KoltiPay

Smallholder farming produces 30% of the world’s food supply and is responsible for the livelihoods of 2.5 billion people globally. It represents a large and underserved market, with agriculture development proving to be 3x more effective at reducing poverty in low-income countries than investments in other sectors. Despite this, there is a huge gap in financing available for smallholder farmers, with $170 billion in credit demand going unmet every year (Towards Market Transparency in Smallholder Finance - Dalberg). This gap is caused for several reasons:

(1) Lack of agriculture specific finance options in remote geographies. Local finance institutions in developing countries generally struggle to provide appropriate financing to smallholders, either because they see farmers as too risky or they don’t offer the specialised financial products needed in the sector.

(2) Smallholder farmers often lie outside of the formal economic sector. Smallholder farmers, due to lack of formal land titles, consistent income, and credit history, frequently don’t have the means to secure credit or other financial support. This causes many farmers to use informal finance, borrowing small amounts of money from family or turning to loan sharks with extremely high interest rates.

(3) Low financial literacy. Many farmers remain unbanked and haven’t received any financial literacy training, meaning they struggle with financial management and lack an understanding of the formal financial products available to them.

(4) Cash-based economies. Due to cultural norms or lack of access to financial institutions and infrastructure in rural areas, many farmers remain unbanked and use cash only. This creates issues for safe saving of money and ability to build assets. 

KoltiPay is a digital wallet that provides convenience and secure transactions for all needs of global and rural value chains. It is seamlessy integrated in Koltiva’s wider digital traceability ecosystem, KoltiTrace MIS, an integrated multi-crop platform connecting all activities from seed to table. KoltiTrace mobile application users, including smallholder producers, input shops, and traders across Indonesia have access to KoltiPay. These users, seeking quick access to funds, can now conveniently adopt cashless payments and e-wallets, enabling rural enterprises and smallholder farmers to conduct hassle-free transactions and ensures secure payment options, aiding them in their financial needs.

KoltiPay features for smallholder producers, agri-businesses, cooperatives & financial instituitons include:

• Make/Receive ePayments and distribute premiums: Farmers and collectors can easily make or receive payments for crop transactions with flexible payment options available (bank transfer, cashless, or split between cash and non-cash).  
• Apply for a Micro-Loan: Farmers can submit loan applications easily, helped by Koltiva’s Field Agents who support with the completion of all documents. Farmers can chose flexible loan tenor and various loan types including cash loan, agri-input loan or a mix of both. Loan applications can then be digitally managed by cooperatives to ensure efficient and high level service.
• KoltiPay Loan Management System for Cooperatives & Financial Institutions: KoltiPay provides an all-in-one dashboard management system web portal for cooperatives and financial institutions to manage loan applications and activation. It includes features to manage loan applicants, generate contracts, track loan repayments, collect borrowers’ data and profiles, and develop credit scoring with Machine Learning (ML).
• d)Crop Insurance: Producers have the option of purchasing parametric climate risk insurance to protect against excess rainfall and draught with automatic payouts going to farmers KoltiPay eWallet. The product uses satellite data to determine the insurance risks and payout amount, therefore eliminating any claim processes and risk of fraud, and increasing the speed of payout disbursements and making it easily scalable to rural areas.
• Pay Bills and Top Up eWallet: Farmers, retail shop owners, and collectors/traders have access to KoltiPay eWallet features to pay electricity, pulse, internet packages, and other PPOB facilities. Users can top-up KoltiPay easily via bank transfer.  
• f)Purchase Quality Agri-Inputs: Farmers have access to purchase quality agri-inputs and see product catalogues from nearby kiosks. They can contact kiosk owners through the chat function, select from the product catalogue, select collection or delivery method, and pay the kiosk using their eWallet.  
• Go Cashless: Traders do not need to withdraw cash at ATMs or banks that are located far from their location to carry out of the crop transactions, they can simply pay farmers through KoltiPay. Crop transactions between farmers and traders/collectors is easier with split payments method, with part of the payment in cash and the rest as cashless via KoltiPay transfer.
• Traceable Payment Data: Users can track every transaction, improve their financial records easily and support supply chain transactional traceability. 

We are working to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Indonesia and beyond, supporting improved access to finance and digital financial solutions. As mentioned previously, it’s estimated that smallholder farmers in Africa, Latin America and Asia face a $170 billion funding gap. Lack of access to finance compounds the numerous challenges that smallholder farmers are currently facing due to climate change, increasing costs of inputs, pressures to comply with international regulations, and productivity issues caused by aging trees. Within these conditions, smallholder farmers are plagued by low yields and subsistence-level incomes.

