In 2018, Errandpay Chief Technology Officer; Paul Dureke and his Co-Founders went on an adventure to Sub-Saharan Africa. Typical of tourists, they visited a country without enough United States Dollars and had to seek diverse options to convert any available cash they had to the local currency available.
Unfortunately for these Founders, they quickly found out that their international Commercial Debit Cards and other payment options were useless. They began to think of how many other people experienced the same problem and slowly, the idea to build a fintech as Errandpay began.
Today, Errandpay offers agency banking applications and affordable point of sales (PoS) terminals to FinTechs, Microfinance Banks, and Microfinance Institutions across Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda, and the Benin Republic.
So far, Errandpay has had partnerships across Africa to access over 100,000 payout points and has now served over one million customers with its 12,000 direct payout locations in the continent.
How Does Errandpay Help FinTechs, MFBs, and MFIs?
Quite simply, the platform allows an “aboki” in Kaduna to operate a PoS machine that can serve his entire neighborhood. This “aboki” also has access to information about how his family and friends can repay loans, earn money, and share financial burdens. Information any Fintech, MFB and MFI will be happy to have.
Errandpay can make lending, insurance and investment products, credit card payments, registration for different services and so on easier so its partners can avoid unreasonably high charges.
Any bank or financial institution can also easily be integrated on Errandpay’s API, and this serves as an opportunity for them to leverage the platform to expand its reach across Africa. More people have access to financial services and more banks have access to more customers.
Regular problems that FinTechs MFBs and MFIs face like recruiting and managing developers, setting, and meeting timelines, projecting, collecting, and aggregating vendors, negotiating with other banks, customer onboarding and documentation can now be reduced.
While answering questions from the press on its unique approach to MFBs, MFIs and FinTechs, Paul Dureke explained that the platform has been successful because the team has focused all resources on providing technology that can cater to the African markets and financial institutions.
“With Africa in mind from day one, we have built technology that has considered several use cases, integrated multiple corridors, and can facilitate the operations of other financial institutions. Building technology is difficult and time-consuming, so we have made developer-friendly and easy-to-integrate APIs readily available for all our partners. From white-labeled services to aggregation of major services and an ability to integrate seamlessly to any core banking platform in Africa, Errandpay’s features are fully customizable to the needs of any potential partner. FinTechs, MFBs and MFIs can worry less about building technologies and focus more on strengthening their structures through the platform.”
The Company is licensed as a Super-Agent in Nigeria by the CBN’s Payment Service Bank license and has since had a 50% month-on-month growth rate.
Does Errandpay Make Any Money?
Definitely, Errandpay makes money from every transaction made and every time, their API is being used. However, the Company requires major collaborations in the financial sector to boost the inclusion it seeks to redress in Africa.
“In the past ten years across the Sub-Saharan Africa region, collaboration has driven the fintech revolution. One of ErrandPay’s core strategies is collaborations with Microfinance banks, financial institutions, Aggregators, agents, fintech companies and lots more. We have built our technology for ambitious banks, organizations, Founders, and CEOs looking to scale super-fast,” stated Ajibola Awojobi
Onboarding on Errandpay is free. The platform is accessible on errandpay.com or via the mobile app on both iOS and Android devices, while its ever-supportive technical team are available 24/7 at hello@errandpay.com.
