Onkout

A well-developed banking & payment system is an integral aspect in creating a stable economy system. It allows firms, individuals, government and other economic agents to transfer money on a daily basis without having to use cash. Despite significant progress and financial resources devoted to financial inclusion, two billion people in developing nations worldwide still lack access to regulated financial services and modern commerce. Onkout, is a fin-tech company that has developed a mobile app for people under the poverty line in developing nations. It provides banking services, unique merchant platform, online identification and verification system. By leveraging  AI,machine-earning methods, Big Data analysis and deep learning, Onkout serves as a perfect fit for mobile money applications, which play a dominant role in developing nations. 

The main goal of Onkout is to create a reliable, robust and stable banking & payment system that will allow tracking the population’s money, auditing transactions and regulating the economic system.

 Starting in Somalia, this solution aims to solve the following:

• Accessible and secure banking & payment system.
• Corruption, Illegal activity funding and terrorism – Somalia has been ranked bottom of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index since 2006. Somalia is the most perceived corrupt country in the world, out of 176 countries, ranking at 9 out of 100 since 2017. Onkout seeks to build the country’s technological capacities and improve its security and transparency.
• Projects tracking –Many projects in Somalia are funded by the international community and private sector to help stimulate the economy. Onkout suggests a platform for a real time updates and insights on project’s progress. 
• Identification –In the current environment it is almost impossible to truly identify a person who transacts in Somalia. ID cards in Somalia can easily be tampered. Using a voice, face and iris recognition technology Onkout aims to generate an identity biometric database which will allow a person to be identified and authenticated based on a set of recognizable and verifiable data.

Our first focus is Somalia  

• We will serve the citizens, by empowering them with the secure and simple way to pay bills, buy goods or services.
• We will serve the business owners by providing them with an appropriate platform to manage their business and help their business grow.
• We will serve the international community by providing them with new and innovative ways to track and monitor financial transactions and projects. 

We have developed a full stack suite of financial products to re-stimulate the economy:

• Virtual Bank – Providing the people with a secure place to save their money instead of using cash. 
• Social Rotation Saving Account – Allows people to earn small interest on their savings and to better socialize in their community.
• Digital wallet –people can use their phones as a digital wallet to pay for goods & services in a secure and easy way.
• Business Control Panel – Providing business owners with a user-friendly interface to manage their business efficiently. That includes creating invoices, managing employees’ time cards, managing their inventory, managing orders of new products, generating reports on sales and budget, hiring employees etc...
• Taxation Platform – The tax administration is absent in Somalia, and most businesses operate in the informal sector and thus go untaxed. Our objective is to give an easy way to pay taxes correctly according to the true nature of the business. Identification process – A reliable identification system is needed in Somalia to meet urgent administrative and developmental needs. Faced with document fraud, identity theft and terrorism, our goal is to create a biometrics Identification system to identify and authenticate individuals in a reliable and fast way, through the use of unique biological characteristics.  Our solutions are easy to use, secure and trackable, providing a hope to the people under the poverty line and to small businesses to succeed.

There are two main factors that make our solution innovative:

• It targets to serve all sectors (e.g. citizens, private, public, and the international community).
• Our solution incorporates advanced technology with the Somalian traditional culture.

Onkout believes that technology is the key to achieve greater stability, build a functional economy, improve security, and establish credible and durable governance systems in Somalia. We have patented our technical approach in Money tracking, project tracking, illegal activity funding tracking, and social saving accounts. Our technology leverages advanced machine-learning algorithms, deep learning and biometric matching algorithms. Our product will provide security, transparency and efficient management system to build and monitor the economic system in Somalia.

As of today, no competitor provides a comprehensive solution as we do. We have unique patented solutions, leveraging advance technology (e.g. AI, machine learning, Big Data analysis and deep learning), to address those problems. The most advanced technology that is available in the country is SMS and the 3G devices.

Our system utilizes AWS cloud-based solution, available on mobile application for both Android and iOS.

Our technology leverages advanced machine-learning algorithms, deep learning and biometric matching algorithms to prevent frauds and money laundering illicit activities, assuring compliance with Anti Money Laundering (‘AML’) and Know-Your-Customer (‘KYC’) highest standards. 

