Easy Pay Wallet (EPW)

We are solving the problems of inconsistent saving behavior, no saving incentives, illiteracy, regional mobility, network migration, limited internet access, lack of transparency, no accountability, missing primary ID framework, complicated contributions and difficult withdrawal process for the informal sector workers, majority being women.

Informal workers lack physical address, no-monthly payroll, irregular earnings, high job mobility & inconsistent saving behavior. Their lack of access to financial tools for saving, credit and risk protection leads to financial and social exclusion.

In Uganda where we come from, demographics of the informal sector is so similar to other African countries. Just like a decade ago, right now informal workers (80% of the working population)  don’t have access to any savings instruments, social insurance plans, and credit facilities. These are major impediments to personal growth.

We are deploying features that promote the continuity of contributions to social insurance schemes from informal sector workers, incorporating behavioral tools that incentivize and encourage financial savings, transparency, and accountability

Our Solution

• Tech-based, user-centric solution connecting with telcos and communicates over WhatsApp/SMS-Bot/USSD using basic phones, by leveraging foundation-ID.

• The f-ID agency can register everyone and enables self-activation.

• Supports short-term savings, pension and microcredit.

• Non-monetary/financial/behavioral incentives to encourage persistent savings.

• Uses digital payments including mobile money for one-click contribution. 

• Easy-payment anytime/anywhere/any amount & real-time balance access.

• Facilitates a marketplace for one stop universal social protection products.

• Works with social registries, allows vulnerable participant identification for fiscal incentives and helps governments disburse prompt relief to the missing middle in times of crisis.

• Increased informal workers  participation through digital knowledge awareness.

Problems we are solving for informal workers are inconsistent saving behaviour, no saving incentives, illiteracy, regional mobility, network migration, limited internet access, lack of transparency, no accountability, missing primary ID, complicated contributions and withdrawal process; especially considering they lack a physical address, no monthly payroll, have irregular earnings but have a mobile phone. 

Our solution for Africa would provide social protection by enabling and encouraging contributions for their future even in low resource settings and allow regional interoperability. We focus on overcoming lack of access to financial tools for saving, credit and risk protection; in line with the challenge

 

We are targeting the non-poor informal workers in Uganda, with at least a basic feature phone. They have irregular, low earnings, no risk protection and many are not financially literate. They have jobs that require them to migrate countrywide and beyond with a diverse range of occupations at varying skills and income levels. These are all common denominators with the informal sector in across Africa.

We hope to launch our pilots across micro-health, micro-insurance and micro-pensions. All this will be done with close interaction and active consultation of the intended users after having a deep understanding of their lifestyle and economic activities. 

Our solution for  Africa would be co-developed after intensive consultation to understand the specific challenge they face. Studies would need to be done to understand their specific behavior so as to design behavioral nudging framework and reminder strategies. The solution would then be tailor made using our experience to meet their specific requirements, incorporating their preferred engagement and payment transaction channels. We would work with government agencies and  telcos; to enable non contributory and voluntary contributory social protection even with limited internet access and support cross border mobility and contributions.

Our team consists of skilled and experienced IT, telecom, mobile money, finance and project management professionals.  They have previous experience of implementing projects across Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

We have the technical and subject matter expertise as we have been successfully running very similar social insurance programs (micro pension, micro health & micro insurance) in Uganda and East Africa for the last 10 years. 

We also have the experience of working with government agencies, regulators, development partners, research institutions, telecom companies, mobile money providers, financial institutions and associations to benefit the informal sector workers.

Currently we serve approximately 1000 people

Through our practical implementation experience in Uganda, East Africa; we strongly believe we can bring a change and positive impact to the millions of the informal sector workers across Africa.

We need the much needed exposure, partnership, mentorship and collaborations through the MITSolve network of experts and entrepreneurs that can help us scale our product to new communities.

By winning a grant through MITSolve; it would provide us the requisite springboard to connect with the right stakeholders in the East African Community. It would provide a favourable and credible environment to present our ideas and experience to the stakeholders for them to support and furtherance of social protection for all. After winning this challenge, we hope the governments and development partners would be in a position to plan and allocate the necessary resources for scalable implementing and promoting  the solution.

Our solution is innovative because it;

• Works on simple feature phones which most informal workers already own and are familiar with SMS/USSD. Also works on whatsApp

• Allowing interoperability across the region.

• Product marketplace

• One stop access to social protection tools for the informal sector.

• Easy payments using mobile money and familiar existing payment channels for contributions. People can save daily, weekly and monthly depending on their income levels and preferences.

We have been engaged in contributory social insurance integrated with mobile money over the last decade and most of our competitors have been using traditional payment channels only and have always missed out the informal sector workers. The nearest competitor would be banks, as they provide savings, credits and bancassurance; however, they have always targeted higher income individuals and have left out the unbanked population due to commercial interest. Our vision has been to provide inclusion to all informal sector workers; majority of them being women, who have traditionally been left out. Other solutions that have cropped up in recent years have learnt from us and tried to deploy in their home countries, many times unsuccessfully.

The goal for next year is to customize the solution after understanding the detailed requirements from the grassroot intended users, government agency, foundation ID authority and other stakeholders. In the 1st phase we would target 1-2 willing countries to tailor make the solution.

