The Mojaloop Accelerator Program pairs system integrators (SIs) who are experienced with Mojaloop with ones who are experienced with other systems and open to learning more. The goal is to build the capacity of local IT ecosystems to support truly inclusive national payment systems in lower-income countries. Once local SIs are experienced with Mojaloop, they can also help others create financial services networks in neighboring countries.
The first company to go through the Accelerator Program was WiredIn, who are based in Rwanda. ThitsaWorks, an experienced SI based in Asia, provided support and guidance during their project. They, in turn, were mentored by Infitx before the Accelerator Program was formalized.
When we spoke with WiredIn co-founder and CEO Alain Kajangwe to get his thoughts about the Program, he had high praise. “Joining the Mojaloop Community represented an unparalleled opportunity for us at WiredIn,” he said. “With our rich background in software development and a history of contributing to the evolution of payment systems in dynamic markets like Rwanda, we understood the limitations of depending on closed-loop systems. In the open source Mojaloop platform, we found a way to do more for our clients, partners, and for the people who need affordable digital payment services.
“It’s about making a tangible difference, one line of code at a time, and as we like to say at WiredIn, ‘We code to matter,’” he added.
You can read the rest of the interview below. You can also view the WiredIn website here and connect with Alain on LinkedIn.
How do you feel about WiredIn being the first system integrator to go through the Mojaloop Accelerator program?
It was very helpful to us, especially to my senior team. I had already been around payment systems like Postillion and BASE24-eps for maybe 15-20 years, so I knew a lot about how they work, although I didn’t know Mojaloop in particular.
Five of us participated, including myself. The others were the senior people that I figured would become the cornerstone of our work around Mojaloop. The logic was if they understood how everything works, they would be able to impart their knowledge and experience to the rest of the team, and that’s how it has worked out.
You were partnered with ThitsaWorks as you went through the program. What was that like?
They were very, very helpful in helping my team to understand how Mojaloop works and where everything fits. We could tell everybody was very keen to be helpful. There were also many people in the Community with whom we have developed a good relationship. Even on one of the projects that we are doing now for Rswitch on Mojaloop, the same people that were involved in the Accelerator have kept their doors open, and if we reach out to them on Slack they’re willing to help.
Are you able to share anything about what you’re building in Rwanda that is based on Mojaloop?
There is a project that has been going on in Rwanda for about three years, the Rwanda National Digital Payment System (RNDPS). The first phase has already been completed, which was for the person-to-person (P2P) use case, although it was running on a different system. The second use case, for merchant payments or person-to-business (P2B), is going to be running on Mojaloop. WiredIn was selected to work on this project, so we are currently working on that with Rswitch and so far everything seems to be going well.
Do you think that participating in the Mojaloop Accelerator Program has put WiredIn in a more competitive position as a company?
Participating put us on the map, especially when it came to the RFP that came out for Rswitch. Of course, we had a lot of experience with payment systems, but we had very little experience with Mojaloop. And even though Mojaloop experience wasn’t the only thing that they were looking for during the RFP process, they were definitely looking for it.
Between the Accelerator Program and a smaller proof of concept (POC) that we did for a past Community Meeting, we could say that we knew what was under the hood of the Mojaloop platform. It was good to go into the bidding process with that little bit of confidence.
Do you think that WiredIn might become a mentoring company to other system integrators?
Absolutely. Looking at how everybody was willing to help us, it would be very unfair if we said, “no, we don’t have time for you” to someone else. That’s not who we are.
In fact, we met someone at last October’s Community Meeting who has contacted us to help them with a POC. My team and I found the time to do that with them.
Powering Financial Inclusion with Mojaloop
A Mojaloop-enabled IIPS brings low- or no-cost digital financial services to anyone with access to a mobile phone, whether their financial services provider is big or small, urban or rural, international or local.
If you’d like to talk about what Mojaloop can do, message Steve Haley on LinkedIn.