 The local economy issues are challenging. The local economy is raising awareness about the island, and we have the CEO with us from the island Afrika. Please introduce yourself. My name is Alitha Yusjuma. The CEO and co-founder of the island of Africa. My background goes beyond development. I have decided to build a island with my co-founder, Bandun Murgur Okay, so now, you know, most innovations, before we get to what Palen dies, most innovations seek to, you know, give a solution to a problem that is there in the world, or people are experiencing, so tell us what problem that you saw, or what gap you saw that you decided to come up with Palen. Okay, so to put the problem into perspective, I'll just give you a story of me growing up, and the neighborhood that I grew up, we had this neighborhood shop that served most of the families in the community, and what used to happen is, my mom would send me to this shop, and at the time she'd not give me money, she'd just tell me, juma go get bread, milk, butter, and I'd go to the shop, get the goods, go back home, and all along John, who was the shopkeeper at the moment at the time, used to write this on a piece of paper that he called a black book, then probably a week or a month later, my mom would always pay back the money, and this culture cuts across Africa. Now the problem is that every time I go back to my neighborhood, John's shop is still the same. Now the only difference is that his son is the one running the shop because John has grown old and... It has been passed down to the next generation. Exactly, and the problem is that the inventory, the state of the shop, it's still the same. Now me and my co-founder realized that this is a problem that cuts across almost all communities in Africa, and we decided to come up with a solution, and now looking at where the problem stems from, which is basically data. So John lacks a way to see how he transacts on a daily basis. He lacks a modern way of recording the transactions that he does on a daily basis, and all this does is that it locks him out of the financial sector. So even if John wanted to probably increase his inventory by getting credit from a financial institution, it wouldn't be possible because he has no proof to validate that actually the value of my shop is say 100,000, so would you lend me 10,000? So what Palin has done is we have digitized this process, the transactions that John does on a daily basis. Okay, so you have digitized the black book, so it's not the digital black book. Exactly. All right, so that's a problem you've solved. So is this the only thing that you're doing? Is this the main service that you're offering rather, or are there others before it gets into them in detail? So the beauty about our flagship product is that it has helped us leverage on data. Now, you see by us, by Palin understanding how John transaks on a daily basis, both credit and cash transactions, we are able now to build tools that will be able to deliver financial services to John, helping him, propelling him into profitability and being sustainable over the long run. So ideally we've built a number of tools among them, our services, which basically helps John's customers, that's like now my mum, buy goods from John on credit and what this does is that it helps John manage his credit with much ease. Then we also have other products including Changisha, which is a crowdfunding platform, Patavoucha, which instills financial discipline, and the beauty about our entire ecosystem, now that I've mentioned Patavoucha is that our services or other money that is within our ecosystem is tied to a specific utility. Say Stephanie if we were to give you credit, we won't just give you credit like any other lender, what we do is we'd be specific in terms of what we are lending you for. If you say I need money for education, we won't give you the money in cash, we'll pay the fee directly. If you're buying bread from John, we'll pay for the bread, we'll just pick the bread. Okay, so before we get into the details of this, I want us to play a video that has been, our comedian Kenna, Crazy Kenna has dramatized what basically students go through and that is the solution that you're bringing. So you also uploaded it on your social media handle. So we want to play so that we can relate to this more. So let's have it. Well, now you know how PayLend works. You've seen an example of how it can play out for you as a student or you as a parent. So instead of sending money directly through the mobile cash transfers, you just do the payment to whatever they're buying. Kamani, you do kwa if they're shopping. Exactly. I've been a student once and I know what happened. So ideally you'll be sent money. Let's say for instance you've been sent 5k for upkeep. And probably you're supposed to set aside 3,000 for food, 2,000 for shopping maybe, 1,000 for transport. You find that being a student a lot comes up and you might find yourself spending money that was meant for food on other things. Exactly. And at the end of the day you'll end up calling your parent again, hey ma'am send me more money. So what PayLend does is you don't have to send your kid cash while he's in school. You can distribute the money across the different areas that the student spends money on. So for instance if it's food, he spends 2,000, he or she spends 2,000 on food a month. You can easily send them a voucher worth 2,000. And the beauty you can even lock this 2,000 to that specific shop that you know is within the school. Okay. So they lock to using that until it's over and then now they renew the voucher again. Exactly. Okay. So tell us, take us through the process now for someone who's totally new at this. How is the relation between the customer and the shopkeeper? How do they get on board to the app? How do they use the app? How is it beneficial? So take us through that process. So the customer journey is pretty simple. We have built an app and it's available in play store. So what the customer and the shopkeeper would do, they'd go to play