[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr954e_SFQY[/embedyt]

By Tony Muiva

 

You have started a small company, relatively picking up itself. Or you have a big upmarket supermarket, operating around the clock. You have been to business school or your old man has been your mentor. It means out of all this, you know that the customer is king. With the age of mobile money payment upon you like a bad idea, it is time to make it easier for you and your customer to streamline your financial encounter. But why would you? As long as they pay, and you receive and everybody smiles. That is good business right? Of course you would think so. Because everyone thinks so. Interestingly¸ that is not enough. In the current market situation, with the age of digitalization, the business or organization (for example a school) needs a way to appreciate both you and your customer.  There are 2700 ATMS in Kenya, but 96 percent of households use a cell phone. Mobile money payment is appealing, particularly in rural areas, because you don’t need a bank account or internet connection to use it.

 

2016/2017 second quarter ICT statistics released by the communications Authority of Kenya showed that around 21 million people had subscribed to MPESA services although person to person transfers are more done on cash transactions.  Why wouldn’t more people be embracing mobile money payments whereas it is the trend?  Simple reason, it is easy to alter a mobile payment notification, hence insecurity in financial dealings. Then comes BIRS, designed for all your company financial management needs. With the new BIRS technology, whenever a customer pays something via Paybill to your account¸ the system gives out a fast, universally verifiable receipt that could be easily checked up during an audit session.

 

• Take this for example, you still need to process receipts after a transaction for the physicality of having them is proof of purchase. But these receipts are immediately torn apart, or lost along the away. This will eventually lead to some awkward stares as the auditing is being done at some point. How about you give your customer a way to process all their receipts in an electronic way. As the world goes green, and Kenya in particular, and the forest cover diminishing at a fast rate, generating these electronic receipts might be the best way to go. Electronic receipts last longer. And why exactly would you need an electronic receipt?

 

• Since the verifiability is accessible universally, people can have access without having to physically move the receipt. This is good for companies with many departments or when verification is needed as soon as possible

 

• More electronic receipts lead to less paper receipts, less paper receipts lead to less trees cut down. BIRS acknowledges going green.

Ever gone to pay something via a paybill? You comfortably hit send, with enough confidence of a lion. You checked your balance, it was good enough. Your password was correct and the paybill or till number was correct. Five minutes later, you and the cashier are impatiently staring at each other and the system generated notification from the preferred money transfer service seems to have first gone to holiday in Timbuktu. You would like to try to pay again but what if you paid twice? What if there is a way that you don’t need that hassle anymore. Due to the large increase in transactions in the mobile money sector, the age of ugly drooling stares has been replaced by quick transaction notification that will not rely on how crowded the mobile money payment system is on that day. As a business owner, irrespective of the scale of your business, BIRS provides you with a quick way to ensure that your notification don’t delay your profits. The BIRS notification gives your customer the name of your organization, the phone number of your organization (not the full one, for privacy), irrespective of delay within the original network system. Seems good right? No hassle. No stares. No awkward silences. But through all this, the customer’s password and any information remains confidential.

 

If you generate the receipts, the notifications all together, then as the business owner, it is easier to consolidate each day’s worth of transactions in a linear manner as BIRS compiles it and gives you a simple analysis of each daily financial transactions.

 

I remember a particular incident last year, I had gone to pay some fees for a rather interesting course. I went on and did so dutifully at our campus bank. I would love to forget how long the queue was, or how I lost the receipt afterwards and the department offering the course would not listen to anything I had to say. I trotted to the bank a day later. After parting with Ksh 250, I got my duplicate receipt. The course fees were only Ksh 500. It was rather painful I would say. I have had to deal with the fear of losing my school fees receipts for a long time. Most of which I have lost. We are going paperless now. The new kid on the block, payment gate -a Kibo capital Group Company- gets you covered. Whenever you pay bills or do your banking, with payment gate, you get a tamper proof receipt that you could even share to the school without having to go physically and show them. Then banking becomes easier, the payment gate system makes it convenient for you to do your banking as you sip your cappuccino, or in my class, which I mostly daydream of my lost Ksh 250. Never again.

 

Back to the mobile money sector, our main focus here, an interesting fact is seen. In just three months, Kenyans had transacted 1.7 trillion shilling via mobile payment. That is about half of the Kenyan budget of 2017/2018 fiscal year. (2.627 trillion to be precise). According to reports by the communications authority, more than Ksh1.65 trillion was transacted through sending and withdrawals in 532.7 million transactions. Sh714 billion was spent in paying for goods and services, while 544 billion was used for peer to peer transfers. This shows that mobile money payment is picking up but lags to cash payment generally. The communications authority also attributes this growth to use of mobile money solutions that makes transactions easier. These include loans and savings. Kibo Capital Group limited with our Payment Gate systems reemphasizes our nation’s lead in as far as innovation in mobile money payment is concerned.

 

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr954e_SFQY[/embedyt]

 

 

Tony Muiva is an Engineering student who is extremely passionate about changing how the next generation takes care of the universe.