Fina

Problem we are Solving

We are addressing the problem of Financial security; Increased job loss, growing poverty and mortality rate in Sub-Saharan Africa amidst COVID-19.

Our Solution

Fina is a  artificial intelligence chat solution (chatbot) that helps trust-based Whatsapp and telegram groups in Sub-Saharan Africa to instantly transform into Financial Support Cooperative groups and credit unions. Fina enable members of groups to benefit from rotational savings, contributions/donations, insurance/mortgage, access quick non-collateral loans.

Our We Could Change Lives Globally

Over 200 million people, businesses and jobs across the world were negatively impacted COVID-19 pandemic, if our solution is scaled globally, we will be able to help over 1 billion people derive untapped financial security and benefits from Whatsapp/Telegram groups they belong.

According to World Bank, 27 out of the 28 poorest countries in the world are from Sub-Saharan Africa with about 500 million people living in poverty with a life expectancy of 46 years. 

The United Nation in recent studies have proven that the increase in infections of HIV/AIDs, Ebola, Malaria is caused by Poverty.

With the global outbreak of COVID-19, over 192 million jobs have been lost globally. It is natural that Africa is affected by the global breakdown pushing  Sub-Saharan Africa(SSA) into more deplorable state of poverty.

Unfortunately,  there are no sufficient or scalable palliative support by governments and organisations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Though there exist opportunities for SSA to harness wealth and resources through innovative digital financial platforms, there has not been much initiatives available to help people tap into such opportunities.

Fina is an intelligent chatting solution (Chatbot) that connects to whatsapp or telegram groups and turns them into a informal financial group.

It manages and coordinates activities in the group like rotational savings, loan application, mortgage application, Insurance. 

With our integration with financial institutions across 10 Africa countries, our chatbot is able to provide payment solutions to members for collection of periodic membership fees, contributions, repayment of loans, savings and bank transfers.

A Whatsapp/Telegram group admin needs to add our Fina to their group, and our Fina introduces herself and pre-informs of the next steps.

- Chatbot privately chats each group member to gate basic personal details like name, phone number, email, bank details in order to complete their KYC.

- Automatically creates a virtual wallet both for the group and for individual members to manage financial transactions in the group.

- So members can easily access any of the services like payments, loan application and account enquiries by just chatting Fina who acts as an auto-attendant to each member.

- Admins could easily coordinate transactions like approve loans or check group report and performance by chatting Fina using keywords.

Users/groups can also access their account by Mobile/USSD.

Fina is focused on the existing 200 million Whatsapp and Telegram users and groups across Sub-Saharan Africa. 

They include groups of students, Small business owners, market associations, existing cooperative and credit unions, and any trust-based small group already existing on Whatsapp/Telegram.

Fina is an Intelligent bot built our Digital Financial Inclusion Platform called Finaclusion. And we have worked with 15,000 informal people/groups who have transacted up to a volume of $1,000,000.

In serving them, we discovered opportunity to engage them through messaging channels for ease owing to large numbers of informal financial groups that exist on whatsapp/telegram and high preference for mobile-based financial solutions

These groups some how have built a strong community trust among themselves, replicating existing traditional financial cooperative groups and credit union systems which are very popular in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Fina helps them access quick and useful financial support and benefits from groups and peers. 

Groups on using Fina could easily maintain traceable financial history in order to access group loans, government grants, group Insurance, mortgage, pension thereby reducing poverty and creating better opportunities for businesses.

Fina chatbot provides financial security and social safety nets by helping members of Whatsapp/Telegram community groups to easily cultivate savings culture, access quick non-collateral loans and group insurance/mortgage products.

Fina also doubles on the dimension of enabling owners of small and new businesses in the untapped Whatsapp/Telegram communities, to prosper and create good jobs through access to quick loans, peer to peer investment.

While our competitors provide several mobile apps for managing cooperative groups, bank accounts and credit unions, Our solution leverages an innovative Artificial Intelligence chat approach to help people easily access financial security and social safety nets products by just a chat with Fina chatbot.

Fina takes advantage of the fact that many smartphone users are weary of downloading new apps and also prefer easy-to-use products and services to meet their needs. 

Whatsapp or telegram groups/members do not need to visit any website or download any app to access benefits or to make payments. They only need to chat Fina chatbot and everything is taken care of.

Fina also harnesses the existing trust among whatsapp/telegram groups to create financial values and benefits for members. 

Several of groups have built levels of trust level among members such that they could freely interact business wise and support each other financially. Unfortunately there exist no digital solution to harness such opportunities, hence Fina chatbot innovatively addresses such in a stress free manner.

Fina is an artificial intelligence chatbot based off Whatsapp and Telegram APIs which connects to our Digital Financial Inclusion platform called Finaclusion.

 Finaclusion is a technology driven platform, hence most of our operations runs on technology/digital platforms. Our platform integrates 10 sub-saharan financial institutions to provide bank payment, Visa Card Payments, Agency banking, Social Media into our core platform.

