Building Trust and Seamless Transactions: A Glimpse into the Future of Digital Payments in Africa with Omoniyi Kolade

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast. Welcome to the Unlocking Africa podcast where we find amazing people who are doing amazing things to unlock Africa's economic potential. Today we have Omoniyi Kolade, who is CEO of SeaBrit which is a Pan-African payment platform built to help SMEs

[00:01:16] and enterprise companies process fast, seamless, inclusive and secure online and offline payments. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the podcast. Omoniyi, how are you? I'm good. Thank you very much for having me on the platform.

[00:01:32] It's a pleasure to have you on the podcast. I know we spoke a while ago but the day has arrived so I'm looking forward to our conversation. So before we start, I was hoping you could introduce yourself and tell us a bit more about Omoniyi.

[00:01:48] Yeah, thank you again to like you earlier communicated. My name is Omoniyi Kolade. I'm the CEO for SeaBrit currently running these businesses which is spanning across Africa. Kind of person that actually just love what I do and the different of what we love is the idea

[00:02:07] behind the purpose of what we're looking at, your stand as a community or as a business landscape for African as a whole. And that's what is driving what we do and that drives

[00:02:16] comes from the element of the kind of market we find ourselves and it finds those things and seeing how much can we contribute. That's pretty much about me. That's Omoniyi Kolade. Fantastic, thank you for that. You've given us a great insight in terms of you and running the

[00:02:34] business. So when you could go into a bit more detail regarding what is SeaBrit, what inspired you to start the company? SeaBrit is actually an idea looking at what is going to actually empower the future of commerce in Africa. We've seen what is going

[00:02:52] to the global market. How do you support the infrastructure that is going to actually help the community of businesses in Africa to connect into those global markets? Those are where those key inspiration comes in, right? And SeaBrit journey we've been operating

[00:03:06] for a while and the journey goes back to more than 10, 11 years where we looked at it from the initial idea where we had where we're looking for an idea where we say creating access for innovation. That means that we feel that if there's no access, innovation cannot strive.

[00:03:21] It's giving access to something that gives it an opportunity to showcase itself. So that was the idea and those assets were we looking at it from the point of an opportunity that came then in the time of mobile money when SeaBrit first licensed

[00:03:34] mobile money in around 2008, 2007 in Nigeria. We were then actually working on some tools around some products, technology, CRM and identifying the customer's need. And because we had that idea of customer's need and then looking at between what customer needs and then the gap between

[00:03:55] their needs and where they should be about what they really want. They were each gaps. And if they want to attain what they really want, they need to be in power financially. We saw those gaps so we took advantage of maybe it could be the revolutionary direction

[00:04:08] to take advantage of this license, work with some of the licenses then. So we worked with AfriPay which is subsidiary of UBA then, worked with E-Tras, worked with quite a number of them in the market then. As an enabler, we worked as a technology service provider for them

[00:04:24] and some others worked with them as agency banking building, agency network. And it was quite interesting that time we learned so much about how the old landscapes looked like. It gives us any side of the maturity of the market even though people were still financially

[00:04:41] excludable at least. It shows that there's something that already exists which is where it's structured as payment right. That actually everyone just needs to come with keep plugging in and then you can use that to scale the market.

[00:04:53] And while we're doing that also, we had a product technology we offered one of the licensees also which is for 40s then. We called it Lifetime and the idea there was to say okay

[00:05:05] we cannot really do much about payment or solving the issues of payment if you don't understand customer lifetime. Lifetime means that I cannot really force you out of who you are.

[00:05:16] A customer we saw today and decide what he wants to do. The financial service does not define it. I choose to go to which bank or which branch I want to bank with. Right and we feel that okay

[00:05:26] we need to start looking at that perspective that we cannot really force customers into channels into some of the solutions. We need to go and meet them where they are. Yes sir. And that was the old idea of Lifetime where we look at people

[00:05:38] and look at their Lifetime and see how you can bring banking into those Lifetime. I think we did some tests and it was quite interesting and we saw that it was something that could actually drive Lifetime inclusion in another area. And from there we felt that okay

[00:05:52] we were not really going to be like a mobile money driven country because of the kind of structure that foundations already have with payment. So we moved our model to start empowering banks as an enabler where we looked at areas where banks have not really effectively

