Turning Sign-ups into Superfans in Seconds – CVM’s Magic in Fintech

[00:00:00] Abdallah: At the beginning. When we started, the banks didn’t want to invest in this space. Probably they are not believing that there is something that can get out of it. But as time goes, they are now realizing that this is the segment that that they have been missing it. When the promotion is misbehaving, you are not sending SMS here or you are not giving MMS, you’re giving money.

[00:00:26] Exacaster: Welcome to CVM Stories, the podcast on customer value management. Together, we explore how companies can be more successful and their customers happier through the use of latest customer value management techniques. Learn key commercial and analytical insights from telecoms, retail, finance and other industries that drive CVM forward.

[00:00:45] Egidijus: Welcome to another episode of CVM Stories. I’m your host, Egidijus. Today we are taking a closer look at mobile money. What makes it different from regular telecom services, and why it’s such a big deal right now in many industries. Our guest is Abdallah Mashashi, a pricing and CVM expert who has been working 11 years in both telecom and mobile money business units. He will share how innovation and trust building are driving success in mobile money industry, and how CVM makes it all happen. So let’s dive in. Hello and welcome Abdullah to our CVM Stories podcast. Today I am super excited because you are the first, uh, person who we are interviewing from Mobile Money Space. So I have, I don’t know, 1000 questions prepared. Be ready to answer. Abdullah, let’s jump right into the topic deeply. Okay. So you have worked both in telecom and mobile part and you have worked and now you’re working in mobile money. Uh, part of the business. So what made you change, you know, your career from one industry to another?

[00:02:12] Abdallah: Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. Um, i started my career as a software developer, by the way. And, I was working for a company, uh, doing some software development, basically on the database. And then I moved to telecom industry. And then after moving to telecom industry, I was working as a data warehouse analyst. So I was working with data and, basically all the reports, the daily, the weekly report and the monthly report for the, for the company I used to do for the mobile company. And then I moved it to, mobile money as a planning report. And planning. Analysis. Business analyst. Uh, the reason why I moved to, this exciting industry. Is that I realized in the mobile, business, we only have three products that we. Are selling. I mean, it’s, uh, SMS data and voice and the VAS, which all of them, they revolve around the. Same product. But there is a huge opportunity, according to my view. And what I see the trend. In the mobile money space whereby, um, we have, uh, a lot that can be done. We have the payments. We have the, uh, the e-commerce industry. We have a lot of an array of products that can is yet to be developed. And there is an opportunity also to, innovate. So I decided I decided to join the, um, the exciting industry and then, see what we can get out of it or what I can contribute, uh, with my data knowledge and what I can, I can offer to make sure that we scale up the, the operation. Yeah.

[00:04:32] Egidijus: Mhm. And could you describe a little bit, uh, basically your position that, uh, what is your role in organization right now?

[00:04:42] Abdallah: So currently, um, I work as a pricing manager for the fintech organization which has operations across Africa. And now we have like five countries across Africa. We’re looking at the pricing strategy, how we can roll out. Some markets are advanced, some are developing, some are in the middle. So basically this is my role to oversee the the pricing strategy in these markets. So while we are doing that we have to take accounting. We have to take into account the competitive landscape, the regulatory and all that and be able to leverage the information that we have for one market and try to mimic on the other market and take advantage of the the differences between the two. So basically, this is what I’m doing right now.

[00:05:45] Egidijus: Okay. It’s very interesting. So, help me understand a little bit how does the pricing in mobile money differ from the pricing in telecom? You know, because well, in telecom I know that I pay for minutes for megabytes, etc. And what do I pay for in mobile money?

[00:06:10] Abdallah: Okay, so in, as you said, in mobile and in mobile is straightforward. I have the minute I can pay for bundle, um, I can pay for voice or data of SMS in mobile money. It’s a bit different. I can tell you for example, in P2P, P2P this is me sending money to you. Uh, it can have up to an array of of of of prices. Okay. And now that is because of the mechanism behind, uh, the operation, the operation cost of now bringing the service to you, uh, is what makes it, uh, that way. So P2P can have different pricing depending on the amount that you try to send. If you’re sending, let’s say $1, then it will be a bit different from sending $20. So that’s how uh, different it is.

