Business Talk Magazine

Last October, when Safiatou Diallo, a teacher in Canada, needed to send money to her father abroad, she didn’t have to deal with long bank lines or complicated paperwork. Instead, she grabbed her phone, opened the mobile money app, typed in a sum, and hit the send button. Her father recognised the thoughtful gift a few minutes later. 

It took less than a minute to transfer the funds. 

Millions across the world pay their electricity bills, water bills, telephone bills from the comfort of their couch. But there are millions who are devoid of this comfort. 

The majority of people in rural Africa do not have access to banking services. According to survey results, the major reasons individuals do not start saving in their bank accounts are (1) lack of faith in the bank, (2) inconsistent service, and (3) unreasonably high withdrawal costs. Basic financial services are still scarce in Sub-Saharan Africa, and it trails far behind even from other emerging countries.

Such restricted access might have serious consequences on people’s lives. Not having a formal bank account makes saving more difficult, people are less likely to have enough money set aside to deal with unforeseen crises like family illness. People may have to take significantly more costly steps than withdrawing money or taking a bank loan when emergencies occur. Lack of access to banking may also make it difficult for individuals to save substantial quantities of money or acquire credit for big needs such as company start-up fees, or even farm products. 

A Quick and Reliable Way to Send and Receive Your Money 

People have had to wait for hours to get to the bank window, only to be told they should come back the next day. This indicates that in order to earn their money, one must quit a day’s job. How would that be possible for someone who earns daily wages? How would someone who requires urgent cash for emergency purposes manage? Wouldn’t such slow and ineffective systems lead to delayed business decisions? Low-income people have a fundamental distrust of the official financial industry, which stems from their worries of being exploited and abuse they suffered in the past. Due to widespread financial illiteracy, the poor are particularly vulnerable, compounding the sense of mistrust. 

When the founder, Dr. Oumar Rafiou Barry, first started earning and began sending money to his family back home, he discovered that his family members had to travel for hours and then wait in huge queues to get their money. Back in the US, he could receive money in minutes with a click of a few buttons. Seeing such life disparities inspired him to build something that would better the lives of Africa’s unbanked.

BnB Group Corp. built a global payment infrastructure for the unbanked and underbanked by integrating international (e.g., Western Union) and local businesses (e.g., Orange Money) into one platform. This enables remittance to be transferred instantly into mobile wallets and bank accounts. They also allow international businesses (e.g., Amazon) and local businesses to pay and get paid by the unbanked. 

“We’re banking the unbanked — and their world will never be the same again, adds the founder Dr. Oumar Rafiou Barry. Our main competitor is cash, that is why we partner with other companies such as IMTOs (WU, MG, Ria, Smallworld, etc.), banks, and telcos to combine payments and remittance in one single platform and enable businesses to pay and get paid by anyone, including people with no bank accounts or credit cards.”  

BnB Group offers a platform-agnostic solution that connects payment and remittance systems (i.e., Ria, Visa, Orange). This allows the unbanked to use their mobile wallets to transact on any platform. The firm offers cross-border payments for mobile wallet companies (such as MTN Mobile Money).

Meet the founder Dr. Oumar Rafiou Barry 

Dr. Oumar Rafiou Barry is the CEO and founder of BnB Group Corp is a repeat entrepreneur and has 14+ years of experience in the Fintech Industry. With a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Toronto, he currently lectures at Virginia Tech. His impetus for founding BnB Group Corp. stems from the difficulties he saw in Africa, when even something as simple as getting your own money remains a monumental process.

“My motivation originated from my family’s and friends’ real-life struggles in collecting remittances in Africa. In Africa, over 80% of payments are conducted in cash, owing to the fact that many Africans are unbanked and have trouble paying and receiving money. “Creating more employment for thriving African countries, particularly for the youth, is a motivation that keeps me and the organization motivated,” the founder says.

Beating the odds

There is nothing constant in this world but change, however, our technology enables us to adapt to change. When the pandemic restricted people’s lives, the firm launched their CashApp which enables beneficiaries to collect their money at the comfort of their homes. The founder steers, 

“We are the only company that offers “indirect” digital pickup, i.e., remittances sent as cash pickup are collected using BnB CashApp and deposited to mobile money or bank account. Our customers were thrilled by this state-of-the-art experience which fueled our passion to continue what we are doing. This month, we deployed POS devices that enable merchants not just to collect payments, but also to do inbound and outbound remittances all in one platform.”  

In 2022 the company’s focus is to expand its network and allow merchants to do both remittance and payment processing on one platform. This will definitely have a positive impact not just on the unbanked population but on entire Africa.

Transforming Lives 

Dr. Oumar shares that his measure of success is when he hears people talking about how his company has made their lives simpler. He recalls one such incident. 

“This year, we’ve had a number of accomplishments, but one of the most rewarding was hearing a comment from one of our devoted customers who congratulated us for establishing the BnB CashApp and went on to add how BnB CashApp saved him time and money. He’s just one of many BnB CashApp users who credit the app with saving their lives, particularly during the epidemic. Hearing first hand feedback like these validates all of your efforts. This motivates us to keep developing and thriving so that we may continue to make a difference in people’s lives one step at a time.”

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