store, download the app and if someone does not have a smartphone, if they have a feature phone, they basically dial star 4A3 star 800 hash and they are able to access our services via USB. So ideally the first step would be to sign up on the platform. If you are a shop, you'll have to be verified by one of our agents. So once you sign up, we send an agent on ground, they come and verify your shop. If you are a customer, you just provide your KYC information. You sign up on the platform. Tell us about KYC. I need to know your customer. Yes. So what that information do you give? Ideally you give us your basic information, your name, your date of birth, your agenda. Then also you give us your legal information. We need to know which was your nationality. Do you have an ID number? Do you have a passport number? A picture of your ID and also you also give us your financial status. So ideally what's your occupation? How much do you make in a month? So ideally this helps us call you as a user because on day one, we need to give you that limit that you can spend at your neighborhood shop. So ideally once you give us your KYC, we've scored you, we've given you a limit, you can visit your local shop and transact with them. So now you have registered me. I've done the registration, everything has been approved. So now I go to my local shop but they're not registered under pay land. What happens? So what happens then is now you become our advocate because you want the service. So now I'm selling. Okay, so now I'll be selling pay land to the shopkeeper. It's a five minute process so once you tell them about pay land and they see the value of which now you see now the value is that you won't take the bread and milk then you pay them at the end of the month. So what value are they getting? You see once you go there and you transact with them, what pay land does is to give them the money upfront. So what this makes, what this does is it makes them, it increases their liquidity. So ideally they get money for operations, they get money to increase their stock, the inventory and ideally this would not be the case if ideally you had gone to the shop and just taken bread and milk then you pay at the end of the month. Oh yeah, you have lifted the burden of them following up on the debts. I'm happy because I have. Exactly. And you see again we introduce all our customers to him. So for him he'd only give debt to the loyal customers that he knows but pay land now we have built a relationship with these customers from all over. So if I am just visiting for instance Ruiru and I stay in Kabete, pay land will watch for me at this shop and tell them you know what this guy can take Guzan credit. They don't even need to know that I'm taking Guzan credit but now pay land brings new customers to them. Okay so let me understand this. When I go to the shop I want tea and bread on credit so now the shopkeeper I'm taking the credit from pay land. Exactly. I'm borrowing from pay land basically because the shopkeeper you're paying once I go to my application and then I say I want to buy this and that and then now you give you pay the shopkeeper for me. Exactly. All right. So they are good. So they get the money they can increase the stock if they want to they can pay wakasi if they want to if they have so ideally we make them more liquid. Okay. And then what happens to me now after I've taken the credit from you? After you've taken the credit now you're going to pick a repayment plan based on your capabilities and how you see fit. So you can pick either 7 days 14 days 1 month or 60 days. And how are the interest rates compared to other mobile money applications? So we believe we are among the lowest in terms of the rates that we give our customers and given that it's unsecured loan and for 7 days for instance we do 2.5 for 14 days we do 5 for 30 days 7.5 and then for Okay. So now once I getting on to the system registering do I have to pay for anything other monthly subscriptions to it? So the services are purely free the services are purely free so for the shopkeeper they don't get to pay anything for the customers well they don't get to pay anything. So there's no fee because I saw somewhere where there's some monthly you know subscription so what does that come in? So ideally if you are a customer who scores high you don't need to you don't need to subscribe and that bit for subscription was sometime back when we were doing customers who are loyal to a specific shop we were asking them to subscribe to this shop then they can take goods on credit for the entire month but ideally we script of that model where customers were subscribing to the shop So now the services are free? Yes now the services are completely free Okay. And now once I have your debts and if I'm not able to pay how do you handle this because we have had you know in recent times you know people following up on your entire clan who are delivered in so how do you do it differently? Yeah so I know so for us we are trying to find a balance between making profits and also being humane in terms of how we do our collections because there have been cases where people they even come to your doorstep or where you work talking to your bosses Exactly. So for us we'll just give you a call and what we've invested a lot in is in the AI engine that we use to score our users because we believe once we leverage on data we cannot give Stephanie a credit a credit limit that she cannot pay back So we take time to understand we invest more in understanding who Stephanie is and how much she can how much is how much how much how much limit she'll be able to pay probably within 60 days or 30 days. Alright. That's quite interesting and now from the shop what other services because you've said someone can also pay fees is this part of the okua this is the okua service product Yes, okua services okua services okua services okua services just to bring you back a little bit pale and we are not only profit driven we focus also on driving impact in the community and how we've designed