[00:06:08] maybe deliver proper services or the opportunities we are looking at to build technology partner with them and get to the markets alongside because customers who are looking for our times already banking anyway. I also realized the banks are already big enough,

[00:06:20] they're already making revenue. What will make them prioritize your products when kind of limit your potential? So that was when we felt that we cannot sustain this direction rather than just go out be the leader of ourselves and then get our license and then

[00:06:35] face the market and build solutions if you need to build and so forth customers in the marketplace. So just to actually summarize it. Thank you for that. So you've mentioned that you're inspired

[00:06:45] by the ability to build a future and you've been operating for quite a while. You've slightly touched on this in terms of changing the customer's lifestyle. How would you see Ciebrek contributing to financial inclusion in Africa particularly for individuals who are unbanked or underbanked?

[00:07:03] Okay I think there's a lot of perspective to financial inclusion right and I'm looking at financial inclusion as a whole. We actually have to look at what is the financial availability because people when we do that they already banking either through informal process or

[00:07:19] formal process, either they're not effectively banking right or they don't have kind of a structure of banking right. So you find people in what they call cooperative, you find people what they call agile locally in some local market right where you come together to put

[00:07:32] your money and it's you making a big some people goes around collecting from the stores right. All those forms are banking so they're just so informal form of banking right and the whole idea is when we talk about financial inclusion I feel it's more are we looking at

[00:07:46] digitalizing this customer right are we taking them from a traditional to a tradition and answering this also boils back to one thing that we need to understand right that banking exists right does not mean that banking is not effective or people cannot be

[00:08:02] financial included right but understanding the customers varieties of customers in the marketplace requires that it takes a lot of cost to actually address all the marketplace and one thing we have realized and what I've only said is the potential and opportunity of every fintech today is where

[00:08:17] banks has failed or where banks has never been effective. It creates an opportunity for fintechs so we're just a broken bank that takes especially in some areas to make it more effective. So the effectiveness is where we have played also in looking at how do we digitalize business

[00:08:33] and how do we take them to a place where no customer is different choice when they need to pay them digitally and looking at that direction tells you there what are the types of payments in different local markets and what are the varieties or popular payment methods that

[00:08:47] should be always available so that business the more they have these options for customers the more they can actually scale their business right because there's something that is very particular to all of us which is cash and that's what we are fighting when it comes

[00:08:58] financial inclusion. Cash is the enemy right and cash means that there's a limit to what the customers can do when they have to do something directly to pay with cash that means I can only

[00:09:07] come and give you cash as a person so if I would collect cash for 1000 people there's a limitation by geographic by region by locations right so digitalizing or your business digitalizing self and giving the varieties of payment methods makes them to automatically just scale

[00:09:22] and increase your stand the acceptance power just across more from for more customers so for us that's what's here the task position to be to see that we'll always be available to give customer

[00:09:33] the businesses right the option the flexibility for customers to bring any types of payment they have right to able to actually be able to pay to the merchant and that's why how we've seen inclusion and our own perspective. Brilliant so you've detailed a link between informal banking

[00:09:50] and the unbanked and the effectiveness of digitizing banking for options and flexibility so if you look specifically at CAB what role does technology play in your approach to making payments faster and more seamless? Okay so I think the common difference between having to

[00:10:10] deal with cash and also digital payment right is the element of the technology part of things where we are making sure there are anything that has to do technology its ability to make sure that we can actually scale create a multiplicity model to actually give scale to anything

[00:10:27] that has an engagement to businesses so for us technology has been the key driver and technology for us is ability to see the future ability for us to make sure that we can connect the

[00:10:37] entity together and how do you understand that? We make sure that we can always connect between offline and online and that's what the big part of CAB stands for the bit is like everything

[00:10:46] that past computer is zeroes and one and one means on zeroes of like online and offline right so here is feature seeing the future that connects everything together for payments and infrastructure that drives commerce in Africa right and looking at that is making sure that we

[00:11:00] have technology capability to make sure that we connect all the infrastructure and these infrastructures are not limited just to only when it comes to the existing infrastructure that exists in the market but also what are the futuristic solutions that are required in the