Slowly and steadily we can roll out across East African region as we keep partnering with various providers to scale and replicate.

By next 5 years we expect to have partnered with all the participating and willing governments, telecom companies, mobile money systems and financial institutions in the region to be able to deliver one stop solution for universal social protection for all informal sector workers.

• Number of beneficiaries
• Number of subscribers
• Scale capability
• Awards and partnerships created
• Amount saved and borrowed and paid 
• Ease of access to financial products

Our solution is designed with the informal workers in mind who are not both financially and digitally literate. The solution will run on an interactive SMS/USSD system that can run on any feature phone without the use of the internet and almost every mobile phone user is familiar with it.

When the informal workers are registered they will be sensitized extensively to understand the key information and would also receive digital communication;

• Payment reminders that will encourage them to save regularly

• Tips (e.g.  How to access real time balance, one click pay)

The system can work over USSD short code, and also incorporate SMS bot to reply to all queries

It runs on an interactive SMS /USSD system that users use to save directly into their digital saving wallets and to receive regular and timely reminders to save, notifications on their progress and balances to show how much money they have managed to put in the digital wallet.

In addition, since it works on feature phones which the majority of informal workers have access to and they incur no additional costs to receive the communication as the charges can be zero rated for the users.

At the beginning of the program extensive sensitization will be offered to explain the importance of saving plus on ways of using the USP(Universal Social Protection) -  wallet.

If required, the menu content/product listing and currency will be customised as per the prevalent native language of the country and the member can also choose a different language from the menu.

The solution would be designed as an open framework to deploy across regions. Also it can integrate with  any form of ID framework (like foundation ID), mobile money API, payment gateway, USSD gateway, SMS gateway and any other external service provider API.

Our solution would open APIs with secured access tokens for authorized government approved third parties to plug into our solution and launch their services on the marketplace. 

Data can easily be ported out into any authorized third party database for ease of migration to avoid vendor lock-in.

When members dial USSD from their registered phone, the system identifies the dialer in real time. 

They will be contributing by sending money from their registered mobile money to their USP(Universal Social Protection) - wallet easily without having any complicated requirements like other financial institutions. Our solution would be able to integrate with all telcos and mobile money providers to receive contributions seamlessly.

We work with all people regardless of their colour, sex, race.

We have zero tolerance for discrimination and work to amplify the voices of each and everyone in order to ensure balanced results.

We are strategic in promoting the voices of women and this is evidenced in our C-level management where 75% are women.

Key Partners

• Government Agencies
• The f-lD issuing regulatory authority
• Regulators
• Development partners
• Telecom Companies
• Mobile Money Providers
• Financial Institutions
• Informal sector
• Associations

Key Activities

• Integrations with f-ID Framework
• Integration with Mobile Money providers
• Integration with Telecom Companies
• Regulatory and legal permissions from the government
• Partnering with Financial institution for market place service providers
• Marketing &Distribution of the platform

Value Propositions

• The number of members enrolled
• The number of members who are active contributors
• The number of members who have accessed credit
• The individuals would benefit from no old age poverty, access to credit and saving option
• The government will spend less on safety net and social subsidies plus increased revenue from taxes
• Service providers will get more clients and more transactions

        Customer Relationships

• Digital platform which uses the f-ID as the member identification
• It enables labour mobility with portability of benefits, nonmonetary incentives
• Behavioural incentives to encourage persistent savings
• It can be accessed in low resource settings (using basic feature phones)
• Enable market place environment

Customer Segments

Beneficiaries are the members with f-ID and who own basic feature phones

Customers are

• Market place service providers who pay to use the platform to access the beneficiaries
• Government benefits by increasing the social protection net

Key Resources

-Access to Foundation ID Frame work
-Funding For the program
-Partnerships

Channels 
-The distribution channel will be the f-ID issuing authority
-Engagement with beneficiaries, using SMS, USSD, WhatsApp and their channels

Cost Structure

-Our cost will be incurred in the conceptualisation, design, development, implementation, marketing and project management.

- To make it sustainable in the long run, we may charge 

              Beneficiaries’ small fees depending upon the service

              Market place providers a small transitional fee

Revenue Streams

-Transition/commission fees (% transaction value) from market place service providers like insurance and lenders
-Management fee platform
-A very small percentage of the earnings over the investments made through the contributions especially for long term savings like pension.

Initially the proposed program would require infusion of external funds. Once it achieves considerable members and transactions the program could run self sustainably going forward. 

In the long run, once at least million plus  people  are actively on board and start transacting, then with such scale revenues streams will start trickling in. It could be based on multiple revenue models including but not limited to;

• Insurance & other additional product sales commision.

• A very small percentage of the earnings over the investments made through the contributions especially for long term savings like pensions.

• A very small percentage of the interest earning over micro lending.

• A small annual micro management fees for the platform.

These can be fine tuned and modified as per the regulatory requirements and policy frameworks of each country. This would eventually make the program in an auto pilot mode from a sustainability perspective.

For the proposed solution in Africa (which we conceptualized for this challenge) we have not started raising any funds as of date. 

For the proposed solution herein we would look at government and development partner support for funding and resource mobilization through grants and donations.