Our technologies include:

-Java, Springboot framework

- Html, Javascript, CSS

-Tomcat Servers

- MYSQL database and Session stores

-Nodejs, Express and Angular Framework

- Rest APIs

Our servers are hosted with Amazon Web Service (AWS) which has all the international certifications required for running data centre providing highly secured server service to its customer.

Our payment platform is run by banks who already have very secured servers, our system connect to banks through secured APIs in order to carry our bank transactions.

Our payments processors is hosted with Visa Card partner company which we integrate to provision cards to our providers’ end users.

As our customer needs grow and evolve, we will expanding our cloud servers and integrating with more platforms.

Our solutions leverage Whatsapp and Telegram APIs to deliver Fina Bot solutions. See link to products below:

- Whatsapp Business APIs: https://www.whatsapp.com/business/api

- Telegram APIs: https://core.telegram.org/api

Our server-side software is based off popularly adopted Financial technology Programming languages and frameworks. 

See link to a document guide demo frontend:

Server Demo: https://demo.finaclusion.com/h...

Trust and relationship are part of the most valuable foundations that encourage almost any business or financial transaction. Once people have existing relationship and trust, it makes it easy for any business/financial transaction to occur among the people in that trust system.

In our, we noticed that millions of Whatsapp/Telegram groups already have existing trust system among member which permits health communication and transactions among members.

Also based on survey 9 out of 10 Smartphone users in Africa and India belong to a Whatsapp/Telegram group.

Also, a concept exist that value of money could be influenced by time and need. The theory shows that money kept for any period of time without been used, could have been maximised or invested during the period it is not needed to generate more value. And in vice-versa, however in urgent need of the money or product might be willing to pay higher to access product. This is concept that make lending business successful. Some people have idle money while some other people need that idle money urgently meet needs.

Considering, the dynamism in people/customer behaviour, there is need to offer comfort and ease while providing product/services. This could involving  bringing the product/service nearer to a customer on a platform which customer is most comfortable with.

Hence it makes sense for provide our services through a chatbot on a Whatsapp/Telegram app or by SMS which are the most widely accepted communication channel across the world.

Considering the COVID-19 pandemic which has shaken the economy, there huge opportunities for FIna chatbot to scale beyond Africa to Asia, Europe and America.

We are presently serving 15,000 users on our platform. With the scalability of Fina across Whatsapp and Telegram with a reach of about 600 million in Africa and Asia who hope to reach to 5 million people in SSA in the next one year and 300 million users in the next 5 years.

We intend to ensure that we have 5-300 million people impacted by Fina solution and in trying to achieve this we intend to do the following:

- Increase our online marketing push

- Partner with financial institutions and Telecom operators in host countries of operations to expand our reach.

- Hire 20 more staff members which includes developers, business developers, digital marketers

- Expansion and scaling of our Amazon Web Service Servers.

- Translation of our Fina into 10 more international languages

- Attend and speak at international conferences.

- Explore partnership with Whatsapp and Telegram for better scalability

Cultural and Market barriers

Normally, people are sensitive about security breach and hacking of their messenger accounts. Hence eyebrows are raised on financial chat bots. 

There also existing variance in wants and needs of customers from country to country

Legal

legal frameworks and regulation make influence the level of partnership with could establish with Financial Institutions at countries of operations. These could affect.

Data privacy laws also varies from Nation to nations

Technical

Technologies are always changing and using outdated tools could open the door for data breach and security threats. Maintaining and securing servers and platforms which serve several continents could be demanding.

Cultural and Market barriers

Security: The Whatsapp/Telegram platforms already provide highly secured population with end-to-end encryption, we need to add such layer of security on Fina to make people more comfortable with the solution. 

Variance of Customer need: We intend to hire community managers who are citizens of host countries to help interact and manage product offerings to customers in their countries.

Legal

We will ensure to hire experienced and qualified legal and data privacy experts to join in ensuring we meet up with every required standards.

Technical

We are expand our technology team and also using scalable AWS cloud servers to help use easily meetup with latest cloud technologies, improve our security and provide exceptional customer service

none

we presently have 3 full time staff, 5 part time and 5 on contract basis.

The team consist of multi-disciplinary and experiences talents who have the can-do innovation-driven mentality. We  have built acumen and experience in areas of financial inclusion while running mobile money projects in Nigeria since 2013,

Our founder, David Alozie has been providing financial inclusion platforms to organizations since 2017. He built acumen and interest in financial inclusion while running mobile money projects in Nigeria since 2013; he supported Ecobank Mobile money, Etranzacts’s Pocketmoni, Etisalat/Gtbank Mobile.

Our Operations and Marketing officer, Ayo Emakhiomhe,  who has over 20 years of financial and organizational management experience both in the formal and informal sector.