[00:11:12] market our future proof it's what we want to achieve and means that as the market keep evolving customer to market involves right how do we build technology that creates the adoption adaptability to scale alongside for businesses and customers and that is where

[00:11:29] technology has been for us at CAB to make sure we power everything that is needed to actually give that growth for commerce in Africa. Fantastic as you mentioned technology has been the key driver that has allowed you to scale so what challenges have you faced during

[00:11:48] your mission to build and scale the platform? So I think there are two also that we cannot ignore right it's about people because you require people to drive an organization right and then you have enough resources your stand people are resources and also you have to understand the

[00:12:06] fragmentation as a continent or even fragmentation as a local market in different local markets as country you find yourself in some market where Nigerian is quite much where we have switching system right where we have flexibility to connect any new solution or having to control how

[00:12:23] solutions are being dissected into the market right but it goes to a market where even the body that governs or manage some of the payment infrastructures right are actually being moneyed by different regulatory body you see that there's no even connectivity between those

[00:12:38] infrastructure in the market example you see some markets where money is quite very big in care you see big in Ghana but does not mean that the other infrastructure like cats are not still kind of being used but what they built to create their ecosystem has given

[00:12:52] them that lead way but what is the flexibility between all these entities is the biggest challenges and that's why if you don't start having those platforms that gives that seamless availability of those options and the probability on a single platform becomes a challenge also

[00:13:07] in the future for the kind of commerce we are trying to achieve for African as a whole and people like I mentioned requires that we need resources to able to learn fast adapt to

[00:13:18] the changing market and then have the kind of talent and people to really be able to shape the directions where the entire purpose and vision of the organization is going I agree so you mentioned the lack of connectivity and fragmentation of the continent's infrastructure

[00:13:32] as we know Africa is extremely diverse with varying levels of say technological infrastructure so how have you managed to address the challenges of operating in different dynamic markets or environments within the continent so I think one of the critical thing is

[00:13:51] understanding the role and the capability you have in the terrain of each local market right one of the things we actually look at is also we don't play with how we can decentralize the compliance part of things to understand every region or every market right it's

[00:14:08] actually different and they have their peculiarity and one thing again that becomes a big challenge when it comes to innovation fragmentation was less as you have over 54 countries where you have different payment rules different payment types per country and for you to go to

[00:14:25] some of those countries required to be licensed as different elements by each local market now the cost of doing that is higher the time it takes to achieve that is higher comparing that model to like an european union where you have created a systematic approach to make their

[00:14:41] market viable and also give people easy way to scale businesses within european union right where you can get a license from europe and you can easily just be available in multiple countries without just having to go to each local country compared to africa and also looking at their

[00:14:57] understanding of how the kind of legacy and the kind of payment familiarity they have in their market where even if you look at how popular some payments are similar in some market they can easily introduce a solution and scale into many countries that does not apply in africa

[00:15:12] for some countries one of the expense we had we had to integrate as many as almost maybe integration just to be able to have all the payment methods all the varieties of reliability

[00:15:23] of payment what would give us efficiency or give us success rate just to make sure that we can attain that now if you look at those cost and commitment it tells you that there's a lot

[00:15:32] that needs to be done to really fix how african should look at building the kind of future world to build because the fragmentation becomes a barrier itself so having to understand that there are a lot of things that needs to be addressed quickly at the regulatory level

[00:15:46] and then at the infrastructure and defining how even solutions are being introduced in the marketplace some of those designs once they are well-scrunched I think we can really move so fast and quicker

[00:15:57] because we still require a lot of infrastructure to put costs into that global market that we need to be as an african market thank you for showing us you touched on the different payment methods in different african countries and the challenges that present so what would you say

[00:16:15] specifically needs to be done or addressed to accommodate the diversity and payment methods across the continent that has to do with firstly addressing one thing first like I said right the first is regulatory right how easy it is to really be able to scale yourself naturally

[00:16:34] to move your capability between different countries that means that if we're going to move faster and where innovations are coming much faster to introduce to adapt to a market where they are still trying

[00:16:44] to catch up right it means that there has to be framework that give their scalability like I said european you know has something where you get a EU license as a payment that provides them that