our product is that there are more of community products it's not a product that you can use it in silo as in use Stephanie alone using pale and so it's more of a community product and okua services what we've done is we've segmented these products in terms of the credit that we're giving so we have for instance we have okua school fees as you've mentioned what okua school fees does is if the schools are opening and I'm taking my kid to school and I do not have the school fees at the moment ideally the school and the parent must be registered on pale and fast and what happens is that I can transact via pale where I tell the school ok I'm transacting 10,000 through pale then now because the school understands me as a parent because the school understands me as a parent they are able either to edit the 10,000 or accept the 10,000 this is because the school will also take part in reminding the parents that they need to pay the money back oh ok so ok the school takes part in this so they cannot just give parents huge amounts and amounts that the parents can't pay back can't pay so there's also a limit yes exactly and now for back to the shopping bit okua shopping so can you do it does it work for supermarkets because maybe I want to buy back shopping does it work in supermarkets so for supermarkets we are rolling out for customers we've segmented our customers by the way so we are rolling out for customers who we pay who we prepare for them 100% as I said it's more of community forecast product so ideally they are customers who we pay for them we prepare for them 100% they are customers who we prepare for them 50% so ideally if you are starting off and we have not scored us 100% customer you will need to transact to the shop that knows you so you will go to your local shop where you usually transact but you do not pay a dime on day one and paylend will pay 50% so for supermarkets we are rolling out for customers who we prepare for them 100% any other services under okua okua services we have okua afia where again we are going into the communities these hospitals that serve people within communities and what we do is we prepare the hospital bills for them we prepare the hospital bills for them then they are going to pay us back later again this is based on our understanding of these customers so going back to the point that I said earlier we leverage on data now you see if you used okua shopping you used okua school fees and we understand your behaviour your role kind of your behaviour on the app or even to extend okua afia to you where we can pay the bills so if your credit score is good exactly and any other I know there is also okua kilimo for agriculture exactly so for okua kilimo how we do access you see right now fertilizer prices have been skyrocketing so ideally what we do is we have agrovets on our platform and these agrovets are the ones that we have registered ourselves and we have verified ourselves and what we do is if a farmer for instance they want fertilizer and they do not have the money at the moment we can prepare for them we can prepare for them they go pick the fertilizer at the retail stores at the retail stores that we have registered on our platform and then they are going to pay us back they spread out the payment so if they are taking for instance two bags two bags right now go for about roughly 10,000 10,000 to 12,000 so they can spread this payment probably for 6 to 3 months ok the only services that you are offering now that you are aligned to now or other multiple services maybe like transport in the transport system maybe hairdressing different areas where we need services for the okua services it has been broken down we have mentioned okua shopping okua kilimo, okua afia we have okua logistics and we have okua bills as well ideally what for instance okua logistics does is we prepare we buy fuel for taxi drivers for boda boda riders then they spread out the payment so it can work in any service not any service, just the services that we have listed on our platform so any other products apart from okua services I know that they are on for please mention them and then now tell us so apart from okua services we also have pata voucher the video that you just played was demonstrating pata voucher yes where you fill up the voucher you pay for the voucher in advance where the parent buys the voucher for their kids in campus then the kids can review exactly and it does not just work for campus students also for guys who are working you can distribute your expenditure monthly expense based on what you spend what and how much you spend the money on so for instance if I do 5000 shopping and I use let's say 2000 on transport I can easily buy the worth for transport at the end of the month so that's okua services pata voucher then you also have changisha changisha changisha is a crowdfunding tool where individuals and organizations can create initiatives on the platform and then raise money for courses that they hold here so for instance if I have an event a social event let's say I am arranging my wedding so ideally I can create an initiative on pay land and share the initiative number with friends and family who can contribute the money based on the target that I have put in place also if an organization is trying to raise funds maybe to feed a specific community in marginalized areas they can easily use changisha by creating an initiative on our platform then sharing this initiative the beauty is that also you can either make it public or private so if you make it public then it will be available on pay land social media pages and also on our page where we display the initiatives so anyone anywhere can channel funds to that specific initiative how different is it from other crowds who are saying platforms so how different it is is that we we foster transparency and accountability so ideally you find that you might be raising funds and maybe you are raising these funds for specific group of people who are your beneficiaries let's say you are raising funds to feed or