Fatima Almeida, CEO and Founder of Angola-based BayQi, has a vision. Historically, online purchasing and payment systems have been problematic throughout Africa. Myriad issues are to blame, general access being the main obstacle; for example, in Angola there is a prohibitively high Visa interest rate.
To promote financial inclusion, BayQi combined ecommerce and fintech to create a “super app” that now connects the 12 million people of Angola with the rest of the world. Backed by a license from the National Bank of Angola, the system currently relies on the national currency (the Angolan Kwanza) and BayQi further envisions a one-payment system that will ultimately service all of Africa, in partnership with larger, known creditors such as Visa.
The platform is currently available in Portuguese, English, French, and Italian. Most African people speak one of these languages, says Almeida, but BayQi is positioned to expand its offering according to what the future demands.
Any African-based business struggles with access to resources, reports Almeida, but no matter: Africa can deliver what is needed and “we can create something for the world to use as well.”
Links:
https://www.state.gov/africasummit/
Connect with Wendy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendypease/
Connect with Fatima –
https://www.linkedin.com/in/f%C3%A1tima-almeida-15b024116/
Music: Fiddle-De-Dee by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
ATTENTION: Below is a machine generated transcription of the podcast. Yes, at Rapport International, we talk a lot about how machine translation is not good quality. Here you see an example of what a machine can do in your own your language. This transcription is provided as a gist and to give time indicators to find a topic of interest.
[00:01:07] Wendy: Welcome to the Global Marketing Show. I'm continuing with the interviews here at the EXIM Bank show, and we have a very exciting person to interview. Fatima Almeida owns BayQi. It's a company in Africa, and she's actually here because she's been invited by President Biden to the US Africa Business Forum , and the Secretary of the Department of Commerce, Gina Ramo will be there too. So welcome to the United States and to the EXIM Conference in your big event.
[00:01:41] Fatima: Thank you very much.
[00:01:42] Wendy: Yeah. Yes. So tell me about your company and why you're being recognized here.
[00:01:48] Fatima: Okay. We start as a normal e-commerce and now we get licensed for National Bank of Ngal and we will become a fin. We are at a FinTech and.
[00:01:58] Join FinTech and the commerce. So now we have a super app that will connect people around Angola and the vision is to connect Africa with the world. Cause we have this conference, but we still have a problem payment system.
[00:02:15] Wendy: Okay. And so what, what are the payment systems that are used now, or were used before By, by key,
[00:02:24] Fatima: right?
[00:02:24] Yes. We start as a normal e. And the first problem we faced was the payment. Cause visa doesn't work very well in our country cause because of financial inclusion there is less people, they have Visa. So we have to step back and create our one. Payment system so all national people in Angola can buy online.
[00:02:49] Cause that was a big problem to have. They couldn't purchase things online because of this payment system. But now they will do because of our payment system. Definitely.
[00:03:00] Wendy: So nobody, so as the world is going online to make all their purchases, Angola, the people of Angola couldn't buy online because there was no system that was tied into the, to the.
[00:03:13] Fatima: Okay. There is, we, we still have some we can get Visa in the bank, but the, the, the interest rate is too high. Okay. Ah, so to have a more financial inclusion. So just for, you know, more than 12 million people in Ang they had access to internet and they do have fun and they do have smart fun. So, but thank you.
[00:03:35] It's hard sometimes. Visa cause visas we have to apply from the bank. And the bank they have to check. So to have like something that have one can have it more inclusion, we thinking how we can solve this problem so people can buy purchase, morphing online. So we create a digital payment system, so it's gonna be for all and, but in the future we can give to others African country as well.
[00:04:05] Cause the problem is, .
[00:04:08] Wendy: Interesting. So now is that backed by the bank or how, what's the back, how, what's the technology behind it to enable it? Okay.
[00:04:17] Fatima: We work with the National Bank and we, we've been talking to Visa as well, to talk to Visa, but I think it's gonna be more local with payment. We work Angola, we use.
[00:04:31] So to allow Dallan with smartphone, they can easy buy things online and even also buying the same store. Cause our payment system came with the normal payment platform for e-commerce. And by, we do have care codes. We have payment with link for, to buy things in another platform online as well.
[00:04:51] And we, we are now working with. Currents. But in the future we do a big, massive partnership with Visa to see if we can work together and the future, maybe have the, a digital coin that can make things become more easy to, to goods and people can, people in for things in unit United States without travel as.
[00:05:18] Wendy: so you might jump to, rather than back by currency, backed by a cryptocurrency on the online platform. We think
[00:05:26] Fatima: doing this in the future, cause definitely we start as a normal wallet uhhuh, uh, payment system for national local s. But yes, in the future we have to think in, in a big picture cuz a vision is to connect after with world, if we can do this with the payment.
