eCOBbA’s Financial Inclusion Plans for the Unbanked are Progressive – TechCabal

According to the World Bank Group, financial inclusion is a crucial tool for reducing extreme poverty and fostering shared prosperity, yet the more innovation we have in the financial sector, the more gaps that we have left to cover. Digital Banking in Africa also reported that about 57% of the population is unbanked, and one of their major problems is the high illiteracy level, especially among farmers and rural dwellers.

To solve this problem, there was a call for applications to fill this gap within the Agritech sector in the just concluded Next Innovation with Japan (NINJA) accelerator program. Interestingly, one of the businesses with a huge capacity for partnership was eCOBbA – a Kenya-based startup with a platform for Africa’s unbanked and underserved communities that leverages community savings and lending groups to drive industrialization. 

Their team operates a B2B2C model with primary consumers being in the informal sector, women, youth, improvised communities, and SMEs in the agro-value chains. They emerged as one of the top five (5) from the 1072 businesses that applied for the program. They started in Kenya, but have operations across Tanzania and Nigeria, they seek to explore other African regions as there is a vast disparity between the emerging economies and the financially included populations.

The eCOBbA solution enables both customer segments to collect KYC, store and manage their data better; secure their transactions; access more finances and value addition in the form of microinsurance, pensions, and loans; connect them to a marketplace for their products; build capacity into their productivity; and enable them to be a part of a dynamic financial inclusion ecosystem. which invariably solves most of the spotted problems. Check them out at https://www.ecobba.com/.

During the 3 months program, Kessia Ntirandekura (cofounder/CEO) recorded the onboarding of groups with over 40 people, potential partnerships with a Crypsense company that deals with digital asset management, drafting contracts, and ongoing conversations with the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) to provide a sandbox environment for 12 months. 

The National Bank of Kenya has shown interest in partnering with them. They also onboarded 3 admins and the first 50 people from RM Microfinance. To prove their learning process with the mentors, advisors, and facilitators they engaged in the program, eCOBbA has signed a partnership agreement with Kitovu (one of the startups in the NINJA accelerator program) to onboard some of the farmers in his database. To join them on this journey to reach the unbanked and underserved, send an email to sato.shohei@jica.go.jp, or support@theventurespark.com to learn how you can join eCOBbA’s journey.

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Source : From the Web

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