Fintechs to benefit from financial inclusion initiative

Financial technology companies, developers and financial inclusion players will benefit from a Fintechs initiative expected to run between May 25 and July 5.

The initiative, code named 40 Days 40 Fintechs, seeks to introduce Ugandans to Mojaloop OSS – an open source software developed by ModusBox with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation under the Level 1 Project.

Announcing the initiative last week, Mr Innocent Kawooya, a Fintechs advocate and the chief executive officer of HiPipo, a local partner of Mojaloop, said the initiative will help to expose local Fintechs, developers and emerging companies to new tools that will enable them reach rural Uganda with innovative financial services.

“Fintechs should be excited … because of the many discoveries and lessons they are going to make from the many astonishing and failed stories,” he said.
Fintechs have been at the forefront of financial innovations and inclusion and have created a linkage between banks and mobile network operators.
“Mobile network operators and banks are going to be more open to integration and collaboration and a number of Fintechs that will participate in the initiative, collaborate and embrace it might turn into the real heroes of our economy that will maybe create a payment switch to simplify payments interoperability in different markets forever,” Mr Kawooya.
The initiative, which targets about 500 million empowers organizations to create interoperable digital payment systems.

Elsewhere
The initiative has already been adopted for a Tanzania Instant Payments System while in West Africa, MTN and Orange are already using Mojaloop for a joint mobile money wallet.