[00:16:54] gives you automatically access to entire markets that exist in europe it's not something applicable yet in africa here and then if you're not looking at payment options by different payment types by locality then we should now start looking at okay how are we sculpturing

[00:17:09] our solutions or payments are introducing to the marketplace is anything that regulates and defines one of the kittens that we should look at from the customer perspective and what it is we're looking at from customer perspective how flexible interoperability accessibility

[00:17:24] and is your start of use and that means that from the one if i'm bringing the payment solution into the market I look at critical things that I feel them should actually give let's say seamless

[00:17:35] or won't want to achieve in the market that gives customer the flexibility is also part of something that defines how you introduce products in market then it's easier to really know that once you get into the market you're already connected and everybody can assess you and there's also

[00:17:50] a connectivity between one of those solutions to another solution immediately from the ongoing in the market fantastic thank you for that I guess another challenge that is faced on the continent that kind of stops seamless payment is the issue of limited internet access so how have you gone

[00:18:10] about addressing this challenge within your platform okay so for us there's a limit of what we can do at the infrastructure level right because it takes a lot of parties to really be able to empower

[00:18:23] that area and it has to do with regulatory government other players device OEMs the service provider when it comes to internet service provider today what is the cost of internet itself right

[00:18:35] look at all of the model I think the likes of facebook even at a point where they've seen that there has to be a point where they can scale their users where over times you get to

[00:18:45] even get to use facebook so countries for free just to be able to acquire you right and those kind of acquisition model means that you must look at the barrier cost of entry as against what you really

[00:18:56] want and I feel that if all the stakeholders start looking at that there may be adoptions on how fast we can get where we need to get to when it comes to internet access

[00:19:05] can be achieved because over time some people will grow economically and they should be able to afford it but also some business are in business to actually sustain so at which place would

[00:19:15] there be a balance because if I said the cost of adopting this customer it's going to be expensive to adopting um I would rather not want to because it's going to actually impact on the business as

[00:19:26] you go so it's a effort of everybody not just us we already are building towards digitalization which is technology driven which makes sure that internet is required to achieve some of the payment solutions and also even a offline solution state technology driven right so all those

[00:19:43] moments for us still goes back to how the parties are going to come together to make sure that at their own level they understand what they call growth scalability and see how economically they can

[00:19:54] see how they can build models to really create growth and some of these guys that seem let me say financial limitations as a barrier to really come on board so you switched on some key points

[00:20:04] there in terms of the work that you're doing in building your own infrastructure and ecosystem and a crucial part of that is the security built around it so as a payment platform security is

[00:20:19] key so what have you done or put in place to ensure the security of transactions on the platform so for us I think security is just one of the key things we incorporate from the thought pattern

[00:20:33] of looking at the customer looking at your product as a whole and it means that who is the main customer and the sustainability of the customer is understanding the customer and what is important

[00:20:43] to them the customer what's important to you is for you to secure his money now using that money across board online how much can you protect it also is a second now for we number one let me say

[00:20:55] we are PCI certified that means we're payment card industry that our protection security satisfy right which makes sure that anything that happens within our environment is secure and protected on our platform also how we now manage information within our organization

[00:21:11] actually made us to be satisfied as one of the ISO 2001 which is the information security framework that gives you that environment internet environment because you're actually having styles and resources building the solution that customers are using so all data has

[00:21:26] been moved between organizations as to be also be well secured right so we are ISO 2001 certified also but also there's different people in the value chain when it comes to payment

[00:21:37] the banks that use the card or a mobile money or preto that issues the wallet right or a wallet system service for whether they offer as a wallet services or a purex machine right or a

[00:21:48] soft force all some of these payment solutions are actually being empowered or acquired already and some of them are already customers empowered from their own infrastructure point of view so they build their security at their point because the whole idea of security

[00:22:02] at times is to give a consent a customer is giving consent to give me access to actually debit my account just when I'm trying to do transaction and some of those security tends to come from who controls the acceptance solution or the payment options solution so in

[00:22:18] the case of example like card you have a card issued to you by your bank and your OTP or your security solutions actually you buy a bank so when you bring it online the peness is

