Using Technology to build an ecosystem of informal financial institutions with a vibrant network of 3rd party service providers Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is David Opio, I am the cofounder and CEO at Ensibuuko. I am happy to be here. Today, I will share with you how we are using technology to help increase the delivery of financial services to rural-based farmers in uganda,.

65% of Uganda’s rural, farming population is excluded from financial services 65% of Uganda’s rural population is excluded from financial services. Most of these are small-scale rural farmers. I relate with this personally because I was born and raised in a rural farming community in Uganda. My mother is a farmer. Growing up, I observed the struggles she went through trying to accessing credit. Her story is the story of most Ugandan farmers. Banks are far, credit is expensive. 35% of Uganda’s population accesses credit informally from non bank institutions such as Savings and Credit Cooperatives. There are 5000 of these in he country, with a staggering membership of 18 million people. SACCOS, as they are commonly known, play a huge role in financing rural communities. They are not only rural-based, but have easy and manageable credit terms.

The current system makes SACCOS inefficient and unpopular Yet, the informal financial service providers are fragmented and in unsafe environment with limited linkages. They are exposed to fraud, mismanagement and operate within an inefficient system with heavy reliance on human effort and paper work. Moreover, some SACCOs are far away from the people they should serve

Harnessing Mobile money and cloud banking to make Savings and Credit Coops work for smallholder farmers This is what we seek to solve with MOBIS. MOBIS helps improve operation and management systems at SACCOS, reducing human error, improving functional roles and reporting. As a cloud-based software, MOBIS makes it easy for SACCOS to grow and scale and to set-up multiple branches without the need for heavy equipment. Intererestingly, unlike most cloud-based systems that require reliable internet, MOBIS runs on 2G enabled Access point Network which makes it a good fit for SACCOS in rural far-to-reach communities, with limited internet. Moreover, by integrating MOBIS with Uganda’s leading Mobile Money Service Providers, MTN and Airtel, we are now making it easy and affordable for rural farmers to access a whole suite of financial services from their SACCO, anywhere, anytime, on any phone.

No need for conventional Internet : Seamless connection

We have registered the fastest growth record for any MIS provider in Uganda 15 months after its launch, MOBIS is now being used in 61 Institutions reaching over 400,000 people, 25% of whom are actively using our mobile wallet. This is the fastest growth record ever achieved by an MIS provider in our market.