Afghanistan Holding Group (AHG)

HesabCollect - changing the face of data collection and use in developing countries

Afghanistan Holding Group (AHG) is one of the leading firms in addressing Afghanistan’s existing challenges with specific technology-based solutions. In Afghanistan, for instance, receiving salaries within the government system has always been a major challenge, not only because of the lack of an easy to use and easy to access electronic payments infrastructure/system but also because of the existence of ghost teachers and employees. Often the government’s employees do not receive their salaries on time. 

We conducted a data verification study on behalf of the Ministry of Education to verify the identity of existing teachers in 1,000 schools in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan, we found out that there is a need for a proper system to verify identity of all teachers and everyone who deals with the public or private sector. 

During this time, the Asan Khedmat announced the Mobile Salary Payments project where they disburse salaries through mobile wallets. To do this, Asan Khedmat first needs to verify the identity of teachers through registering all teachers by personally interviewing each one of them and collecting their profile information including photographs, fingerprints, national ID images, signatures, assignment of QR codes, GPS coordinates and timestamps through the HesabCollect mobile app. HesabCollect will be piloted by Asan Khedmat next month. It collects data, verifies data, and process cash withdrawals, all of this through a single mobile app. HesabCollect is an unprecedented data collection tool in Afghanistan. We are now working on transferring the core system to a blockchain. 

HesabCollect verifies data by comparing records from a baseline file with records from the newly uploaded datafile. It first performs an automatic data comparison and then a supervisor conducts a semi-automatic comparison to make sure that the new uploaded data is exactly the same as the baseline data. If inconsistency exists, the supervisor rejects the record or requests the enumerator to record correct data. When verified, the teacher salary is disbursed, and an agent scans the QR code that was assigned to the teacher on HesabCollect which populates teacher’s profile and then verifies his identity HesabCollect by scanning a random fingerprint and then receives his salary.  Hesab Collect app is configured on Telpo’s TPS 350 smart Android mobile terminal that comes with built-in, fingerprint scanner, GPS sensor, QR code reader and camera. We have been working with 4,128 schools in seven provinces- Herat, Badakhshan, Balkh, Khost, Laghman, Paktiya and Takhar- with 71,580 teachers in regard to the distribution of their salaries. Hesab Collect enables teachers to receive their salaries in a timely fashion, and fraud within the distribution of salaries will be avoided as well.

HesabCollect is a data collection solution on a mobile device, with finger print reader incorporated and is used for data collection, verification & cash withdrawal. The solution also captures pictures and scans the traditional ID. The solution can be customised to fit different data collection needs & provides flexible integration capabilities.

The solution provides greater control to personal data by providing individuals with a unique identifier.

This is a new technology application & system process to solve digital data collection and verification problem

HesabCollect generates unique identifier to each individual which is her/his DIN (Digital Identification Number). This DIN can be used across multiple service providers – like while opening bank account, signing up for prepaid account/mobile wallet or even while voting.

HesabCollect provides individuals oversight and control over their personal data use by 3PP. With HesabCollect an interactive notification can be made possible to provide individuals greater control over personal data access to authorize/decline personal data sharing request. This is possible via flesh message for smartphone users and via OTP or SMS/USSD for feature phone users. Every citizen would be provided with a unique identifier. The service providers CRM (Customer/Citizen Relationship System) would pass this unique identifier to national identification database (NIDB) to fetch individual personal data, as this request lands NIDB, it pushes an authorization request via the app or OTP to individual, upon his/her approval the personal data would be shared otherwise she/he rejects or the request times-out, in either cases the request for personal data sharing declines.

The Solution can easily be integrated with the digital identification system in the developing countries. HesabCollect will adopt their APIs & pass needed fields of data into the digital identification system.

The solution is flexible and can adopt to any environment. The integrations are made easy and HesabCollect can adopt 3PP system APIs to exchange data. 

Yes. The integrations are given needful thought by design so Integrations into the system can be made possible directly for the state agencies and for service providers like banks & MNO the solution provides a middleware to enforce policies for data sharing

The solution very well works with GPRS/2G network and Beyond. On the low literacy the solution provides user friendly UI on APP for smart phone users and for featured phone users the solution provide OTP.

Our vision for the solution for the coming three to fives years is to have HesabCollect be the digital identity collection solution for Afghanistan Government & adopted across the region.

We conducted a data verification study on behalf of the Ministry of Education to verify the identity of existing teachers in 1,000 schools in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan.

We are working with Asan Khedmat to digitize government employee profiles for a foolproof salary disbursement process.

We are working with Roshan for mobile salary disbursement project where HesabCollect helps with data collection and verification. It also facilitates salary cash outs via QR code.  

The solution is developed and is at growth stage. The skills that would help us succeed is the adoptability, innovation & flexibility & we are on track with it to succeed our way to be the data collection solution of choice to government, banks, MNOs.

The solution operates on two different business model

1. Earn per Dat- Collected for instance we charge our MNO and Bank partners AF 10 per customer on-boarded via HesabCollect

2. Revenue Share; on this model HesabCollect would have share in the revenue generated by the customer on-boarded via HesabCollect. The revenue share sets somewhere b/w 15% to 25%.

3. Cash Withdrawal Commission - our partners pay us a fee on each cash withdrawal that happens through HesabCollect. 

We are applying for the Mission Billion Challenge because we believe that our solution will solve problems and ease life for millions of people who are living in poverty in developing countries such as Afghanistan. And given the professional support system and expertise within the Mission Billion Challenge, we believe that our work will be enhanced to the next level by taking part in this unique and remarkable process and solution circles for a better world!

There isn't any barriers. The solution is succeeding the public and private use cases & is well adopted by both as the solution solve their major challenges. For government the HesabCollect provides the most cost effective solution for data collection and verification while for MNOs and Banks it provides digital, yet cost efficient, compliance solution for their KYC & cuts the customer on-boarding process into three steps with rich set of data collected including fingers print, photo, and GPS coordinates.