The future for South African youth remains bleak currently unless we act now to cultivate entrepreneurs, says Vuleka app founder Brian Makwaiba.
The platform recently took first place in the South African edition of the Visa Everywhere Initiative (VEI), taking home $50 000 (R923 153) in prize money. Vuleka will progress to Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) to represent the continent.
The intention of the competition is to highlight unique start-ups that were driving change, solving problems, and accessing new segments. More importantly, the competition created visibility for the fin-techs, both locally and globally, to attract investment and new opportunities to partner.
In an interview with the Business Report, Makwaiba said it was important to consider that Africa was also a very youthful continent.
‘’So what happens to the youth that we have right now in ten years if there are no job or entrepreneurial opportunities? It is best to start and cultivate them right now to get to a point in ten years where it is easier for them as a generation to also be economic contributors,’’ he said.
Makwaiba said the idea behind the Vuleka app was that it looked at the merchants as enablers and the consumers that bought from them. Once all these people were on-boarded digitally, the core problem for the merchant was solved. ‘’Our vision or goal would be to on-board or help those businesses.’’
This was one of the solutions they provided in terms of financial inclusion. Going forward, he said there would be a greater focus on this as it was the biggest need that had been identified. Africa has a lot of informal businesses due to the high unemployment rates on the continent.
Makwaiba said this made informal businesses the easiest way for many people to get back to being economically active. ‘’We have a bottom of the pyramid that people have not been seen through into, and this is what we are trying to solve.’’
Vuleka would like to form partnerships with banks and telcos.
‘’Another thing becomes in Africa, we do know that the biggest problem we have is the high cost of data. At the same time, there are people that are not being seen in the market. That is why we are looking at a partnership with a bank so that they can get people that are under-served and do not have access to accounts that are not costly,’’ Makwaiba said.
Makwaiba said one of the biggest push backs Vuleka continuously experienced with their customers was that it was too expensive to have a business bank account.
Lineshree Moodley, Visa Country Head, said when looking at the broader financial services ecosystem, they wanted to work with their banking partners with regards to defining what were the customer value propositions they could develop for the youth that would not only serve them now in their life stage but as they went through their different journey in life.
‘’We want to help them when they want to open a business, buying their first house and thinking about them holistically in terms of their journey,’’ Moodley said.
Visa said small and medium-sized enterprises were the lifeblood of the economy.
‘’Solving for their needs is really something that is quite close to our hearts. Visa has made a commitment to invest a billion dollars into Africa,’’ Moodley said.
The company said this investment was envisaged to translate into more advanced technology that could be put across the continent, a lot more people being financially included in the digital ecosystem and a lot of innovative ways in which money movement across the continent could be made seamless, convenient and safe.
‘’With that comes ensuring that we protect the ecosystem, and a lot of investment will go into things like fraud prevention,’’ Moodley said.
BUSINESS REPORT