[00:07:11] Egidijus: Mhm. And um okay. So this is very interesting. And if I understand correctly uh, your biggest competitor, is it cash or is it other uh, companies you know. Okay.

[00:07:25] Abdallah: Yeah. Okay. If you look at the data at the, at the, um, we call the financial inclusion, uh, reports that are coming out, you can see still about 90% of the transactions are happening through cash. So meaning we still have a lot to capture from that aspect. So meaning our biggest competitor now is cash. Before worrying about the other competitor. This is our biggest competitor right now.

[00:08:10] Egidijus: Yeah it’s a very good position. You know this is a position where telecoms where I don’t know, 20 years ago, you know, when the networks were all roll out and then everything happened. And now, uh, what I would like to understand more. So you mentioned that first difference is from your perspective, it’s like how many different products do you have in mobile case and in mobile finance case. Yeah. So it’s like on like a couple or a handful to I know plenty of products. Yeah. Uh, what are the differences from the customer point of view? Kind of is the usage in mobile the same as, you know, usage in, financial industry?

[00:09:00] Abdallah: Okay. Thank you. Uh, for in terms of usage from the customer point of view, uh, it’s a bit it’s a very different basically, if you look, if you say mobile and then you say mobile money is very different, because if you say mobile money, think of it as your wallet, your wallet, when you go to buy, when you go to buy groceries, you take your wallet and then you make payment. When you go to, um, movies, you pay for a ticket, you can use your wallet and then you can pay. When you go to anywhere you’re making, you’re spending the money, you use your wallet. So basically this is what we were trying to do in mobile money, trying to digitize, uh, the, the, the, the cash transaction. So basically, um, as it started, it was peer to peer transaction. I want to send money to my parents in the village. I can put money in my wallet and then I can send it. But then as time goes, the use cases came in and then there was a it evolve. So from just making a sending money. Now we are becoming now the full fledged financial services whereby you can get you can get loans, you can pay for goods and services. When you go to the market, you can, uh, pay your bills, water bills, electricity bills, TV and all this.

[00:10:40] Abdallah: So in the mobile industry, what they are trying. What they’ve been doing for the couple of years now is trying to integrate all these services, payment services, to the platform so that the customer can be able to now, uh, send money. And that’s how we can compete against the cash, because at first you send money, I send money to you, you go and cash it out and then do the payments. Now, we don’t want you to do that now. We want you to do in the platform itself. So I send you money instead of going and cashing out. Your next transaction will be, let’s say, a bill payment. Or let’s say you make payment for your goods and services or something else that you want to do. And if you don’t have the money, then you should be able to give you the loan now, which you are sure if maybe I want to send you money, I don’t have the money to, send you, then I can lend you the money and then you can give it back after some time. So this is where the, the the the are positioned now. Right now. Yeah.

[00:11:48] Egidijus: Uh, okay. This sounds like a totally different world. At least for me.

[00:11:54] Abdallah: Yeah, yeah.

[00:11:56] Egidijus: So in this, uh, huge fight against the cash because you’re trying to, to win this fight. What is your biggest barrier in convincing people, you know, to use more, uh, mobile transactions versus cash transactions? Yeah.

[00:12:20] Abdallah: Okay. So the biggest barrier, I would say is the, um, the money itself. You know, when when, when the when the person is holding a cash, there is emotional attachment to that first and then, um, I see the value, the value. And then, um, I know this is what I give you. You see, the money I give you, you give me the service that’s done right there and then. But now you’re introducing the digital digitalization of that means there’s no physical cash. Now you just trust that the message will come to you. You will see the message, the money has come, and then you give me the the service. So that is one of the barriers that we are we are facing. But that will not say it is the main one, one of the major, uh, major, major one that is we are facing is the, um, uh, I will say not. Okay. We are working on progress, not like it is a deal breaker. Is the security basically, uh, you know, these new platforms, they are coming in. They are coming in with the with the challenges. Okay. So when I put the money in my wallet. I have to have the knowledge now of how to use the money is in the wallet. Uh, at some point there are people coming in with, uh you know, people that try to take advantage, the ones that they know better than the others.

