Almost three month in the market, MicroPay is the latest mobile money payment platform in Uganda. The platform claims to be your single one-stop money transfer and payment center integrating several financial institutions and merchants in one platform.
Starting with an Android App currently Free for download in the Playstore, MicroPay is determined to be the next big thing in the rapidly changing financial industry in Uganda.
The platform offers;
- Peer-to-peer money transfer
- Utility and Pay TV payment
- Fees and Tuition payment
- Donations and fundraising
- Micro insurance payments
- Entertainment and event tickets
- Payroll direct deposits
Before the payment provider saves you long queues, you have to register first with one of their agents. You do this by filling out a registration form with a valid ID. After that, you’ll deposit money into your e-wallet through their agents that you can use to do all the above transactions.
Facing Competition with the Telecoms
MicroPay is an independent Mobile money platform. It completely works without say MTN Uganda Mobile Mobile or Airtel Money which makes them direct competitors, not partners.
The provider’s platform uses an Android app which users must install on their phones. This is based on the assumption that Micropay would-be customers have smartphones. Android-powered smartphones at that with enough memory and processing power to keep the App running. We also don’t know if the App needs internet or uses SMS in the background.
Compare this to the Telecoms that use USSD. This means the Telecoms’ platforms can run on any GSM-compatible phones. Feature or smart, it doesn’t matter. Also the Telecoms already dominate the Mobile Finance sector, incredibly making it hard for competitors to enter the market as Daniel Olel one Telecom observer notes;
“If they aren’t backed by any telco, they are headed for one very big iceberg. Unfortunately for these guys, the Telcos are the gatekeepers of the Mobile Money world. The only way to beat them at this game is to think ahead, develop your rival app and make sure you have a killer use case for your app.The most important thing is to find a use case where the advantages of using your app outweigh the disadvantages of not using it.”
Get the App
The system relies on a mobile App currently on available on the Play Store
