Pyypl deploys its new social, micro-investment platform to the benefit of African entrepreneurs and micro-SMEs, with an initial partnership announced with Kenya’s Tuk Tuk Operators Network (TTON).
Pyypl (pronounced ‘people’), the international payment technology and financial services provider using blockchain in its core systems, announces the commercial rollout of its social, micro-investment platform for self-employed entrepreneurs and micro-SMEs in Africa.
The rollout is commencing via an initial partnership with TTON in Kenya, a pan-African mobility network connecting Tuk Tuk operators across 47 counties.
The launch of Pyypl’s latest platform seeks to advance digitalisation for these operators via Pyypl’s virtual debit cards, which will directly impact TTON’s growth.
The partnership has set out the ambition to support TTON’s long-term vision of connecting three-wheeler players in Africa’s informal transport industry to a common socio-economic, sustainable, inclusive mobility platform under structured transport Savings and Credit Co-Operative Societies (SACCOs).
SACCOs encourage saving and help members obtain affordable loans that otherwise might not have been accessible.
Investing in the core of the community
Discussing the company’s provision of short-term, fair and transparent investment to the TTON alongside its application of digital financial services, Antti Arponen, CEO of Pyypl, describes community groups as “the core of Kenyan society.”
“With over 126,000 TTON members representing more than 1.6 million Boda Boda operators across Kenya,” continues Arponen, “this demonstrates the huge opportunity for Pyypl’s debentures platform as we build out partnerships across multiple African countries.”
As relationship organisations such as SACCOs and trade unions maintain high levels of trust with their strong communities, Pyypl’s debentures platform aims to build out a social ecosystem for entrepreneurs across Africa and improve access to digital financial services for informal employment sectors.
While currently working directly with trade organisations, the company anticipates that, in the near future, investors might include larger organisations such as the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation.
A window of opportunity
Speaking on behalf of the Tuk Tuk and Boda Bodas community in Kenya, which is in the process of seeking meaningful partnerships to grow the sector, Vincent M Were, network lead for TTON, expresses how the community “appreciates the engagement of Pyypl and their services.”
Were comments on how access to debentures via TTON’s connection with Pyypl has “opened a new window of opportunity for our transport ecosystem, meeting our most critical financial needs while in line of service.”
“This oiling of transport business activities through Pyypl’s micro-investment product has contributed positively to the growth of our economy as a sector and even as a country,” he continues. “We look forward to a time when both the three-wheeler and two-wheeler sectors in Kenya will all have fully subscribed to Pyypl’s debenture platform.”
Pyypl’s strong capital base is turbocharging regional growth as the company executes its mission to offer financial services to the 800 million financially underserved smartphone users across Africa and the Middle East.
Pyypl does this via internationally accepted virtual and physical prepaid cards, instant domestic and international user-to-user transfers, plus remittances to 42 currency destinations.
The partnership and rollout follow a significant thirteen months for Pyypl. The company’s revenues tripled in the four-month period October 2022 to January 2023, inclusive, and were eight times greater than in 2021.
This revenue upsurge bookended a year of notable operational KPIs: the company’s App 2.0 was launched in eight different languages, and its prepaid card was transacted at 30,000 different merchants across 150 countries and 100 different currencies. Pyypl also handled over one million customer chats.
Image and article originally from thefintechtimes.com. Read the original article here.