to take 4 kids to school so ideally how it would happen traditionally is you would raise the funds withdraw these funds from the system then go pay school fees with pay land you will raise these funds within the same ecosystem disperse these funds either to the school or to the parents of these kids and tie the funds to school fees so ideally again coming back to what I said earlier within our ecosystem you can be able to tie funds to that specific utility so you hold people responsible what technology is behind this innovation so for us our fuel is data and AI is our engine so AI and data exactly so now following our borrowing patterns as Kenyans sometimes people borrow loans to pay for loans so like you have loan in this in one loan lending up and you want to borrow from another so to pay this one so do you allow for that that kind of transaction to happen so unfortunately unfortunately or fortunately people can do this because you see these are are independent companies so if we have credit lender A we have digital lender B and we have another one C they they are independent companies so if A gives me a loan or a credit and I go to B you see now this guys manage their own data independently and we manage our data independently one has to be enrolled into your system for you to pay them so now do enroll the digital lending apps to your platform for you to pay them for someone no so it's not really possible for us to onboard other digital lenders on our platform yes so if I want to pay for a loan that I have in one of the loan platforms I want you to pay for it and then I will repay you back no you have not done such so how would you say that you are building the local economy from all that you have said so if you look at what we are doing we are helping other core of our ecosystem is data and once these neighborhood shops are able to leverage on the data they generate within their daily operations now they are able to leverage on this also to get credit from probably pay land and other financial institutions what we do is we help them understand the actual value the actual value of their businesses and this helps this brings them into financial inclusion where now they are able to get money either to drive their operations or to increase their inventory and looking at all the products they are all geared towards building the local economy so ideally if you look at for instance a product like Changisha and Patavoucha so how they tie together is look at an organization raising funds to probably feed a community in area in Kenya so what traditionally they do that if they are in Nairobi they raise the money buy the foodstuff in Nairobi then transport them to area A but with pay land what they do is they raise the money raise the money then disbasi to beneficiaries in area A people in area A would buy these goods within shops that are within the area driving demand and with this now the shops in that area will need to buy more from suppliers and you find that the local economy is growing so we will have a video running as we continue the discussion just to show how one can get on board with your app with the application but now how is the reception from when you came up with it when did you come up with it and how is the reception so started off in 2019 we were incorporated in December 2019 and the better part of 2020 we were building 2021 doing tests and ideally we have been chaning out products since August to the first quarter of this year and currently we have 10,000 users and we have onboarded 3000 plus shops predominantly in Kenya and since you are continental do you have customers from outside the borders we just got incorporated in Zambia where we will be starting operations probably by the end of this second quarter of 2022 wow amazing take us to the world represents Kenya so now what's your vision and what's your goal as an organization as we come to a close so our vision as a company is to see that the 100 million plus micro, small and medium enterprises in Africa are able to we are able to deliver digital tools to them so that we can bring them into profitability and sustainability there are 100 million plus jobs by the way in Africa so our goal is to see how do we drive profitability if I walk out of my neighborhood 10 years down the line once I come back I find that John has expanded his shop he even has 3 3 different shops within the same neighborhood and branches in other areas exactly and our goal is to become our goal is to serve at least half a billion of the population in Africa currently we are at 1.2 1.3 billion so ideally that's our goal to deliver so ok, thank you very much but before you leave we'd want you to say something to the innovators because what inspired you because people have innovations and have ideas out there but they are afraid to take the step so you are started as an idea I believe so just give an encouragement that is your camera so ideally what I'd say is that first of all if you don't believe in yourself then no one will because it has to be intrinsic it has to come from within so if you have an idea just run with it and the fact that right now Africa is gaining traction in terms of people coming up with ideas and also investors coming into Africa this is the right time for Africa to export the ideas to export the innovations to export the tech we have innovators who can build world class products that can serve people globally and drive impact as well thank you very much Juma, your first name is quite hard but thank you for coming thank you very much for coming on board so that has been a sport on tech where we see how fintech is helping build local economies and this is through an innovation by Payland Africa the company behind Payland platform which is an application where you can get your credit from and not use cash because they pay for you directly well talk to us we are still continuing right after the break but we're coming back with some music and lifestyle the hashtag you use is that the vibe see you on the other side of the break