Look back on a year of entrepreneurship in Africa with this nugget worth being listed in this year’s startup, according to Africa Economy. It’s called KKiaPay, and it’s a Beninese FinTech that has established itself as a key player in integrated payment with mobile money.
“We are fortunate to be one of the fastest growing technology companies in Cotonou.”
Calm voice and unlimited flow, Gilles Kounou hardly seems surprised by the yet unusual results of his company celebrating its three years of activity. The head of KKiaPay boasts a customer portfolio of 1,800 companies and businesses. In ten months, 2 billion CFA of transactions went through KKiaPay. But what is KKiaPay?
“It is a payment infrastructure for the e-commerce sector with a specific objective for SMEs to redeem or pay online.”
The solution developed by this software technician enables a merchant to receive mobile cash payments, whether from a website or a physical store.
Once you have integrated KKiaPay on your site, whether the end customer uses Moov Money or MTN Mobile Money, or has a Visa, MasterCard or American Express debit card, it is in the same plugin he pays. So there is integration for all networks and all bank cards for the merchant. And behind it, the merchant collects his assets in a single account. Without hassle. ”
KKiaPay, which in yoruba means “pay fast fast”, makes life easier for e-commerce players and brings together all mobile money operators under one platform. And the real challenge that Gilles Kounou had to take up was convincing the banks and mobile operators.
“Having goodwill in a universe like the banking world and partners like mobile money operators to be able to develop an innovative product on an infrastructure they already have has been one of the biggest challenges. But once this challenge is met, the collaboration goes very well. So the real challenge is to be able to connect with a mobile money operator, get from him a framework for negotiations, legal and financial agreements. ”
KKiaPay already operates in Benin, Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire and intends to expand to the 14 countries in the two franc zones. The Beninese startup dreams of experiencing the same success as its Nigerian big sister Paystack, which was bought in October last year by the American giant Stripe for $ 200 million.
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