[00:13:55] Abdallah: They try to steal money from those. So there is this social engineering, uh, which is, uh, one of the things that is like a barrier that that’s what I can say. Uh, even though we are trying to, uh, to fight it with the regulator. So it’s not this is now becoming now the, uh, what can I say? Um, like a joint effort now between the money players and the regulators to make sure that we harmonize this thing. Yeah. And the other thing is the records, you know, the mobile money coming in, it’s like you’re officially putting into record that these transactions are happening. I’ve paid you. Okay, so next time the government can is able to track down. This is what, um, you have been earning for this particular, uh, period of time, and then they can decide to tax you if you are supposed to pay the tax. Now, uh, if I am a business owner, I don’t want to show all my my my financials. Uh, because if I have the cash, I can decide not to show that, and then you won’t be able to. There is no proper control around that. Then. Then that becomes an issue. So those are the, uh, the challenges that we are facing while we are trying to fight off the cash economy. Yeah.

[00:15:32] Egidijus: Uh, yeah. Sounds like, uh, three really big challenges, You know, it’s like, yeah, make building trust, making it safe and then kind of changing the I don’t know the structure of how society perceives, uh, you know, the transparency in uh, kind of all financial transactions. So you are bringing a lot of that, of that transparency to the table.

[00:15:59] Abdallah: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:01] Egidijus: Uh, so Abdullah for for me, it kind of now you talk like a old wise guy, you know, uh, about this industry, like, you always knew everything, etc. but when you did this leap of faith and moved from mobile to mobile money, could you share kind of your first experience or the first moment where you said, oh, aha, this isn’t telecom anymore. You know, this is a whole new, different game, you know? So.

[00:16:37] Abdallah: Yeah. Um, you know, the good thing is that while it was happening, I was on the side because I used to I remember I used to report the line as mobile money revenue as a single line. It was part of the a list of, uh, packets in mobile. Uh, in mobile, uh, uh, mobile revenue. So it used to be like a very small line and, uh, nobody was paying attention to it because it was just like, uh, one of the products. But, um, eventually it became clear that there was so much potential in that because one of the reasons is that, um, uh, the banks, they do only service a niche. I’ll say any part of the of the of the society. So only those who are working. At least I can say this for Africa. Only those who are working are the ones who have salary. And they are. They have the proper documents. Now they can do the banks, they have their banks because they are getting their income through the bank. And then these are the only people who are financially included. But there is a huge number of people, the business, the small business owners and the low income personnel who did not have access to financial services at all. So the moment, um, we had the peer to peer, uh, rolled out, the way it was growing, it was huge in such a way that, okay, I thought maybe I have to go in that direction.

[00:18:38] Abdallah: And, uh, by the time I got to the business analyst and planning in mobile money. So there is where I got the structure now of how the data is looks like. How is it operating? Um, it was very different from what we used to do because nobody used to have the iron. The iron is the one they charge the customer. You have to get the recharge, you see. But in this case it’s different. You have platform, mobile money platform. And this is the one that, uh, charges the customer. And the mobile money platform varies from one company to another. And then it has it has its own structure. Um, and then dealing with it. Actually, there is where you will see the real difference between, because the only thing that you are getting from mobile is only the MSISDN, because here we are using the MSISDN as the account name. I mean the mobile number. If you want to send you money, I’ll have to know your number so that I can send you the, I mean, your mobile number so that I can send you the money. So the only thing that you are taking from that the other side is that but the rest of the things, you have to take it from this mobile money platform. So it is a completely different, uh, paradigm, I can say, from what we use in mobile.