[00:05:47] It could be amazing cause these wire missing Africa right now.
[00:05:50] Wendy: Okay. And so, so there's a lot of payment systems that already exist in the world. How come they haven't come in and offered that opportunity on Angola or other African countries? I
[00:06:02] Fatima: dunno, , I talk by herself. We trying to, we trying to work some international platform, but because we are based in Africa we cannot get access.
[00:06:13] Just to just let you know. It's very hard and I didn't know like, but, but we can create our one system as well. Yeah. Take it. Our vision. We created and now we need to take it from Africa to the world the same time, the same way we use what World Create for has for the first time, we can create something for the world to use as well.
[00:06:37] Cause that is
[00:06:38] Wendy: fantastic. Yes. I am so glad you're starting that and it's so, thank you. Nice to see a woman that is, you're gonna change the payment system and then go on the other.
[00:06:49] Fatima: Yes, definitely. We going to, we will. And it is not just Ang, it's about Africa. Yeah. We think about Africa, we need to connect Africa with world.
[00:07:01] Yeah. By payment system. There is, this is a big opportunity right now. So there's
[00:07:07] Wendy: a lot of different languages in Africa, which, what language is your platform in and what language do you plan on going into? Okay,
[00:07:16] Fatima: we are using Portugal. And English as well, Uhhuh. But in the future, as long we are gonna spend for more country, we are gonna have the language as well.
[00:07:28] Wendy: So will you get into a lot of the tribal dialects or the main languages, or how do you decide on
[00:07:34] Fatima: that? Okay. Basically in, in, in Africa, in Angola, people speak portugese in English. Mm-hmm. cause. English is international language. In Africa, most of people use it. In Africa we use Portugese, English and French.
[00:07:51] Mm-hmm. and Italy. So this four language, as a longer we can have it, people, there is a lot of dialects, but in the future we can see how it's gonna work. If there is a, if we need to create a solution for that, we will do it. .
[00:08:07] Wendy: Okay. Okay. But a lot of the people will, are multilingual with speaking one of these
[00:08:12] Fatima: languages.
[00:08:13] Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. But we, we are here to create a solution. If you There is a need, we do it.
[00:08:20] Wendy: That's fantastic. So how can people get in touch with you if they'd like to learn more? Okay.
[00:08:27] Fatima: They can, people can can contact us. They can go into our website via key WW. By key.com or they can go to, they can find when LinkedIn Fat Malda, and they can send a text message to me and I can talk them directly or send the email to me.
[00:08:48] F alda Aruba com. F r a, sorry, f l M a.
[00:09:04] D a Rob?
[00:09:09] Wendy: Yeah. Oh, that's the at symbol
[00:09:14] Fatima: B A Y Q Q
[00:09:20] Wendy: i.com. . Okay. So yeah, that's fascinating. I think this opens up a lot of Africa to Yes. To be able to buy in the payment system. Yes. And I interviewed a prior guest at the XM show named Michael Thornton, who's developing World Trade X. If you know, that's another episode on the podcast that you can go listen to about making a platform ag for agricultural products.
[00:09:45] Yes. So it seems like the payment system would be, Key Yes. To to link into that. He's the key.
[00:09:52] Fatima: Yes. Yes. We have to. Well,
[00:09:54] Wendy: we always like to ask people that are guests here, and I haven't given you warning of this, is what is your favorite foreign word? And foreign can be defined across any language you choose.
[00:10:05] So , can you share your favorite foreign word?
[00:10:09] Fatima: In my language or in
[00:10:10] Wendy: English? Any language, any favorite word that you have across any language. It could be Portuguese or English. French or Italian. Okay. . And what's your language? Portuguese. Portuguese? Yeah. I
[00:10:23] Fatima: like say
[00:10:28] Wendy: So tell our
[00:10:29] Fatima: listeners what that means. , arigato. Say thank you and,
[00:10:35] Wendy: There you go. ATO is her favorite word. Well, Fatima, this has been a fabulous opportunity to get to talk to you. I hope you have a wonderful time at the reception tomorrow. Thank you. And she did tell me at the beginning that when she checked in for the event with the welcome from the president, she got.
[00:10:57] Presidential box of m and Ms. . So the big question on her Instagram is now is, is she going to eat the m and ms or not? ? Yes. Did we get the inside scoop on that?
[00:11:09] Fatima: Lot of people told me, eat it and keep the box .
[00:11:14] Wendy: Ah, that is a
[00:11:16] Fatima: good idea, . Yeah. But I will offer to my father.
[00:11:21] Wendy: Oh, well, he, he's probably so proud of you.
[00:11:24] Yes, yes he is. Yes. Well, thank you so much for sharing. Good luck. If there's anything we can do to help you, please let us know. Okay.
[00:11:33] Fatima: You will. Thank you very much.
[00:11:36]
