incorporation doing research by traveling to the grassroots community, villages and rural areas in 35 countries in Africa to understand our target audience before we designed and developed the software.
We are in fundraising mode as we have clients, partners and saving groups signed into contracts to onboard and become fully operational hence funding and finance will be the primary impediment and sourcing of talents for our operations might be another challenge on the continent.
How do you plan to overcome these barriers?
Challenges will be in form of onboarding the various People who currently uses manual ledgers for KYC information, deploying foot soldiers in the villages and rural areas to gather those information and we will need funding to that.
Talent acquisition in areas of software development, AI talent, blockchain talent which help with our continuous development. We have devised talent acquisition by partnering with various Universities for interns and recruitment directly from such instituitions thereby building our own center of excellence.
What type of organization is your solution team?
If you selected Other, please explain here.
Our solutions team are full-time and in-house team.
How many people work on your solution team?
10 people work for us currently
How long have you been working on your solution?
3 years
Why are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?
Management team:
CEO, Founder
Olusegun George is a former Account Director, West Africa for Governance Risk and Compliance with Thompson Reuters, responsible for driving business development across the West African region and providing GRC advisory services to regulators and Operators. He has over 20 years Banking and Financial services experience, as former Group Head of Treasury Shared Services and Former Chief Operating officer, Global Markets, both at UBA as well as former Market Analyst at Goldman Sachs to mention a few.
Co-Founder & CTO
Moses Onitilo is a 25-year IT veteran with a background in ITSM, ITIL, Digital Transformation, AI, Blockchain, Encryption, Security, Process transformation, IT Strategy, Governance, Enterprise Management and Emerging Technology. He is also founder and former managing partner at Principle Technologies, LLC, a Digital Transformation and ITSM consulting company in USA, with Fortune 500 and European clients.
Co-Founder
& Chief Strategist
John Kamara has over 20 years experience in business strategy, digital technology, and market growth for various Global Markets. John is a leading expert in E-Commerce, Internet Solutions, Digital Applications, Financial Payment Solutions, AI and Blockchain solutions which have earned him AI Ambassador status in Nairobi and Lagos.
CIO
Victory has over 20 years of experience in IT which includes managing product development, software and hardware engineering, and directing technical integration and operations He has successfully managed organizations that have delivered technology solutions to the automotive, computer, engineering, manufacturing, financial services, retail industries, and all levels of Government. Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and Microsoft Certified Trainer
What organizations do you currently partner with, if any? How are you working with them?
Mobile MONEY and Settlement Operators:
FLutterwave, Axieva, Jambopay, Impalapay, Afrika's talking
Savings groups partnerships:
Alajapa, Justrite, Co-op bank - Kenya, Riby (Co-op bank Nigeria), FETA / Vicoba (Tanzania), National Association of small scale Industries, Dominion daughters (KENYA)
Financial Literacy: Afrinet in Nigeria
Ecommerce Partners: Afrimart
Digital Banking partners: AdvanceBank Nigeria
What is your business model?
We have offering the Jamborow solution via web app, mobile app (android and ios) and USSD for customers to access our product and also our ecosystem of partners. The will have access to our financial inclusive and economic empowerment offerings from various financial servies partners that caters for the grasssroots and unbanked population of Africa.
The product offerings are depicted in the diagram below:
Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, or to other organizations?
What is your path to financial sustainability?
REVENUE MODEL AS FOLLOWS:
If you have raised funds for your solution or are generating revenue, please provide details.
We have not raised any funds, the founders have been bootstrapping the development of the product, technology, resources for development, travel, operations etc.
If you seek to raise funds for your solution, please provide details.
We are in fundraising mode and plan to raise $1.5M in this round as follows:
What are your estimated expenses for 2020?
The following answers this question:
Solution Team
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Solution Name:
Jamborow