[00:20:08] Egidijus: Yeah, yeah. But, uh, and from the data perspective, uh, which business would you say has, uh, let’s say richer, type of information? Is it a telecom or is it a mobile, uh, money piece?

[00:20:26] Abdallah: Um. In terms of richness, I would say, because mobile is more established and it has a lot of equipment. But these ones are also input to the mobile platform as well. Okay. So there is all of the information that is available in the mobile platform. And then there is a whole bunch of new information that we are getting from the mobile money platform. So in this case I would say mobile money platform has more data than the mobile, uh, than the mobile platform because I have the visibility the 360 from mobile, your mobile behavior as well as the mobile money behavior. Yeah. So that that’s what I can say. Yeah.

[00:21:24] Egidijus: Um. Uh, okay, that sounds very interesting. And I think I have the last question for you, uh, regarding kind of comparing, you know, uh, telecom and, uh, mobile money part. Yeah. It’s like, uh, when you. Because now you are the pricing guy. So, um, from the pricing strategy point of view, you know, how does it differ? Uh, you know, these two industries, we touched a little bit that, for example, in mobile money, you probably charge, uh, transactions, uh, if I understand correctly. Yes. Uh, while in telecom, you purchase plans and then you live from that. Uh, but what are the other pieces that are important, in let’s say pricing strategy in mobile money.

[00:22:22] Abdallah: Yeah. So what I can say is the other pieces of information that is very important is that here we have the cost of converting cash into, into um, into e value. So that is very crucial to note because and that we have to take into account while you are you are putting together a pricing strategy for a mobile money because that has a huge chunk of cost. And then on the other side is that, um, the pricing on mobile money, um, you know, you have to take into account that a customer can use, uh, on average like 3 or 4 times in a week, but in, uh, in, uh, mobile business, you have to call every day. So yeah, the pattern is that I have to when I wake up in the morning, either I do data or I call a friend or whatever. So there’s that frequency you have to take into account, because now this is mobile money. And then mobile money is not always you’ll be buying things you see. So using the, the the using your mobile wallet, it depends on what other factors now comes in. If I want to let’s say to pay for school fees then that is when I’ll do that. So when you are you are putting your pricing strategy. These are the things that you need to look at. Uh, as well as now looking at the other aspect of, of the, of the uh, of the ecosystem because now the ecosystem for mobile and mobile money is very different.

[00:24:25] Abdallah: Here we have the regulator probably is different. Usually it’s different from the regulator who is regulating the mobile, the mobile business. So there is those requirements that you need to meet. Fintech.  Okay. They also have the cost associated to that. And then you have the partner because in mobile you don’t have a partner on the ground. Your team is your partner because they are the one who’s going to sell your your your SIM cards. They are going. They are the ones who are going to make sure that people, they get the, uh, information about the bundles and all the services. But here you have your cash points where people, they can go and put money and then they can withdraw money. Okay. So those are the things that comes under your cost, um, as well as, they are, there are other aspects of the competitor. Now you see your competitor is is not only your mobile money or other mobile money. Operator. The bank can be your competitor. There is fintech. Also, there can be a competitor. So there are other small players now that we need to also take into account. So there is a bit more variables to consider. So to say in setting up the pricing strategy for mobile money as compared to what you have to go through in the, in the mobile in the mobile industry. Yeah.

[00:26:06] Egidijus: Okay. This is, this sounds very, very interesting. Um. Um, but, uh, let’s move to a slightly different, uh, aspect. Um, I wanted to understand a little bit better. What is the customer life cycle stages? Uh, in mobile money. Because kind of how, uh because in telecom we understand what is the onboarding process mean. You know, you just you get a new SIM card and what you need to do is you need to make sure that the customer starts using your service and makes the recharges, and then you try to upsell them to bigger price plans and packages. And I wanted to understand how does the same process work in mobile money? Uh, part because here, so uh, let’s see, what are the life cycle stages here and what do you do in every life cycle stage?