Usage of Geolocation API technology allows Onkout to direct customers to businesses and agents, transforming individual users into a connected community. By integrating QR Codes into our payment system, we confirm that a physical transaction took place, thus further reducing the risk of frauds. 

We identified the need of a product like Onkout across all sectors in Somalia. The fact that our system’s transactions are fully trackable, auditable and meet all financial compliance needs, makes it a great foundation for a healthy economical market. In addition, we have an organic team based in Somalia to deploy the solution we offer.  

In Onkout we believe in incremental progress. Currently we serve 100 people to test our solution, platforms, and interfaces. In 1 year, we expect to serve more than 10,000 users. Our long-term expectation is to have more than 1,000,000 users across the country and with there counterparts in the diaspora.

In the next year our solution focuses in two levels: Somalia’s citizens and the International community:

• Somalia’s citizens: Here our goal is to improve citizens’ lives by providing a reliable, robust and stable banking & payment system.
• International community: Our goal is to offer new and innovative ways to track and monitor financial transactions and projects, to make sure money is received in the right authorities.  

Our five years plan is to expand our solution to the official authorities, to build a taxation platform, and to slowly reduce Somalia’s dependency in the foreign aid.

While we make a good progress in the technical aspect, a current challenge and barrier is receiving the European Electronic Money Institution ('EMI’) license.

To offer Onkout financial products and services in Somalia, we need to access and enable commerce with Europe, as remittance from Somalian diaspora will be key to our success. Hence, we are looking to be compliant with E.U regulations and requirements. EMI license requires background check, good financial record, relevant experience in Finance, minimum net worth of €350,000 and additional funds for operational costs.  

We currently fulfill all the requirements, except the minimum net worth. 

We believe that the unique solution we suggest will encourage the international community to collaborate with us. In addition, we explore different crowdfunding campaigns to fund the EMI license.

We are in the process of starting a crowdfunding campaign with “Start Engine”. We look to partner with potential investors and/or looking for grants that can help us achieve our funding goal.

4 - Full time staff

3 - Part Time staff

3 - Advisers 

Onkout consists of a resource pool assembled from globally recognized industry experts, with distinguished careers, academic accomplishments, research backgrounds and operating experience, from the best institutions and working experience with the large international companies and organization.

Our Finance advisor, Avner Penchas, is an MBA graduate from MIT Sloan class of 2013. 

Our Technology advisor, Gil Hetz, is a PHD graduate of Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M class of 2017.

Cultural Knowledge - Our team knows and understands the culture of the country and the people’s needs since we have dealt with those emergency needs frst hand for the past 10 years.

Our Team - We are deeply connected to the vision and the cause. For us this is not just another project or startup company. We truly believe that our company and our product can make the difference for many people under the poverty line in the developing world.

InventureX - a company that manages crowdfunding campaigns and helps us achieve our funding goals.
Green String Network - an organization that is actively working in kenya and Somalia and helps us connect to locals and key businesses.

*** 35 planned businesses integrations in the pipeline including the airport and the seaport of Mogadishu the capital of Somalia.

*** Bilateral agreement with the Federal government of Somalia (FGS) willing to work with Onkout as a Public Private Partnership (PPP).

Gain significant market share by providing superior product and charging low fees.

A key factor to our success is high distribution of Onkout services. To grow our distribution in Somalia, to new and existing customers, we offer a variety of attractive and secured financial products such as: Virtual Banking, Digital Wallet, Rotating Savings Credit Association, Business Control Panel and Taxation Platform. 

According to the World Bank, remittances to Somalia are estimated at around $1.4bn U.S dollars and support 23% of Somalia GDP. The World Bank estimates about 155 million mobile money transactions in Somalia every month, worth approximately $2.7 billion.

We believe that the following fees will enable Onkout to penetrate the market and steadily grow. High volume of transactions and remittances will provide for sustainable returns.  

2% deposit fee from bank or credit card to Onkout’s platform feature Blue Star Virtual Bank Account

0.05% VAT and Income Tax collection fee

1% For Rotating Savings Credit Association (Smart Ayuuto) Contract

$5 – $2,500 per month for advertisements on Onkout mobile app

1%-3% interest income from low risk investments of deposited funds

2% withdrawal fee from Onkout Account to a bank or credit card 

 Our goal to raise about $500,000 through crowdfunding and grants from variety of projects this year.