[00:22:30] to goes back to your bank because that infrastructure actually level them what we do as a platform is to ensure that why is doing those things we make sure that that element is entirely secure

[00:22:39] that nothing is exposed why is doing that within the environment so it's a party you're starting for when called security it does not really drives it as a gateway they actually make sure that everything has to be secure because there are other dependencies

[00:22:53] insightful thank you so you mentioned understanding what is important to the customer and protecting their money is critical we also know the data privacy and compliance are critical to customers well I was wondering if you could walk us through how CBIT ensures that customers data and

[00:23:14] privacy is well protected looking at the old value chain like I said of Pima right it means that there's a part of the person providing the payment solution type that customers used to pay and for a lot like I said we appreciate the SSA certify that means that

[00:23:32] number one we have an environment that is 80 tps secure that means it's certified there's a protection layer over the environment of our web when you actually input any information there's somebody cannot come and do fishing and cookie stuff like that around it right

[00:23:48] so it means that within that space all informations they it's quite secure now when the information pass through the network we make sure that no data is actually being kept they're all encrypted like why it's been transmitted the encryption means that we're not really actually holding any

[00:24:04] customer data we're actually voting them to make sure that why they transmit through winnings transmit also it's not accessible right so some other people are not supposed to have access to those information so it's more about using technology as much as possible so to

[00:24:20] make sure that you build that you start shit around some of the things you're doing so you've given us great insights into the infrastructure and technology behind the platform so if we look

[00:24:30] more the front end what innovations or new features can we expect from CBIT in the new feature so looking at it for us I think the whole idea about how we introduce new products

[00:24:42] right is looking at what is the key challenges in the market right and how can we actually be voiced to address that challenges part of our research recently is just to understand today

[00:24:54] there's a reason why we have a lot of customers today that have approximately one of the highest level of failure you find in the market today is insufficient balance when it comes to transactions

[00:25:04] right people don't have enough money to purchase or buy and those are things that drives those conversations where okay how do we be the product to also reduce that point of failure in

[00:25:14] the marketplace and yeah we are looking forward to build something around then where we will actually be launching very soon fantastic so yes in order to build new products requires research and a lot of collaboration between yourself and different stakeholders which moves me on to my next

[00:25:32] point of partnership so what is the importance of partnerships between I guess user FinTech company and other traditional financial institutions in Africa to enable the customers get the full value of the banking service I think the whole idea like I said earlier is if the banks are

[00:25:54] at good and perfectly what they do right there won't be opportunity for FinTech right breaking the bank into small elements in some areas of specialities what FinTech has picked up to push into the market right to address those challenges or to really expand this scope of the

[00:26:09] opportunity where banks also have capacity or they don't have the bandwidth to address that's where and that's why FinTechs are actually be really successful right and then because they are agile

[00:26:19] compared to a bank they can easily go in see how they want to solve the solutions and push the solution into the marketplace now if you understand that this is the foundational guy

[00:26:30] that means he has to be a clear understand that there has to be a partnership collaboration and each party must see that they are collaborating rather seen each other as competitive and I think

[00:26:40] that's where we want to get it to understand them there's skill you will never be able to attain if you don't partner with this and there comes some level of what you want to achieve in the

[00:26:49] market without this guy being your enimpler we need to get to that point it has to be a clear partnership that each other needs each other to actually get or to actually address

[00:26:58] the kind of common needs that everybody has seen in the marketplace thank you for that so keeping to the theme of collaboration and partnerships can you give us examples of how say strategic partnerships or collaborations have enabled you to expand your reach across Africa okay so

[00:27:16] let's look at it from one of the markets we're working for we're one of our customers want to attain what they call cross border right a cross border function where they have customer in like three countries and those countries they require to be able to maybe incentivize their

[00:27:30] customers which have businesses in those countries by the virtue of government they have their safe given example of in a common space or hospitality for us to achieve this kind of cross border right you need to understand that you also need the bank in some areas you also

[00:27:44] need the likes of casking casking like solutions like visa direct that allows you to actually do a cross border sending me able to create somebody's account using your visa card it's also kind of elements you require to collaborate but that's just one collaboration

[00:27:59] but the others also looking at okay i'm in a country but i'm actually being able to cater for my customers in multiple countries right there you need a bank and those banks are kind of banks