[00:27:06] Abdallah: Okay, so in mobile money, the life cycle stages are pretty much, uh, not different from, from mobile because we are actually targeting the same customer. So the onboarding process will be the same as mobile. So you get the new SIM card, you make sure that you’re putting it in. You activate it on mobile site. Fintech.  Once it is activated on mobile site, we make sure that you are also activated on the mobile money site. So this process has to come in, uh, in uh at the same time basically. So there is to facilitate that. Then the agent has to get the commission for that. So we are paying commission upfront to make sure that, uh, this agent, uh, activates the mobile money wallet for this particular customer. Then after that, um, we make sure that this customer does not leave the agent before performing at least one transaction. Okay. So.

[00:28:18] Egidijus: Okay.

[00:28:20] Abdallah: Yeah. So because the first transaction that they can do is that since you have the your SIM card, now you want to purchase the airtime. Now you can purchase your airtime through mobile money. So you put in your, the money on your mobile money and then you purchase the airtime. There is where we have your first transaction on the mobile money.

[00:28:44] Egidijus: Okay. This is a smart move.

[00:28:48] Abdallah: Yeah. Yeah. Fintech.  So this is the during the onboarding process after that, now we have now the programs that they target these new customer to make sure that they are familiar with the platform. So we have some discounted prices on the let’s say P2P. We can give them for free or they can have um discounted offers in different services just to make sure that they are familiar with the with the platform. But during this stage now we have the SMS, now the how to messages that they go to this particular segment of customer. So they receive the message how they can do different, uh, services in the platform. And then um, for a period like let’s say like 30 or 40, I mean, or 90, 60 or 90 days. And then after that we say they’ve graduated, we moved them to, uh, another stage whereby now we believe they know what the platform offers and they are familiar with our services. Now we start targeting them based on their favorite, uh, service. What are they not using or do they use? And then we try to progress them, uh, to upskill upscale them and, uh, yeah. And cross-selling. Basically. Fintech.

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[00:30:33] Egidijus: What would you call a definition of done? In onboarding, from the user perspective, it’s like, what do you treat, uh, how do you treat a perfect onboarding? You know, of the customer.

[00:30:48] Abdallah: So okay, what do I consider a perfect onboarding? That’s what you mean.

[00:30:53] Egidijus: What is the outcome of the perfect onboarding? Uh, how would you say.

[00:30:59] Abdallah: Yeah. So the perfect onboarding that would be that you call the quality quality uh, quality grosser basically.

[00:31:08] Egidijus: Mhm.

[00:31:09] Abdallah: So you have those people who are after doing the first transaction, they boom, they’re gone.

[00:31:15] Egidijus: Yeah.

[00:31:16] Abdallah: And then we have those who are after the first, uh, transactions. Then they continue to do more and more and more. So the people who are able to do the second, third and fourth transaction going forward, these are what we consider the quality growth side. But those who are, um, they do first time and then they are gone. Fintech. Uh, this probably is a garbage. You know, when you have the commission structure, all this is expected to be there. Yeah. And sometimes we are carrying even those who are from mobile, you know, the garbage on mobile. They are also garbage on the on the mobile money side. Yeah. It’s like that. The domino. Yeah.

[00:32:08] Egidijus: Yeah, okay. So now we have a customers who are onboarded and in mobile, I understand. It’s like, now the the key objective is to make sure that you keep using the service and upsell you and sometimes cross-sell you with some value added services, or I know in some situations, um, mobile device etc.. What are the opportunities for upselling and cross-selling in mobile money part? So what is happening here?

[00:32:48] Abdallah: So for mobile money, basically what we are doing is to what we are giving them. So we offer different product, different services that we we do have. We try to uh, cross-sell and then we upsell them. So, uh, the, the attractive offer that we, we usually have is the we can offer them loans. Okay. Whereby you if you want to pay bills and you don’t have enough money on your wallet, we can lend you some money to do that. And then you can return it after, let’s say 2 or 3 days or even a week. Mhm. Uh, so we call that a service loan or you don’t have money. You want to do something you can request for cash loan. So there is a platform that scores you based on your past transactions, your history of transactions. And then they are able to profile you. And then they can set a limit of loan that you can you are eligible to get. And then when you request the loan then you can get cash loans. So you get money on your wallet and then you can cash it out at the at the cash point.