Our Software developers, opata Chibueze has built different software platforms for the banks and other sectors. with over 25 years of experience in programming and software development

Our communications and management officer has over 3years of experience in financial innovation. Our Co-founders are dedicated and committed individuals who possesses skill in technology and management with experience in both

Fina presently has two categories of partnership which includes:

- Flutterwave which is partner with Visa Card, providing us with payment access to over 10 African Countries

- Mifos Foundation, USA, which provides us with Internationally tested financial softwares which power part of our platforms.

Our platform encourages good saving culture and provides financial security.

Our business works on transaction fee model which could vary from 1-2% where users are charges whenever they want to withdraw there cash while using our services

We also make money through commission received by reselling insurance products, mortgages and other financial products.

Another source of revenue for us are through commissions we make from banks and card integration partners for every financial transaction like bank transfers, collections, airtime purchase, cable TV payments, utility bills etc.

Based on our business model, we will be sustaining the business by sales of our products and services to customer.

However, we also hope to him a market evaluation of $500M  and also raise our first and second round of investment to help us acquire more users and reach other continents within 2-5 years.

We also expect to receive donations and grants through applications we are making all over the world.

In the short term, we require support from Solve in acquisition of more partners in financial Institutions, networks and organisation which help our solution gain more acceptance and hence help us generate enough revenue to sustain the platform.

In the mid-term, we will require forward thinking mentors/advisory from Solve from different industrial sectors to guide us and help us with reasonable network for our platform.

We will also require first round of funding of about $2,000,000 in equity or convertible debts to help our expansion efforts and recruitment of team across Africa.

In the Long -term, wider participation and usage of our platform to help us make our platform robust and rich with reasonable network effects based on financial records and digital identities on our platform. In order to reach this wider audience, we require endorsements/partnerships from international organisations in order to gain further acceptance across Africa in order to earn bigger collaborations with global financial institutions.

We require partnership with Telecom operators, Financial Institutions and governments in several Africa and Asians countries to us with product/service distribution.

We also believe partners will become part of our advisory to point us in the right direction in the area of recruitment, marketing media, revenue model, legal and regulatory.

We desire strong partnership to help scale in all host countries.

We will be very grateful to connect with prospective partners in the Telecom, Financial Institutions and public sectors in several Africa and Asians countries to us with product/service distribution.

We seek organisations like:

Ecobank

Zenith Bank

Bank of India

MTN Group Africa

Airtel

Safaricom

Faculty and partner organsiations of MIT Solve able to help directly or directly in listed areas above.

Fina chatbot is able to help refugees enjoy financial security benefits by joining Financial support groups on Whatsapp/telegram. This will help them pull funds together and provide loans and access to insurance/mortgage as a group.

In Nigeria and Several countries in Africa there are several refugees and internally displaced people who do not have access to Smart phones to even access our service.

We will invest the prize in purchasing and providing 6 month Smart Feature Phone Device plan. This will enable us to provide them with $15 smart feature phone bundled with Fina chatbot solution for Groups and access to financial service.

We already have existing relationship with Telecom operators who will provide them with free month internet subscription.

We believe this will help generate strong social impact and help most of them come out of poverty.

In Nigeria and Several countries in Africa there are several women without access to financial services and funds but have access to Smart phones to even access our service. 

Fina is able to help them build and manage financial support groups on Whatsapp/Telegram to help them access necessary financial support, banking services, insurance/mortgage

We will invest the prize in purchasing and providing 6 month Smart Feature Phone Device plan. This will enable us to provide them with $15 smart feature phone bundled with Fina chatbot solution for Groups and access to financial service.

We already have existing relationship with Telecom operators who will provide them with free month internet subscription.

We believe this will help generate strong social impact and help most of them come out of poverty.

We will invest the prize in purchasing and providing 6 month Smart Feature Phone Device plan. This will enable us to provide them with $15 smart feature phone bundled needed learning resources and videos and also provide them Fina chatbot solution to help them access to financial support while expecting jobs.

We already have existing relationship with Telecom operators who will provide them with free month internet subscription.

We believe this will help generate strong social impact and help most of them come out of poverty.

We will invest the prize in purchasing and providing 6 month Smart Feature Phone Device plan. This will enable us to provide them with $15 smart feature phone bundled with needed learning resources and videos and also provide them Fina chatbot solution to help them access to financial support while expecting jobs.

We already have existing relationship with Telecom operators who will provide them with free month internet subscription.

We believe this will help generate strong social impact and help most of them come out of poverty.

Our solution is an Artificial Intelligence chatting solution positioned to drive financial inclusion in Africa and Asia.

We will use funds in hiring more AI talents, developers, reaching to new countries like India. Server expansion.

We will market to reach 5 million users across Africa

Fina has prospects of achieving social impact about 300 million across Africa and Asia

Our solution is an Artificial Intelligence chatting solution positioned to drive financial inclusion in Africa and Asia.

We will use funds in hiring more AI talents, developers, reaching to new countries like India. Server expansion.

We will market to reach 5 million users across Africa