[00:28:09] that could actually even give you what they call sponsoring what will allow you to pass those transactions through the network so you realize that there are a lot of elements that tends to attain this kind of cross border functions too so partnership is what actually

[00:28:21] drives faster growth that's the truth the kind of a running will find herself i agree i agree so as you operate in multiple african countries so how do you manage to understand the cultural

[00:28:33] landscape within the specific african countries that you operate in so i think for us is more about learning and learning directly from the locus and those learning is what we want to bring

[00:28:45] into create an adoption into our own platform right and see how easy we can actually use that to penetrate the market so it's all about being able to localize yourself by each market

[00:28:56] brilliant so i guess if we move from markets to sectors are there any particular sectors in african that you've observed to be more inclined to embrace digital payments so i think everybody wants to really embrace digitalization right and there's a question

[00:29:15] actually earlier about the internet access right there's a gap between what you want and how to get it yes and that's based on what you find a lot of opportunity also for a lot of people to come

[00:29:27] and some and jump into that wagon every businesses want to be able to contribute to the global market today because you are building a product to say you are beyond just a sudden cycle of

[00:29:37] customers there can actually be much more relevant to more bigger customers than where i think i have and for you to be able to attain that skill that means you need platform to do that and you

[00:29:46] need connectivity to be able to connect to those global market so every market today i think wants to really be part of this function but how they want to get there uh there could be

[00:29:54] local factors they could be political factors it could be regional factors it could be limitation infrastructure and there are others also for us i think we just have that direction to say everybody within this space is working hard the challenges are clear and the challenges can even

[00:30:09] be bigger than what we think the kind of limitations getting some of the countries to to accept digitalization right maybe just all those gaps we have discussed earlier right or how your assistants are built into the marketplace the licensing processes right

[00:30:24] regulators and so on right now so i feel that it's a more deeper conversation that you're just looking at it that do they want or do they don't want to try is what ability to really look at

[00:30:34] it from the point of the market itself but we more or less just deal with businesses and make sure that what are the best we can make sure that we enable these businesses as quick as possible

[00:30:43] to get them into the marketplace that's great so you emphasize that everybody wants to embrace the digital payments which is true because over the last say five years or more we've seen a boom of payment platforms in Africa so what would you say differentiates seabit from the rest

[00:31:03] so i think looking at the old market itself right you know over times you can never find one single solution actually addressing a time marketplace of yes and but you can find different people having different strategy so like i would say payment is payment for everybody

[00:31:18] right but what differentiates us our strategy what exactly is our focus and what are we trying to address and what's our purpose right so these purpose that makes our solutions and our product

[00:31:28] that makes us different right and the approach of how we look at it so for example now i was giving example of a client that is trying to do cross border right we don't believe that there should be

[00:31:38] barrier in payments right as much as we continue we want to eliminate barriers of payment no customer should be different choice that means in seabit we're looking at their always a solution and there's

[00:31:47] always a real that you always give a customer an empowerment into anything he wants to do and that's as given other differentiations in product and how position our products in the marketplace right to actually give that element to make sure them there's no barriers as the

[00:32:00] business choose to move and accessibility for customers of choices to able to do what they need to do with them so those are the things that actually makes that difference and differentiators fantastic so you mentioned that your purpose is what makes seabit different and has allowed

[00:32:16] you to operate successfully in the past and currently and i guess looking forward as well so when we look at the current situation in terms of what's going on in the digital payment space in africa are there any trends that you're seeing that you're currently excited about

[00:32:36] i think there's so much different trends in the whole area of blockchain your time we've seen so much people trying to use crypto to address payment barriers to remittance and different kind of functions right but i think if you

[00:32:50] had to take a step backward right one thing i think payment is required and most important thing is identity if identity is not properly solved there's going to be huge barrier to payments

[00:33:03] because today if i need to send you money at adamu today right yes i want to want someone to adamu and we said adamu right and the knowing you is your kyc and that's your identity so

[00:33:14] because they don't identity i cannot send money to adamu and so we have to understand the foundations that drives this engagement so the future lies within identity so because once you can build something that automatically gives everybody easier identity to know who is

