The Penexus Ajor Application

We hope to be able to solve the problems associated with financial inclusion or access to finance for the informal sector, caused mostly by a lack of enough data that can allow them to be adequately profiled

What solution are you proposing?

The Ajor App, seeks to modify the existing system most people in the informal sector of West Africa have been using to save money since time immemorial giving it more likelihood and ease of acceptability

The system allows market women, traders and artisan save and document an agreed portion of their daily earnings on a regular basis through the help of a broker.

it documents the saving culture of each individual, as well as help them save.

If scaled regionally this solution apart from helping those in the regional sector develop a saving culture, it will make access to funding easier and possible to scale their businesses.

Poverty is not the problem in west Africa like I always say. Poverty is a result of a lack of access to equal opportunity caused by an evolution of a society that did not favour those who are not privileged to be in the formal sector 

The Ajor App will be deploying features that encourage contributions regardless of literacy and numeracy levels whether or not our target audience have access to the internet

Findings based on the World Poverty Clock and compiled by Brookings Institute, show that more than 643 million people across the world live in extreme poverty, with Africans accounting for about two-thirds of the total number.

About 87 million Nigerians are living under $2 per day despite being Africa's largest economy making Nigeria the Poverty headquarters of the world and the majority of these people are in the informal sector.

The problem is largely caused by a lack of proper documentation that will make the majority of people in the informal sector have access to social safety nets and funds.

Developing and deploying the Ajor App will help eradicate these problems in record time

In the last 7 years, my company Penexus Consulting has worked at helping people in the informal sector of Nigeria gain access

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So, what exactly makes this solution innovative?

From time immemorial, the informal sector traders and artisans have a way of saving their money through a broker who keeps records of savings by memory of both parties or through marking of daily records in a book 

This causes a lot of discrepancies in the way things are done. 

With the Ajor App, both parties can monitor who saved what, and how much is due to who at the month end

Also, as we are going to be working in affiliation with financial institutions, part of the agreement we hope to reach is access to finance based on the records on the Ajor App.

This will give Our target audience the right of access to scaling their businesses and reaching their goals in record time.

In summary, the Ajor App is bridging the gap between the grassroot and banking. As it stands their are a lot of people in the grassroot and informal sector that have no bank accounts in West Africa. Revamping a process they are familiar with will make the process seamless and record keeping Valid

The application we are  proposing has a model being used by Piggyvest and Cowrywise in Nigeria at the present.

Our business model is one that however has an integration of Brokers who establish in different localities to get close to our customers and all of who have an account with a minimum opening balance. 

The role of the broker is to get informal sector workers within his allocated area to save with him through the app. All deposits are transferred from the Brokers account to reflect in the account of the client the moment payment is made and an automatic confirmation and is received by client and also an automated app notification.

Most person's are expected to save daily, and cannot cash out on their savings, till an agreed period of monthly, quarter, or annually less 10% brokerage but with an access to business loans or personal loan facilities for growth and expansion.

The loans are interest based but will be calculated based on the regular contribution of the client which in turn will influence the amount to be deducted from their regular savings and the length of time for repayment

The interest is deducted at the end of the repayment plan for the loans

Change only happens when opportunity meets preparation, its often said. One common problem with a lot of poor people in the informal sector of west Africa(and rightly so too) is the nagging fear that their little income might just disappear into thin air one day as over and over again their has been situations that were reported, where traditional contributor brokers abscond with the funds of the client.

That is why what we are doing with the Ajor App solution is more of bringing the right structure into an existing system. The fact that its nothing really new gives us some form of buy-in as you do not have to be tech savvy to understand an existing process

Another major take home that will give us a lot of credibility is the fact that we hope to bootstrap our solution with an existing bank. It gives a lot of confidence from the investing populace and makes it easier for them to save more with us knowing that they are actually saving the money(Less Commission) with the said bank

One of the major Objectives of this solution is that it encourages more and more people within the informal sector to have a proper bank account and part of the criteria for having such is getting a BVN(Biometric verification Number) or the equivalent of a social security number. An identification process and system currently lacking with most people within the informal sector working space.

Having this number through this process will make it easier for them to properly register their information and be properly documented primarily because while we operate like a financial institution, Unlike a financial institution however, we are close to the people and our registration process is simple as the fingerprint application of most of their devices is one of the tools that we shall be using for faster and seamless registration.

So if incorporated into social delivery system, it will be a very effective tool in helping in the collation of the necessary information for a successfull implementation of social integration programs and safety nets and studying consumer behaviour and saving culture so as to be able to make informed decision per time

The Ajor Application is "your neighborhood bank" in that our goal is to infiltrate every street and neighborhood with a kiosk that says you can save with me and get access to business loans and governments grants without leaving your house or street. Depending on your level of understanding about how to use the application.

A lot of people even non-lettered are learning to use applications or have children that can help them use the same. We look forward to creating a simple non-technical solution that simple prompts the user on the next thing to do.

Every newly on-boarded client is shown "how" at the bi-monthly session by the local team lead and whatever questions they have, they can always be free to ask at such event

We shall like i posited earlier be working primarily with existing technologies and bootstrapping on solutions that we can without the need to develop a new technology

Technologies like Artificial intelligence, Machine learning, Data analytics  will help us in being able to predict consumer behavior based on previously collated data.

And Yes we are providing open APIs for integration for data portability and to avoid vendor lock-in

Our Application is an "Over the Top" Application. Which means it rides on other networks connectivity. However for low connectivity regions we shall look to deploy a short-code version for ease of connectivity registration, etc

The reason we are also introducing independent neighborhood brokers, is to ensure that in case the client runs into a technical glitch due to low connectivity issues, they have a neighborhood consultant to run to

Number we are currently Serving: NA

Number we hope to serve in 1 year: About 1 million

Number of people we hope to serve in 5 years: 7 million

Within the next year, we look forward to be able to impact about a million people through the help of agents and affiliation with the banking institution. The Solution hope to provide a means of livelihood for an estimated 1000 youths by the end of its 1st year in which they will be generating monthly revenue based on the number of clientele base they are able to on-board.

We still hope to be able to garner more clientele for our affiliating bank partner thus helping them meet their goals of increasing portfolios and number of clients unboarded

FInancial: As a team of 2, we are presently Limited in the amount of money we are able to raise to fund the project knowing that we need about $200,000 to execute is not enough, being able to get the resources together is what counts

Technical expertise: We have consultants in the wings whom we have formed a relationship with within and outside of the country, who are keen on getting started but might be hampered by funds too

Cultural Barrier: A lot of people are averse generally to doing things differently to how they have always being used to doing it. This might be a little tricky trying to convince them that its still the same process they have been used to, however with innovation

Financial: We do hope to conquer the barriers to entry for the financial part by pitching our initiative on global platforms like MIT Solve and to investors who might be able to see the value we are lookinh to create

Technical: I personally am looking for a CTO(CHief technical Officer that will be sound enough to fill the void and inadequacies I might have in the field. but will accept revenue sharing on percentage basis to.

One of the ways we hope to get into breaking the cultural Barrier is by recruiting local brokers that speak the language of the people within that locality and most likely reside within the said neighbourhood because we believe, people are more willing to do business with you if they know and trust you