KanaCash is an app tailored to the mobile money payment to Africa
About
Applicant name: Aces Group LLC
Innovation Name: KanaCash
Innovation Type: Solution
Website:
Mission: KanaCash is an app tailored to the mobile money payment to Africa
Innovation Description: KanaCash is an app tailored to the mobile money payment needs of Sub-Saharan Africa and its diaspora by integrating with existing local infrastructure and giving the population more access to and control over how, when, and where they spend their money. Currently KanaCash provides remittance services between the United States, and Liberia and 10 other African countries including Sierra Leone, Kenya, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Guinea, Cameroun, Gambia, South Sudan. KanaCash’s objective is to make sending and receiving remittance more user friendly for our hard-working customers.
Once the sender submits a transaction, the receiver gets the alert through their mobile device indicating money was sent to that receiver. When initiating the transaction, the receiver can elect to have the receiver use the following payment methods: Mobile Wallet, Bank Deposit or Cash pick-up.
Innovation Inspiration: KanaCash’s founders totally understand the plight of immigrants as it relates to remittance because we are immigrants ourselves. The founders have been on the sending and receiving end of remittances so we fully understand the value of remittance to family and friends back in the home country. Our personal experiences standing in long lines to receive remittances while living in Liberia as well as living in refugee camps as a result of devastating civil war in Liberia inspired the founders to develop a simple, faster, and more efficient method to send money back home. In recent years, the founders continue to see increase challenges facing their families when receiving remittance and even they had to use the more traditional Money Transfer Organizations (MTOs) because Liberia had not had any innovative alternative to sending money. Hence, KanaCash was conceived.
Who benefits from the innovation most? KanaCash is a solution that various stakeholders can benefit from. Mostly though, senders and recipients of remittance benefits more for using KanaCash. More individuals have a mobile money account than a traditional bank account in Sub-Saharan Africa especially in primary country, Liberia. Access to mobile money agents is available, particularly in rural areas than bank branches. As a result, mobile money is quickly becoming the preferred method to receive remittances in the region, but it is still not widely available by the key remittance players in the market. In addition, the payout agents normally lack the funding capacity to absorb increase levels of transactions through mobile money. Thus, KanaCash’ s approach to also incorporate self-funded agents and major payout centers across the country especially in rural areas with no banks, sets KanaCash aside from current players in the market. Similarly, banks, payment aggregators, MNOs and local agents benefits from the KanaCash Solution.
What are you most proud of about your innovation? At the onset of the venture, we focused on identifying a suitable working relationship coupled with partner’s network. Using these points as benchmark, we realized that our combined expertise in regulatory, financial services and cyber security matters were strong to balance a partner’s skill in other regards. By narrowing the criteria for our partnership engagement, we were able to identify a suitable partner, which has been a plus to KanaCash’s warp speed to market.
Proudly, KanaCash can now boast of a solution that brings ease of mind to money remitters as well as no hassle for recipients who can now access their monies through various options – Mobile Wallet, Bank Transfer and Cash Pick Up in Primary country, Liberia. What sets KanaCash apart from many international remittances solutions in the market today is the combination of founders’ experiences working in the US and a deep understanding of the local markets, where KanaCash operates. In addition, a unique understanding of the immigrant population in the United States.
Status of Innovation: Pilot
Innovation Active Since: 09/30/2020
Applicant Type: Private Company
Headquarter City: Durham
Headquarter Country: USA
Year Founded: 2020
Main Category
Main Category Choice: Innovation for Africa
Why do you think you should win this category?: KanaCash is particularly relevant to the “Innovation for Africa” category because the solution was solely designed to help minimize challenges facing many African remittance recipients. One of the key challenges remittance receipts encounter continues to be the availability of funds for payment. Even in instances where funds are available through the more traditional MTOs where they transact, the time it takes for these recipients to get their money is just too long. Worse, most of the remittance recipients have to travel long distances to get to a bank hence incurring high transportation cost.
As liquidity in most Sub-Saharan African economies continues to be a major problem KanaCash is positioning itself to ease the burden posed upon remittance recipients. One other unique feature about KanaCash in primary country, Liberia is the option to fund our own local payout centers bringing ease of payments to recipients. Secondly, KanaCash has partnered with local businesses to serve as payout agents for smaller remittances amounts.
Team Members
Full Name: McSwain Forkoh
Role: CEO
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcswainforkoh
Full Name: Spencer Biah
Role: COO/CTO
Link: https://www.acesgroupinc.com/spencer-biah
Supporting Links
Description: Aces Group’s High Level Presentation
Link: https://www.docdroid.net/EPVtOHH/aces-group-high-level-presentation-pdf
Description: Group’s Website
