South African-based company Nomanini, which is responsible for an innovative mobile Point of Sales (PoS) terminal, is taking the prepaid voucher industry in informal markets by storm.
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Since launching in 2012, the startup has rolled out its service in Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia where — according to a recent case study by GSMA Mobile for Development — it reaches up to 1 million end users per month. This means that of the 750 active terminals, the average number of transactions per terminal is between 700 and 1 000.
The in-depth study found that most of Nomanini’s growth could be attributed to the finding that informal retail and cash purchases are the norm in the regions it’s operating in. Less than 25% of people in Africa have bank accounts, and even fewer have credit cards.
Read more: Here’s where Africa’s payments revolution should be happening today
Currently, Nomanini’s PoS solution enables people in informal markets to buy airtime vouchers. Going forward Nomanini hopes to provide reliable and widespread access to prepaid electricity across Africa.
“Over 2013 and 2014 Nomanini created and honed a solution that meets the needs of informal market merchants as well as the existing prepaid distributors serving them,” CEO Vahid Monadjem tells Ventureburn in a statement. “We have expanded widely geographically in terms of products and services offered through the platform.”
Moreover, what enabled Nomanini to implement these visions has due to recent cash injections. Besides its product’s relevancy to its markets, last year the company raised R4.8-million Industrial Development Corporation to help it expand into the rest of Africa.
“In 2015 we will focus on scaling our existing clients across the continent and beyond. While we do this we will cannot lose sight of our core: improving the businesses and lives of thousands of entrepreneurs in the informal trade,” says Monadjem.
Accenture Innovation Index has recently shortlisted Nomanini as one of the initiative’s 16 South African finalists in the Innovation Concepts category.
“The Accenture Innovation Index is the only innovation awards programme worldwide that currently uses open research to glean information that is not publicly available for scoring and benchmarking against national innovation standards. It therefore also serves as an authoritative, objective snapshot of the current state of innovation in South Africa,” says CEO of Accenture South Africa William Mzimba.
The Accenture Innovation Index winners will be announced on 26 February.