Through our digital solutions, as well as our boots-on-the-ground field team, Koltiva is working to create transparent, inclusive and sustainable global supply chains. Our aim is to improve financial literacy levels and farmers access to responsible digital finance, supporting them to build successful livelihoods and improve their socio-economic conditions. Our KoltiPay solution supports rural enterprises and smallholder farmers by providing easy transactions, secure payments and access to loans/crop insurance. KoltiPay is an integrated feature in Koltiva’s mobile application ecosystem, with registered farmers, cooperatives, and SME’s able to access the feature. Koltiva currently has over 1,190,000 producers and 8,500 SMEs registered worldwide. Currently KoltiPay is only available within Indonesia where we have 542,650 producers and 4,901 SMEs registered, however we are looking to expand into some of the other 60 countries we serve.

Backed by Koltiva’s end-to-end technology ecosystem, businesses and producers can easily start using cashless payments, apply for loans, purchase crop insurance policies, makes & receive ePayments with collectors/traders, sell and purchase quality agri-inputs from shops, and pay bills (electricity, BPJS, mobile data, etc). By improving farmers access to formal finance through loans, and providing crop insurance products, we are supporting their ability to plan for the future and boost their incomes. With greater access to agri-inputs as well as loans to support replanting projects, farmers are able to increase their productivity and subsequently their incomes. This also removes the pressure to clear new land to improve livelihoods, supporting reduced deforestation in tropical areas. To elevate this impact, alongside offering digital financial solutions, our Field Team supports producers with financial literacy training as well as training on climate-smart agricultural practices, thus promoting improved livelihoods alongside environmental protection. 

Over the last ten years, Koltiva has established itself as a leading agritech provider for enterprises looking to navigate the complexities of their supply chains, implement sustainable practices, and transition to traceable sourcing. With clients and users across 61 countries, supporting 8,530+ enterprises and over 1.19 million registered producers and business users, Koltiva has a global vision to reimagine supply chains beyond traceability. We have been working with leading companies in the agri-food and beverage sector, implementing projects focused on enhancing supply chain traceability, inclusiveness, and sustainability for private sector clients such as Nestlé, Mars, Continental, Bridgestone, Diageo, Cargill, Givaudan, as well as public donors and NGOs including the EU, SECO, UNIDO, Swisscontact, and GIZ.

Since the establishment of Koltiva in Indonesia in 2013, we have focused on improving the livelihoods of producers whilst protecting the planet and transitioning the agriculture sector to sustainable practices. Our CEO, Manfred Borer, co-founded Koltiva to create solutions to existing supply chain problems, using his 12 years of experience working on agricultural development programmes in Indonesia for Swisscontact, an international NGO. Our solutions have evolved over the last ten years, responding to the ever-changing regulatory and consumer demand landscape whilst keeping end-user accessibility, usability, and inclusivity at the core of any innovations. To ensure this, Koltiva works closely with producers and SMEs during product design and after for continuous improvement and innovation. Our Research & Development Team, consisting of agronomists, climate experts, certification & regulation experts, and MEL specialists, works to feed cutting edge research into Koltiva’s solutions and conduct field research to ensure relevancy of the solutions on the ground.

In addition to this, we use our experience and learnings from our affiliate Indonesian trading company, PT Kudeungoe Sugata (Sugata), to inform development of our products and services. It’s meaning, “I hear your voice”, outlines our commitment to listening to and collaborating with smallholder farmers to improve livelihoods, demonstrated by our ongoing capacity building, circular economy, and regenerative agriculture work. Sugata is working towards creating sustainable, transparent, and inclusive cocoa and coffee supply chains, building relationships with actors in our supply chains and promoting sustainable production that benefits upstream and downstream actors, as well as the environment. We use Sugata as our testing ground for product innovations, collecting feedback from our smallholder farmers as to what works and what needs improvement. 

Koltiva currently has 1,190,143 registered producers and 8,538 registered SMEs across 61 countries and 51 commodities. Our customers include private sector clients such as Nestlé, Mars, Continental, Bridgestone, Diageo, Cargill, Givaudan, as well as public donors and NGOs including the EU, SECO, UNIDO, Swisscontact, and GIZ. They use our wider KoltiTrace Management Information System (MIS), an integrated multi-crop platform ecosystem for producers and businesses to connect global value chains with easy-to-use dashboards, interactive maps, and comprehensive reporting features, as well as our KoltiSkills boots-on-the-ground services. Our KoltiTrace MIS ecosystem is built of web platforms and mobile applications for actors across supply chains, with KoltiPay integrated within the apps to support cashless payments, access to finance, and responsible financial management.

