Pyypl and TTON created an African entrepreneur micro-investment platform combining virtual debit cards and SACCOs to promote shared, sustainable, and inclusive mobility.
With an initial partnership with Kenya’s Tuk Tuk Operators Network (TTON), Pyypl is implementing its new social, micro-investment platform for the benefit of African entrepreneurs and micro-SMEs.
Pyypl, a global provider of financial services and payment technology that integrates blockchain into its core processes, has announced the commercial launch of its social micro-investment platform for micro-SMEs and independent business owners in Africa.
Through a first partnership with TTON in Kenya, a pan-African mobility network that links Tuk Tuk operators in 47 counties, the rollout is starting.
The current Pyypl platform, which just went live, aims to accelerate digitalization for these operators using Pyypl’s virtual debit cards, directly affecting TTON’s expansion.
With the help of structured transportation Savings and Credit Co-Operative Societies (SACCOs), the alliance aims to assist TTON’s long-term objective of linking three-wheeler participants in Africa’s informal transportation sector to a shared socio-economic, sustainable, and inclusive mobility platform.
SACCOs promote saving while assisting members in obtaining low-cost loans that would not otherwise be available.
Putting money into the heart of the community
Antti Arponen, CEO of Pyypl, talks about how the company offers short-term, fair, and transparent investments to the TTON along with its use of digital financial services, calling community groups “the core of Kenyan society.”
As we establish relationships across several African nations, Arponen continues, “this demonstrates the huge opportunity for Pyypl’s debentures platform with over 126,000 TTON members representing more than 1.6 million Boda Boda operators throughout Kenya.”
Pyypl’s debentures platform aims to develop a social ecosystem for entrepreneurs across Africa and improve access to digital financial services for informal employment sectors, much like relationship organizations like SACCOs and trade unions maintain high levels of trust with their strong communities.
While the company currently works directly with trade organizations, it anticipates that larger organizations like the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation may become investors in the near future.
A window of chance
Vincent M. Were, network lead for TTON, speaks on behalf of the Kenyan Tuk Tuk and Boda Boda community, which is actively looking for partnerships to expand the industry. He says the community “appreciates the engagement of Pyypl and their services.”
Comments made about how TTON’s partnership with Pyypl has given it access to debentures, which has “opened a new window of opportunity for our transport ecosystem, meeting our most critical financial needs while in line of service.”
He says, “This lubrication of transportation company activities through Pyypl’s micro-investment product has favorably contributed to the growth of our economy as a sector and even as a country. “We look forward to a time when both the three-wheeler and two-wheeler sectors in Kenya will have all fully subscribed to Pyypl’s debenture platform.”
As Pyypl fulfills its aim to provide financial services to the 800 million financially disadvantaged smartphone users across Africa and the Middle East, the company’s strong capital foundation is accelerating regional growth.
Pyypl accomplishes this through remittances to 42 foreign currency destinations, immediate domestic and international user-to-user transactions, as well as virtual and real prepaid cards that are accepted abroad.
The collaboration and launch come after a crucial thirteen months for Pyypl. In the four months from October 2022 to January 2023, all inclusive, the company’s revenues tripled and were eight times higher than in 2021.
The company’s App 2.0 was released in eight different languages, and its prepaid card was used at 30,000 different merchant locations across 150 countries and 100 different currencies. These two operational KPIs bookended a year of considerable revenue growth. Additionally, Pyypl managed more than a million customer chats.