[00:33:29] who and it's already been satisfied by its kyc then we resolve entertainment problems somehow at the global level interesting thank you for that so i guess if we look past current trends

[00:33:42] and look at the future of africa how do you see the future of digital payments evolving in africa over the next say five years i think what is going to address that five years landmark right

[00:33:56] i'm not sure it's going to be the product introduced it's going to be also around regulatory we're seeing the after there's coming in the pubs seeing how they want to connect all the banks for inter-probability for payment across different countries which is being driven by pubs

[00:34:11] you also understand that those are the things being agreed maybe at the african level and those are where we talked about policy because once they have those agreement right then you see that you can actually drive commerce within each other and those are things we are thinking

[00:34:25] things that will fast track right payment is going to be how policy that gives a common or a neutral common approach to everybody will make things really go faster so the future depends

[00:34:39] on a lot of things and those things are the things i feel that it's going to actually help us see clearly what's possible what's not possible i agree i agree so if we look closer to home

[00:34:51] where do you see yourself and see a bit in five years time what role will you be playing in african's digital payment space yeah so for us we feel that the future of payment in africa also depend on us

[00:35:04] and that means that there's so much to be done and there's so much that has not been done right if that is the case that means we really don't really look at five years time

[00:35:14] you understand every day it's as important you understand through us i had a looking at tomorrow which is not yet as the not yet come right and the problem is always clear in our face so we just

[00:35:24] want to take it as it comes and they see how much because finding ourselves in some of the market was not even we've been intentional in some of them it was being driven by the needs of customer right

[00:35:35] and those needs that shaped us and see where we're finding ourselves so at times we don't really define the entire directions of those some of this year we use problems to actually redefine where it's possible we're going to be and we'll see how big the problem is

[00:35:50] and we'll say that the bigger the problem the bigger the opportunity so let's take it and move on amazing i love that the bigger the problem the bigger the opportunity fantastic quote of the week

[00:36:01] as people we often have quotes mantras african proverbs or affirmations that keep us going when times are challenging or when times are good do you have one that you can share with us

[00:36:11] today yeah for me i think i wouldn't say it's like a proverb but i would say it's like a belief right where you're looking at me from the point of we act mostly on what we believe and we can only believe

[00:36:27] on what we know i like that more or less you can never act beyond what you believe and you cannot believe beyond what you know i agree thank you for sharing that with us that's one we've

[00:36:38] not had on the show so brilliant as we've come to the end of today's conversation do you have any closing remarks final course action for people who are interested in digital payments in africa or

[00:36:51] people who are just interested in what you're doing at see a bit um just my final comment is uh i feel that there's so much that needs to be done and i feel that we should start focusing

[00:37:02] on the challenges and problem rather than just really looking at product itself uh the product itself it's an act of trying to solve a customer problem with customer journey so looking at it

[00:37:13] in a bigger scope i think it should really help the entire market to actually drive towards the komu go everyone's also attain and also my last word would just be for everyone that wants to come

[00:37:23] in it's quite a good place i think premium is quite i call it the lifeblood of commerce so if something is a lifeblood that drives commerce that means uh it's more or less like foundation so foundation is required your size quite the most important thing in anything you

[00:37:38] look at buildings or whatever it is so i think it would be important for more people to come and play in that aspect and for see a bit i think uh like we said we are trying to empower businesses

[00:37:49] to contribute to the commerce of africa and we're open actually to partnership to enable more businesses to reach out to us and see how we can help in any way to empower them

[00:37:59] and thank you very much for your time uh just the last word believe and push the limits fantastic what a way to close today's conversation thank you for joining me on the podcast today it's cleared uh see a bit commitment to financial inclusion transactions and tailored solutions

[00:38:19] reflect the dynamism and what is happening on the continent with regards to digital payments so i'll be keeping a close eye on what you guys are doing and i'm sure you'll do amazing

[00:38:31] things in the coming years so fantastic thank you for joining me on the podcast today thank you very much for having me cheers thank you to everyone who has listened and stayed tuned to the podcast

[00:38:43] if you've enjoyed this episode please subscribe share or tell a friend about it you can also rate review us in apple podcast or wherever you download your podcast thank you and see you next week for the unlocking africa podcast