[00:34:09] Abdallah: And then you’ll be. Able to use it for different use cases. So along with that so we are using the let’s say for the loans for you to be to be eligible. Now to get loan you have to have a mobile payment history of usage. So and you get the score. Fintech. So part of the campaign now is to if you are a new customer or you have not qualified, you have been told you can do more transactions to qualify to get loan. Okay. So that way you encourage people to use more service because they know there is a reward that is coming and then they keep using the the services. Yeah. So we can target those in the loans and then have the different segment that we can target on let’s say sending money and then we can target other segment for bill payment. Okay. Other for merchant payment. So all those kind of services we do uh we do target them differently depending on the customer behavior. Yeah.

[00:35:21] Egidijus: Okay. So this sounds like a much richer environment for the cross-sell piece, because you can you suddenly have a lot of products that you can, um, offer. So do I understand correctly that you basically start acting as a bank for, uh, I would say mini transactions or like small type of transactions, including, uh, loans probably. They are also probably in small amounts. Uh, um, yeah, definitely.

[00:35:57] Abdallah: Uh, that is the direction basically that, uh, we are moving to and most of the organization Now they’re moving to. And, uh, if you can look, the maturity where it’s going is going to, uh, more fintech now. And, uh, the association with the mobile is being, uh, uh, now is not a must. For example, it’s not a must to have a SIM card for me to be a mobile money subscriber. Nowadays, we have seen companies now, uh, moving into a direction whereby if you have, uh, another operator SIM card, you can be able to be, uh, their subscriber. So this is the direction now, which most of the, mobile money operators they are going through and, more or less becoming a bank or independent in a way that, to break away from, uh, being associated with mobile and more of a fintech whereby we can operate freely, uh, with different players in the, in the financial, uh, landscape. So in the financial market basically. So you can because if you want to integrate maybe with other, fintech, okay, which does not necessarily require you to be a mobile money operator, I mean, to be attached to a mobile money operator. So that is the direction that, uh, more and more fintech mobile money operators are going to, especially now that, uh, loans has become now a big product for them to push Um, and, uh, there’s more and more need for that also, uh, for the customer. So and this is because this is the the loans that are giving, they are being given in the, uh, there’s no collateral. And, uh, it’s very small and it is given in very small amount. So you can find two, $3, $10, $20. This is the kinds of amounts that are given are given out as loans to the customer.

[00:38:32] Egidijus: Mhm.

[00:38:32] Abdallah: So you’re right is in sort of a bank. And uh yeah that is where the direction is taking us here.

[00:38:43] Egidijus: And uh, so uh kind of some things are very similar, some things are very different. And you saw uh, when we compare these and the kind of direction of a small bank, for me, it’s much, much clearer. How how does the mobile money industry work, or I would. I probably just need to call you a fintech company now. Fintech Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:09] Abdallah: Definitely. Yeah yeah, yeah. It’s a fintech company basically. CVM in Fintech.

[00:39:13] Egidijus: Yes it’s it’s a fintech company. And talking about technology and the execution of the data, etc., because you were you were in this process when everything was run by a telecom company, you probably were using the same technology stack, etc. and now you’re running separately as a fintech organization. And was it tough for you to move from one technology stack to another? And what are the challenges here? For example, if you take, I don’t know, marketing technology stack data management, stack it the does it work in both industries or did you need to figure out something different?

