What is the name of your organization?
Flow Global
What is the name of your solution?
Flow Liquidity Engine (FLE)
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Powered by the Flow Liquidity Engine, its data-driven, advanced technology solution, Flow Global enables growth capital financing for small businesses
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
London, UK
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
United Kingdom
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
The problem we address is the lack of financing for MSMEs. The financing gap in developing and emerging markets is valued at $5.2 trillion globally and $4.87 billion in Uganda - one of our markets - alone. Micro enterprises, which make up 96% of credit-constrained businesses, face the greatest challenge. Many micro-enterprises are small retail merchants. Our analysis of over 110 million retail transactions reveals a pressing need for working capital in high-growth digital activities, such as mobile money. With 1.6 billion registered mobile money accounts globally and 763 million in Africa, mobile money relies on retail merchants as the interface for cash to e-money conversion. However, capital and cash flow constraints prevent merchants from meeting the growing demand for digital transactions, resulting in rejected transactions and lost revenue. As merchants must prefund transactions by purchasing e-money ‘float’ from aggregators or mobile network operators, about 20% of transactions are denied due to insufficient e-money working capital. This constitutes not only a problem for the mobile money merchants as they lose commissions but also for their customers as bills can’t be paid, money can’t be sent or withdrawn or other essential financial transactions can’t be performed.
What is your solution?
The Flow Liquidity Engine* (FLE), our proprietary technology platform, was built specifically to enable small merchant financing at scale and is key for managing our business. The FLE addresses all use cases for customer-centric liquidity provision to small merchants: credit scoring; Customer Life cycle management and lending automation. Our platform designs e-money/float advance products based on the mobile money business data of small merchants. This way we ensure that the product fits the business needs of the merchants and advances are neither too high nor too low and catalyzes the full business potential. The FLE allows us, thanks to its advanced AI and ML algorithms which power our credit scoring and risk assessment, to offer collateral-free digital working capital to the 96% financially excluded small businesses which are the backbone of Africa’s economy. Additionally the FLE supports our field staff with a mobile app for any customer relation management and also encompasses a customer app which allows for product information and upgrades, customer support and financial literacy courses. In summary the FLE forms a cohesive ecosystem aimed at enhancing efficiency, reducing risk, and driving sustainable growth within the financial services landscape.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Let us introduce you to our typical customer who is a young woman owning a small business in a rural area in Sub Sahara Africa. Imagine her in her small shop selling various fast moving consumer goods and electronic devices and providing financial services such as mobile money. She plays an important role for her community, as she represents the infrastructure of 96% of any economic activity in her country (according to the World Bank). One of the primary revenue streams for her business is offering mobile money services to her customers. Today, 52% of Flow’s customers are women, 75% of customers are youth and 68% operate in rural areas. 92% of our customers have never received a formal financial product in their life. 46% of our customers earn less than $50 per month and 8.6% earn less than $10 per month. We are very proud to have found a profitable way of financing even the smallest of African entrepreneurs in a digital and profitable manner. We believe that our approach, powered by our proprietary tech solution, the FLE, is unique in the market. 99% repayment rate and 94% customer retention are further evidence for our positive solution.
