Traction in conjunction with Consonance Investments hosted a payments focused webinar themed “Navigating Retail Payments in Africa”, on Thursday, September 16 via zoom meetings.
The speakers in the event included; Marcello Schermer, Head of Market Expansion, Yoco (leading South African merchant payment acquirer), Osahon Akpata, Head, Consumer Payments , Ecobank (bank with the largest footprint in Africa), Dhruv Dhanraj Bahl, COO of Bharatpe (Leading Indian Merchant Payment acquirer, also a unicorn), Anthony Dolapo Agbaje, Vice President, Apis Partners (leading PE firm in emerging market payments) Lamide Adeosun, Principal, Consonance Investments and Dolapo Adejuyigbe, Co-founder, Traction.
As a brand committed to empowering SMEs, the webinar touched on three major things namely; the size of the retail payments opportunity in Africa, successful business models needed to scale digital retail payments in Africa and who is best suited to win this space. Participants were also able to get insight on ways to access opportunities such as business financing, advisory, wealth preservation and appropriate business coverage.
Speaking at the event, Dolapo Adejuyigbe, Co-founder of Traction said “Our view of the world is ecosystemic. A good number of our customers doing high volumes in terms of revenue are the street food sellers like the shawarma sellers. Our major building blocks are product, distribution, and customer success. The user experience is also very important. Brand trust is key and a good way to achieve this is through ensuring constant education and engaging, while also helping them see their path to growth. Representing Yoco, Marcello Schermer expanded on how Yoco has grown to become the leading South African merchant payment acquirer by focusing on the underserved and not getting distracted by possible shortcuts. Dhruv Dhanraj Bahl, COO of Bharatpe, shed some light on branding, as BharatPe was the first Indian company to use a Bollywood star as an ambassador, a way to gain customer trust. He further expounded on the payments business being one in which margins are made on other margins from clients sales, however the business model is not predicated on capital, but capital is predicated on the business model. BharatPe launched India’s first UPI interoperable QR code, first ZERO MDR payment acceptance service, and first UPI payment backed merchant cash advance service. Osahon Akpata and Dolapo Agbaje of Ecobank and Apis Partners respectively spoke on mobile apps being the future of financial services to be distributed in a cost effective manner.
Traction is a payments company with payment solution offerings around POS, USSD and Bank Transfer. It also serves as a one-stop-shop management tool to run businesses, whether online or offline. With Traction, business solutions are aggregated on one app that allows for payment through POS, USSD, bank transfer and online payment. Business owners can also manage inventory, create an online store for e-commerce, keep records of customers and record sales. This makes the life of business owners much easier and business operations smoother.
Since the start of the year, Traction has held several SME programmes ranging from webinars to business contests. Around different business themes such as sales, accounting and management.
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