In an interview with CNBC Africa, Kamari CEO Chris Cleverly succinctly described how blockchain could be the solution to Africa’s current trade issues. “Blockchain’s going to work in several ways in Africa, not least by increasing the amount of intra-trade between African countries,” he commented during the interview.
What is clear from that discussion is UK-based entrepreneur Cleverly sees potential here. While cryptocurrency has seen a deep decline of late and global faith in blockchain stumbles, Cleverly is optimistic about the launch of his company’s Africa-focused KamPay token.
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KamPay is a blockchain-based innovative financial platform
KamPay, founded by Cleverly and Raymond Sze, was officially launched in June this year via BSCStarter. According to Cleverly, the idea for the token came about at a 2017 blockchain conference in Santa Monica, California, where the Kamari team discussed the potential of giving credit and microfinance to the unbanked in Africa.
Ventureburn spoke to the CEO about the problems KamPay aims to solve, plans for future KamPay features and what blockchain can do for Africa.
What is KamPay?
KamPay is a blockchain-based innovative financial platform, a payment system, a wallet and a lottery. The KamPay wallet will be crypto-based and will combine with ZymPay, the fiat payment gateway that presently exists between SA and Zimbabwe to facilitate easy crypto-to-fiat exchanges and encourage simple onboarding. The wallet will also include messaging, so it will work as an encrypted blockchain messenger.
How will the token help to solve Africa’s current trade problems?
KamPay is constructing the gateway for providing financial inclusion, language functions, providing flat to crypto exchange in local currencies as well as supporting the tokenisation of currencies. This will open doors to credit and remittance across the continent and outside, to anyone interested in supporting Africa and African growth.
There are two key issues that KamPay concentrates on. First is the very limited ability for intracontinental trade between African countries. Each country has its own currency and commission rates for inter-state money transfers between currencies are at about 20% in Africa. It doesn’t matter whether you’re holding Rands, kwacha, leones, naira or another currency – you can’t take it out of the country without paying around 20% in fees. This is a huge problem that’s been solved on other continents with a general currency like the Euro but Africa still has this issue. KamPay fees will be much lower and the token will be usable across borders.
The second issue the KamPay team is addressing is helping farmers. The token launch aims to create a sustainable and circular African farming economy in which all participants do very well. KamPay also plans to create a special blockchain version of vouchers for farmers to receive funds before the harvest.
What are you looking forward to with this launch and coming months?
This pilot means KamPay will be in the hands of 50 000 people within three months. The project will expand to three different countries in that period. The KamPay team has already received interest from interested parties across Africa but are focusing on the MVP launch and beta test pilot in Zimbabwe and Cameroon before scaling up. The team is also looking for partners and partnerships outside Africa that can help with expansion.
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Featured image: Kamari CEO Chris Cleverly (Supplied)
