Ukonga

More than 900 million people in Africa have zero or limited savings.A problem perpetuated by among other factors;constrained access to an efficient,affordable and convenient savings infrastructure.

The United Nations notes that Africa has the lowest savings rate in the developing world with average rates of 18% of gross domestic product as compared to 26% in South Asia and nearly 43% in East Asia and the Pacific regions.

Physical distance from financial institutions,high minimum deposit and balance requirements mean that majority of the population within the continent are excluded from not only other financial but also savings services and  it's eco-system,the UN notes.

Probably,to show how dire the situation is,a report-Boosting Domestic Savings in Africa(Dovi E,2008), states that in Uganda,Ethiopia and Tanzania ,there is only one bank branch per 100,000 people.

This lack of access to a savings infrastructure that is efficient,affordable and convenient has definitely led to the big problem of low savings rate witnessed within the continent and other parts of the developing world which unfortunately has been a major factor of increased generational poverty cycles in most families in this part of the world.

Interestingly,Africa has been touted as one of the continents with the fastest mobile phone growth rate.In fact,the GSMA notes that at least a billion Africans will have access to a mobile phone by the year 2025.

For us at Save App,our solution to this problem was simple-leverage on this widely available cellular network infrastructure to provide a savings platform that enables our users save passively for their future through their mobile phones.

This novel solution is known as Ukonga which means savings in the Zulu language.Ukonga can be accessed by our users on their smartphones both on the android and iOs platforms.All that our users have to do is download the Ukonga App for free and  start saving.For our users with the old ubiquitous phones,they can access the service by dialing a USSD code and enjoy the services.The Ukonga platform enables savings whilst undertaking financial transactions with physical cash as well as well whilst undertaking digital money transactions.

More than 65% of the African population is composed of the youth.

According to the ILO,most of these youth,at least 70% are self employed.Unfortunately,this segment of the population is undeserved in most aspects including but not limited to the savings industry.

For most African governments,systems and structures that works towards inclusion of people in the informal economy are not there.The current legacy saving systems are brick and motor based and involve a lot of paper work which poses a problem of high costs as well as inconvenience.

This is the point of intervention that our solution steps in to recourse.As previously stated,most Africans including the youth own mobile phones.

For these youth who are economically active,we put the power of savings for their future in their palm.This intervention is not only cost effective,but also secure and convenient thus enhancing the savings within this population group and consequently their financial health.

My team and I are not only part of this segment of the population that is the youth but we are also self employed thus we are solving our own problems first hand.

Secondly,my team and I have a combined experience of more than 30 years in various fields including but not limited to strategic management,innovation management,finance,ICT as well as marketing.

So far,we are working with university students in Kenya and youth in the informal economy within these university eco-systems to implement the Ukonga solution.We get their inputs especially in regards to not only the technology design but also on boarding new users.

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We are applying to solve for various reasons;

1. Leverage on the strategic partnerships that Solve will avail to us.

2. Leverage on the exposure from Solve to enhance awareness of our solution to enable us reach more people

3. Hopefully attract strategic global talent from engagement with Solve that will enable the scale of our solution

4. Hopefully,get some funding to enable execution of solution.

For the longest time,most saving solutions have focused on digital transaction savings.That is rounding off the spare change whilst undertaking cashless transactions as well as moving money from a mobile wallet to a savings platform.Probably,the major reason for this is that most of these solutions have been in the developed world /global north where physical cash is not highly utilized.

Unfortunately,for the population in the global south,especially Africa,most transactions,actually 90% are still in physical cash.Our solution,is the first in that it allows people to save both the physical cash spare change as well as whilst undertaking cashless transactions.

With these,we truly aim to enhance inclusion into the savings ecosystem for everyone.

a) Broaden access to the saving ecosystem especially for undeserved communities
b) Enhance financial inclusion among the undeserved communities
c) Broaden access to finance and financial services to undeserved communities
d) Enable the growth of payments on all platforms

We anticipate to achieve these impact goals by enhancing our outreach in Kenya first before covering the rest of East Africa and then move to the rest of Africa.We hope that we should be able to reach at least 5 million users within the next 5 years.

1. Number of users

2. Amount of savings

3. Number of females on boarded on our platform

4. Assets under management

5. Reason for saving

6. Savings duration

Our theory of change is that,the youth if provided with a savings infrastructure that is accessible,affordable,secure and convenient,then they will be able to save some amounts for their future from their daily hustles,ultimately eliminate poverty within the African continent.

In this regard our action lever is to provide an accessible,cost effective savings platform,which will lead to an output of bringing on board at least 5 million new and more youth to start saving,which hopefully will lead to an outcome of increased savings rate in the continent and hopefully in the longer outcome will enhance financial health of more Africans which will ultimately lead to no or reduced poverty within the continent as an impact.

Currently we are using both Apps and USSD as the backbone of our technology.We however,are soon encompassing Artificial Intelligence on our platform to be able to predict our user behavior especially in regards to the micro-lending patterns

We have a diverse team encompassing all genders.As part of our policy we do not discriminate on age,sex,religion or race.

Out of the 11 member team,4 are women.

We intend to fill future positions with more women especially in our engineering team.

Our business model is as follows;

1. Transaction fees

2. Interest on loans

3. Interest on investments made on behalf of our customers.

We are currently raising our seed round after a successful pre-seed round.We also intend to break even and be on the path to profitability within the next one year.

We will also be applying for grants to enable us achieve our objectives.

We have so far raised over USD 100,000 and have generated at least USD 30,0000 as revenues