FarmXtension app for Agronomists and Field Agents to register supply chain actors, take farm polygons, and record trainings and farm observations.

FarmGate app for Crop Aggregators to record transactions and interactions up- and downstream, contact to producers & buying stations, and ensure full transactional traceability of the supply chain. Through the FarmGate app, crop aggregators including factories, can execute premium payment distributions to farmers, procure farmers crops with ease and make cashless payments, and manage loan applications and crop insurance payouts.

FarmRetail app for Agri-Input Shops and Nurseries to manage stock flows, cash flows and P/L statements, and customer relationships. Agri Input suppliers can communicate via mobile app with Koltiva farmers and support staff and arrange delivery advice and services. Through the FarmRetail app, agri-businesses can use KoltiPay to receive and make cashless payments, payment point online bank (PPOB) for bills, monitor the disbursement of payouts and manage financial accounts, manage producer data and generate marketing reports.

FarmCloud app for Farmers to access training content in the form of videos, crop calendars, Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) and Good Environmental Practice (GEP) guidance, as well as chat functions to communicate with potential buyers and agri-input suppliers. Through the FarmCloud app, farmers can use KoltiPay for cashless payments, purchase agri-inputs loan applications and maangement, savings, purchasing crop insurance, and payment point online bank (PPOB) for electricity bills, internet packages etc.

Web Platform for cooperatives, agri-businesses, and downstream buyers with aggregated data from their supply chains using dashboards, maps and reports to support monitoring, analysis and visualization. Through the web platform, cooperatives can use KoltiPay to monitor loan applications from their member farmers, generate contracts, track loan repayments, collect borrowers’ data and profiles, and develop credit scoring with Machine Learning (ML).

For KoltiPay specifically, having been launched in May 2021, we currently have 5,628 users registered on KoltiPay with paying customers including MARS, Cargill and GPSNR. We have selected the growth stage for this innovation as it is an established solution in Indonesia only and is ready for further expansion within Indonesia and into more countries.

We are applying to Solve to support our ambitions to expand KoltiPay’s offerings in Indonesia as well as launching in other countries where we have existing clients for our other solutions. We are looking for both additional funding sources and technical assistance/networking to build relationships with potential partners in other countries and enhance our product. Developing an e-payment system with an e-wallet is a complex endeavour that requires expertise in software development, payment processing, security, and regulatory compliance. Koltiva has this experience in-house and has built a robust and successful solution for Indonesia, however we need additional support to adapt for contexts in different regions as well as support in building partnerships with financial institutions to be able to launch in multiple countries. It will be essential to plan meticulously, allocate resources effectively and collaborate with experienced professionals to ensure compliance with financial regulations, and obtain necessary licenses or permits for the jurisdictions of other countries. Therefore, we would use additional funding opportunities and access to networking/legal services from Solve to fund this multi-country expansion, as well expand and enhance our current KoltiPay access to finance and crop insurance offerings.

We would also benefit from additional monitoring, evaluation and learning support to maximise our base of pyramid impact, tailoring our KoltiPay solutions to support women farmers as well as other marginalised groups. Going forwards, we would like to make GESI one of the core pillars of Koltiva’s KoltiPay solutions, ensuring our loan and insurance products are adapted for women farmers and other marginalised groups. The additional resources we could utilise from Solve would support this endeavour and to maximise our impact for all smallholder farmers globally. 

What makes KoltiPay stand out from other digital finance systems is its integration within our agritech software. We are providing farmers with a fully integrated digital system which can be used to support their daily activities alongside our agritech software which support with capacity building, traceability, and sustainability. For example, on our farmer application, farmers can review agri-input catalogues, chose the input they require, contact the seller, chose the delivery method and then use their KoltiPay eWallet to make a cashless payment. This increases the efficiency of purchasing at the same time as increasing their access to resources and offering financial management tools so they can have a transparent digital overview of their expenses.  

Another unique selling point of KoltiPay is its loan and crop insurance offerings in combination with Koltiva’s field agents financial literacy training. Indonesia ranks as the 3rd highest unbanked population in the world, with a literacy index of 48,43%. By implementing financial literacy training to farmers before offering them loans and crop insurance via KoltiPay, Koltiva is providing access to finance and ensuring that farmers are aware of what that finance entails. Our digitised loan application system and insurance purchasing system reduces the administration cost and time, making the products more accessible for farmers who desperately need them to purchase agri-inputs and increase their income/climate resilience. 