In the long term, we target this goals to achieve financial sustainability:

1. Collaboration with Mogadishu Airport, Mogadishu Seaport and the Federal government of Somalia (FGS)

2.10,000 Onkout users in Somalia. Business owners in Somalia will use Onkout’s platform to transact over 50% of their monthly transaction activities.

3.10,000 new users from Europe.  Over $2,000,000 a month will be transacted from Europe to Somalia using Onkout paltform.

This program offers a great mentoring opportunity, networking and experience, which we believe are the keys for successfully solving the problem mentioned before. By collaborating with solve we see a great potential in accelerating the process and ensuring that our solution is valid.

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We would like to partner with the international community NGO’s such as UNDP, World Bank, USAid and the EU, as well as companies with an existing EMI license in Europe. We would also like to partner up with SpaceX and Airbus for there global internet connection programs and We also would like to partner with any company who is doing business with or in Somalia.

AI plays an essential role in the solution we offer. We will utilize the prize to advance our solution in: 

• Digital wallet – Using AI, we get will gain insight about the goods & services that people buy. Based on this information we will create   recommendations to the users.
• Business Control Panel – AI will allow us to develop a better understanding of learner behaviors and to predict needs  based on past behavior.
• Illegal activity funding and terrorism-  AI is a key in preventing terrorist  and Illegal activity funding. Using transaction data together with other relevant information from customer channels, characteristics of past attacks, the system would be able in near-real time to better identify suspicious behavior.  

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Recently, the number of businesses operated by women have been increasing across all regions and sectors in Somalia.Despite this progress, curfew for all women after 5 pm prevents these businesses to realize their potential. The possibility of leveraging Onkout solutions will allow them to run their businesses around the clock. 

Onkout tools and features enable young and mature women who own business to improve there management system and sells by:

• Increasing their market share by connecting them virtually to their diaspora counterpart, a larger customer pool.
• Using our free business control panel which will allow them to have more efficient business management with time cards inventory management sales and budget reports etc.
• Having a safer and more secure payments system with less risk of theft and fraud.

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AI plays an essential role in the solution we offer. We will utilize the prize to advance our solution in: 

• Digital wallet – Using AI, we get will gain insight about the goods & services that people buy. Based on this information we will create   recommendations to the users.
• Business Control Panel – AI will allow us to develop a better understanding of learner behaviors and to predict needs  based on past behavior.
• Illegal activity funding and terrorism-  AI is a key in preventing terrorist  and Illegal activity funding. Using transaction data together with other relevant information from customer channels, characteristics of past attacks, the system would be able in near-real time to better identify suspicious behavior.  

 Somalia and the people have suffered from a civil war for more than 25 years. While the world has moved on in embracing the next revolution (Technological) the country and its people have been stuck in the 80th. Our motivation is to change the current economy status which includes high level of corruption, illegal activity funding and terrorism. We have unique patented solutions, leveraging advance technology (e.g. AI, machine learning, Big Data analysis and deep learning), to address those problems. This provides Onkout users with a much more efficient and secure banking & payment system and unique merchant platform (The most advanced technology that is available in the country is SMS and the 3G devices).It also serves the international community by providing them with innovative ways to track and monitor financial transactions and projects. Overall it will lead to a significant improvement in the country’s technological capacities and its transparency

Over the years, a tangle of countries, have invested billions in Somalia to boost its education system and infrastructure, to aid its humanitarian relief efforts following droughts and disease, and to fund capacity-building for its national army.  But despite all the foreign dollars, a lot of it supporting  Illegal activity funding and terrorism. As of today, there are no available solutions to monitor and intercept illegal funding in Somalia which leads to an increase in gun violence. In the current environment it is also almost impossible to truly identify a person who transacts in Somalia. A reliable identification system is needed in Somalia to meet urgent administrative and developmental needs. Faced with document fraud, identity theft and terrorism, we integrated a biometrics Identification system to identify and authenticate individuals in a reliable and fast way. We believe that our pending patents for terror funding activities together with our bio-metric identification process could reduce significantly terrorism and gun violence in particularity.