PesaPal: Kenyan Web & Mobile Payments
Start local, then Africa, then the world. That’s the mantra app developers in Africa should be repeating to themselves as they build their game changing tools. That’s what Agosta Liko and his team at Verviant are doing with their new web and mobile payment platform: PesaPal.
PesaPal is an eCommerce platform focused on Kenya. It’s built to work seamlessly with Kenya’s main mobile payment services; Zain’s Zap with approximately 300,000 users and Safaricom’s MPesa with around 2 million users.
The Need
Most Kenyans do not use credit cards, many are unbanked, and there is no consumer-oriented payment system in the country. PesaPal is aimed squarely at these wananchi (ordinary Kenyans). It’s a way for local vendors to offer digital payment for goods in a systematic way that they can track, and in a format that Kenyans have and are familiar with: mobile phone transactions.
Think of PesaPal as akin to the services offered by PayPal and Google Checkout to businesses – except that it actually works in Africa. (long rant coming if I continue down that thought path…).
- Phase 1 (this release) is about vendors being able to receive money, think mCommerce, ticketing, education, online stores, etc.
- Phase 2 (time TBD) is about paying money, which would include things like payroll, payday loans, micro-loans, etc.
How it Works
A prototypical business might be someone who manages a school or a vendor who wants to sell products via a website or billboard. They would come and sign up with PesaPal and get approved mobile phone payments set up using their own Zap or Mpesa account.
At this point the business is up and running and can receive payments.
If the business has a website, there are a few more options. They can pay a one-time fee of 4,000/= ($50) and get a pre-built plugin for common website content management systems like Joomla or osCommerce. The more advanced implementers can access and use the exposed web services (API) that PesaPal has built to allow for merchant and buyer verification or transaction processing.
A good example of this is Totally Toto, a website that sells children’s clothes and delivers them locally. Their only option in the past was cash-on-delivery, with PesaPal they are now also accepting, and tracking, payment in advance.
The business model for PesaPal is a transactional one, where they make approximately 15/= ($.20) per transaction that uses their system. I’m in favor of this because it gives PesaPal a great incentive to grow their user base and provide a service that truly helps vendors using their tool.
Further revenue opportunities for the PesaPal team include customized product integration, web site design and licensing of more advanced API functions by larger organizations.
Out of the box in phase 1, users will have:
- Immediate receipting and confirmation
- Transaction details stored for 7 years
- Vetted merchants/vendors
- Monitoring for KYC (Know Your Customer) and AMC (Anti-money Laundering) to protect vendors
- Safe and secure hosting within Kenya, the same place that Swift (money transfers) hosts theirs
The People and the Business
Agosta Liko is the Founder of PesaPal. He brings to the table a wealth of experience working in the US banking sector, Insurance field and Consulting. Agosta has worked on Wire Transfer, Loans Origination and Anti Money Laundering Systems for First Citizens Bancshares in USA. Paul Mungai, PesaPal’s Chief Software Engineer has over 5 years experience with Verviant Consulting Services where he worked on a wide array of ecommerce outsourcing projects. Onesmus Kamau Kagwanja, PesaPal’s Chief Technology Officer has been building software in East Africa for years, creating enterprise-level applications for some of the larger insurance companies in the region.
This background gives the seasoned team a particular edge when it comes to doing this work in Kenya. It has also helped them to bootstrap the venture, to build the application, launch it and keep them running through next year. The need and the ability to raise funds locally is a big deal in and of itself, and it’s a big mark in PesaPal’s favor that they’ve been able to pull this off.
It takes more than just pushing the “go” button on a website to make a business take off. It also takes deep pockets to launch a country-wide marketing campaign, a necessary expense for consumer products. Look for a major billboard, radio and web push by their team starting in October.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
Been looking forward to the launch of this service. Great stuff.
Wow! This is an awesome development. Mr Liko and your team, I wish you all the best in this initiative.
Hurrah! This is what we at the African Virtual School have been waiting for.
Well done Liko & Verviant. There should be huge deman for this type of service
This is REALLY BIG stuff! Best of luck as you push forward, PesaPal crew.
Cool stuff
Am Jazzed, kudos! This is what we have all been waiting for
Paul Mungai,
That’s great work. I’ve been looking forward to one of these services. Until today, I only know of Paypal, which I don’t trust (how would I start following up if my money went MISSING electronically? Would I take a plane to Paypal’s offices in some strange foreign country?) With PesaPal, i can walk into Michael Joseph’s premises on Kenyatta Avenue and shout all the noise and frustration, should such a scenario arise. Let’s think of it as a Kenyan Credit Card system. Again, great stuff by you and your team. JKUAT products/graduands rock! Let’s take over this country, by storm (IT-cally)
The MPESA link returns me back to the my profile page. Yet the caption says that it should re-direct me to the relevant page. Paul Mungai, you need to do some debugging here.
Can PesaPal integrate with ASP.NET applications? You only talked of * Joomla V1.5+ and OsCommerce V2.1+. Can you clarify more on OsCommerce?
There’s an option to send SMS when payment is due. But I don’t recall entering my phone number anywhere. How will this SMS know where to route the SMS to?
Genius idea.i loved it the minute i heard it.Good stuff
What it im buying anything above 35k do i do it twice coz M-pesa maximum is 35k
The website is thin on details and does not explain clearly how the system works for either merchants or buyers. What is the process? How does the money get around? Just saying ‘accept payments online’ does not tell us much
This is great news. African innovation by people who understand the African market place and unique technology challenges . I wish them all the best
This is interesting, thanks for writing about this.
These guys are facing a major marketing problem, how they actually will market themselves in Kenya I will follow very closely.
Let the games begin
This is great. I have been wondering why it took too long to happen.
Congratulations! Please take note of all the comments that have given above in order to fill in the missing gaps of the great and long awaited epayment tool by Kenyans for Kenyans. This will make the tool easily understood and used. Thank you and God bless the work of your hands for his Honor and Glory.
Sawa sawa,
Now that I am registered,can I buy books off the Amazon website or can I pay for iTunes music?
Consumerism is on the rise?
Wow, wonderful idea, the jams in major towns should reduce if kenyan shoppers embrace this. Keep innovating.
There is a massive change underway in the mobile media market as it becomes unshackled from the operators’ portals that have dominated it for a decade, all without having made any significant inroads into the content use of mobile users. The new capped data packages, fuelled by further competition, will see a total revamp of the mobile media market. It will no longer be based on portals but on direct services by content and services providers via open source phones and mobile-friendly Internet-based services. The next step is the continued emergence of m-commerce and in particular m-payment services.
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