The Theory of Change graph attached illustrates a systematic pathway towards achieving impactful outcomes aligned with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Begin with the promotion to scale up KoltiPay services, the activity aims to increase the utilization of digital financial tools among registered farmers and SMEs. This directly addresses the challenge of traditional financial exclusion by providing access to financial services. By engaging farmers with KoltiPay services, the output is the utilization of these tools for financial transactions and management, laying the groundwork for improved financial inclusion. This output is crucial as it directly contributes to the outcome of reducing the number of farmers who previously couldn't access financial products and services.

The provision of financial literacy training further reinforces the efforts to enhance financial inclusion and improve the economic well-being of smallholder farmers. By improving farmers' understanding of financial and asset concepts, the output is the development of a stronger financial knowledge base among participants. This output directly leads to the outcome of building up assets for farmers, as they gain the necessary skills to manage their finances effectively and make informed decisions about investments and savings.

Lastly, facilitating access to loans, agri-inputs, and crop insurance through the KoltiPay platform directly addresses the financial barriers faced by smallholder farmers. The output of farmers accessing loans, better agri-input and insurance products are essential for empowering farmers to invest in their farms, improve productivity, and mitigate risks associated with farming. This changes in farm practices and risk mitigation directly leads to the outcome of increased crop productivity.

Our solution in making a cashless economy and more inclusive financial product will lead to 4 impacts according to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). First, as a result of outcome of reducing the number of farmers who previously couldn't access financial products and services, the increased utilization of digital financial tools enhances financial literacy among farmers, thus contributing to SDG 4 on Quality Education.

The outcome of building up assets, in turn, contributes to SDG 2 on Zero Hunger, as farmers are better equipped to invest in their farms, leading to improved food security and allocate more funds in better nutrition within farming households.

The increased productivity directly contributes to SDG 1 on No Poverty by increasing farmers' incomes and reducing poverty levels. Additionally, the activity promotes economic growth and decent work (SDG 8) by increasing employment opportunities and fostering entrepreneurship within farming communities.

Moreover, by enabling farmers to access financial resources and increased their income level, they can invest in the education of their children, contributing to SDG 4 by ensuring more youths complete the full education system, thus breaking the cycle of poverty.

In order to collect all that information from the field, our boots-on-the-ground field team regularly collects data and interacts with farmers on a daily basis. This ensures the active monitoring system from bottom to upper management, thus ensuring that all voices from field are taken into account in making decisions. To measure the impact, surveys on impact assessment are conducted in yearly basis to understand how deeply the impacts occurs at farmer level and what changes occur in their social-economic lives. Interview with key stakeholders, such as farmers, SMEs, and field staff, are also conducted to gather insights into the perceived effectiveness of the interventions and their contribution to the desired impacts.

Koltiva uses a combination of different tools and technologies to build our applications.

For the backend, we're using Java with Springboot, which helps us create powerful and efficient server-side code. This is like the engine of our system, handling the logic and data processing.

For the frontend, which is what users see and interact with, we're using VueJs. It's a framework that helps us build responsive and dynamic web interfaces, making the user experience smooth and enjoyable.

When it comes to mobile app development, we've chosen Flutter. This allows us to create high-quality mobile apps for both iOS and Android platforms, using a single codebase. This ensures consistency and saves time during development.

Our data is stored in a MySQL database, which acts as a central hub for storing and managing information. Think of it like a digital filing cabinet where we keep all our important data organized and accessible.

To make sure our applications are up and running smoothly, our Spring Boot application, along with Apache Tomcat, is packaged into a container and deployed to AWS ECS. Apache Tomcat within the container handles the execution of our Spring Boot application, while ECS manages the deployment and operation of the container on AWS's infrastructure. This setup allows us to build scalable, reliable web applications that can handle a large number of users and traffic.

Full-time: Head of Product KoltiPay, Product Manager KoltiPay, Associate Product Manager KoltiPay

Part-time: Chief Product Officer & Product Team (72 headcount), Technology Team (173 headcount), Marketing Team (19 headcount)

Koltiva Headcount: 942

Our team have been working on KoltiPay since Q2 2020 and the product was launched in May 2021. 

Koltiva is a truly global company with 942 employees across Indonesia, Brazil, China, Cote d’Ivoire, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Ghana, India, Mexico, Peru, Thailand, Uganda, Vietnam, Colombia, and USA. To ensure our team is diverse and we foster an inclusive environment, our Recruitment Standard Operating Procedure demonstrates our commitment and guides our efforts to achieve a 50% gender balance. In adherence to that principle our recruitment process is designed to eliminate gender bias systematically. We prioritize merit, skill, and qualifications to create an environment that values both genders' diverse perspectives and talents. This intentional approach aligns with our organizational values and contributes to the development of a more innovative, dynamic, and equitable workplace. By integrating gender balance into our recruitment strategy, we strive to build a foundation that fosters a fair and empowered workforce. 

To ensure equality in hiring, our recruitment team employs strategies that eliminate biases and promote a level playing field for all candidates. These strategies include:

• Diverse Hiring Panels: Our interview panels comprise individuals from diverse backgrounds to provide a well-rounded assessment of candidates, reducing the risk of unintentional bias. 
• Inclusive Job Descriptions: We craft job descriptions encouraging applications from individuals of all genders and backgrounds. Language is carefully chosen to be inclusive and free from gender-specific terms. 
• Targeted Outreach: We engage in outreach to attract a diverse pool of candidates, including women, for open positions. This may involve collaboration with educational institutions, professional organizations, and networks focusing on women in the workforce. 

Koltiva’s business model operates on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) basis, where revenues are generated from private sector actors such as exporters, processors and manufacturers subscribing to the KoltiTrace MIS platform. These companies pay for the utilization of the software with fixed monthly SaaS fees for access to web platforms, mobile applications, and additional features including KoltiPay, depending on their solution preferences. There are additional upfront fees for companies wanting specialisation and customization of applications and web dashboards. Suppliers and actors within the supply chains of paying customers then receive access to our software and support on how to use it.

In addition to the SaaS revenue, Koltiva receives revenue from our KoltiSkills extension services including capacity building and data collection, supporting companies with Field Agents to implement sustainability activities across their supply chains.

Whilst our paying customers are larger downstream actors, the majority of our end-users and beneficiaries are smallholder farmers and their communities. One of our key goals at Koltiva is creating inclusive supply chains, ensuring global green value chains remain accessible for smallholder farmers despite increasing pressure from regulations. By targeting private sector downstream actors as our paying customers, we remove the financial burden from smallholder farmers and SMEs, providing access to our solutions to improve their livelihoods with limited additional costs.

As mentioned above, KoltiPay is part of our Software-as-a-Service business model, with the addition of our loan and crop insurance products whose premiums are paid for by the cooperatives or individuals using the products. There is a demand for these digital financial services due to current high administrative costs for cooperatives to manage manual loan applications from their farmers which is causing inefficiency of process and low service levels. KoltiPay offers an efficient solution, digitising the loan and insurance management processes, increasing cost efficiency and accessibility. The loan dashboard management system is used by cooperatives to manage loan applicant lists, set up credit scoring, generate eContracts, and monitor repayments instantly. Smallholder farmers which are members of the cooperatives can then apply for a loan via KoltiPay on their FarmCloud application. They have access to 3 types of loans (cash loan, agri-input loan, and mix of both) with competitive and attractive loan rates due to the fast and efficient process. These loans support farmers with accessing vital agri-inputs and investing in the future of their farms.

Additionally, farmers can apply for parametric crop insurance with automatic payouts to their KoltiPay eWallets when the parameters indicate there is excess or deficit of rain. By developing a fully digitised climate risk insurance product and paying out claims when a trigger event occurs, Koltiva is contributing to increase income and climate resilience of farmers, empowering them with greater financial stability and livelihood security. 

Koltiva has used a mix of investment capital, grant funding, and private sector client revenue streams to fund its work.

In terms of investment capital, in 2023 Koltiva announced a seven figure Series A funding round led by AC Ventures, a top-tier early-stage venture capital firm. The round also included participation from Silverstrand Capital, Planet Rise, Development Finance Asia, and Blue 7, along with existing investor The Meloy Fund.

In addition to this, Koltiva has received grant funding from the AgriTech Innovation Fund funded by GSMA and UKAID (2020-2021). This grant, worth EUR 450,000, supported the development of KoltiPay as well as improving the eLearning features on FarmCloud. We have also implemented several development programmes with public donors and NGOs including the EU, SECO, UNIDO, Swisscontact, and GIZ. These programme budgets have ranged from EUR35,000 to EUR1.2million.

To ensure the financial sustainability of Koltiva, our main source of funding is private sector client revenue. Koltiva currently has 90+ paying customers including large agri-food and beverage companies such as Nestlé, Mars, Continental, Bridgestone, Diageo, Cargill, Givaudan. As mentioned previously, our clients pay for the utilization of the software with fixed monthly SaaS fees for access to web platforms, mobile applications, and additional features including KoltiPay, depending on their solution preferences. They also pay additional upfront fees for software adaptation, with higher fees for companies wanting specialisation and customization of applications and web dashboards.

Going forwards we will continue to use these three funding sources to build Koltiva.