[00:39:57] Abdallah: So, um, there is a difference, but not very big difference between these two because, um, for example, the tool for CVM, the that we, we were using, um, it’s the same for mobile, the same that we’re using on mobile money. Uh, the only difference will be now on the mechanism now of how you give up the offer. So on the mobile, it will be different from what we give in, uh, on the mobile money side. So the architecture behind it will be a bit different. But on the front end, in terms of, um, uh, the way let’s say the promotion is being configured and everything. Um, now, uh, it is, it depends. There are very simple communication that is only for, uh, I mean, promotion for communication. Only then, that is, that one is easy. You can do just like in mobile what they are doing. But there are other campaigns, uh, like cashback. I want to do cashback. When people send money, I want to give them cashback. Or when they send money, I want to, uh, zero rate the charges. Those kind of promotions, uh, they are different. And we basically sometimes they are run on the core platform. So those are the kinds of, uh, those are the difference that I can say that are existing between the technology of, uh, mobile and, uh, mobile money. So more or less the same. But when it comes to specific now they are very different. Yeah. Why they are similar. Because there are some data that we are using on mobile. For example, the location data is being picked from your, uh, SIM card. Uh, all other information related to your SIM card can be picked from the mobile data. But now when it comes to transaction specific data, then that will come from the from the mobile money side and in fintech. So at the end of the day, you have to merge all these two together and be able to target much better this particular customer. Yeah. Fintech

[00:42:18] Egidijus: Okay. So, uh, so that, uh, that sounds inspiring that if you move from one industry to another, you don’t need to redo everything.

[00:42:27] Abdallah: Yeah, yeah. We don’t want to redo everything. Yeah.

[00:42:32] Egidijus: Yeah, but, uh, it’s important to understand that there are also some differences. Yeah. Let’s say for, uh, imagine that, uh, you know, some telco around the world says, okay, we will launch our mobile money branch. And what would be your advice for them?

[00:42:59] Abdallah: Um, if you are starting up a mobile money branch as you want to start afresh, if you are going into a place where there is already another player, then you have some advantage of course, and you have some disadvantages as well. Um, for example, if you are going to the market whereby they are existing and other other players already, it means, uh, you have the infrastructure in terms of the network because, you know, now, as I said, the cash points, these are the, uh, small business owners that we pay them to do the service of converting cash to mobile money. So to them, mobile money business is is a business to them, so they are making money out of it. So if you’re going to the market and say, hey, I want you to work for me and then I’ll be paying you. They know exactly what it means. So it will be easy for them to join your, your network. Um, and then there is also that aspect of knowledge, because the people already know what mobile money is, and then they know they can pull money from their bank account to their mobile money wallet.

[00:44:22] Abdallah: Um, they can move money for they can get loans and then they can put in their mobile money wallet. So all this knowledge can be taken into advantage of you lowering your cost, initial cost of setting it, setting up the the network. And then, uh, you have to now scale up in terms of acquisition. You have to have a better acquisition offers and then now build the ecosystem, because that is the most important thing to build the ecosystem whereby people, they’ll be able to make payment use cases. Okay. So you have to make a lot of use cases for them to, to, to be able to use the money around. And then also when you have the use cases, you have to have now, how do you, uh, fuel your ecosystem now the means to fill the ecosystem. So there’s that chicken and egg where you the customer or the, network. Fintech. So because your network also depend on the customer. So there is that uh, which you have to figure out as well. But it will be easy because the market is already set up for you.

[00:45:40] Egidijus: What is the minimum amount of, uh, kind of, uh, let’s say, uh, point of sales of your network that you would say that it’s reasonable to start with. Is it like, I don’t know, 1000, 10,000, 50,000? It’s like you would say, if you have less, don’t even start.

[00:46:02] Abdallah: Uh, okay. So it really depends on, uh, okay. The max, then the minimum number that you can start with even ten. But what I, what I really want to say is that there is a, um, what we call the critical mass that will allow you now to be able to operate freely. Now, before you reach that, uh, you have there is a struggle because now you have to make sure you have the customer, but at the same time, you have to go hand in hand with the, uh, your cash point network. Okay. But now you have the opportunity of now of, uh, moving money from bank to wallet. You can take that as an opportunity so you can have less number of cash points. Fintech. But at the same time, you are pushing more for moving money from your bank to from the bank to the mobile wallet and then do the transaction. So it really depends on, uh, the, the setup of the environment, but these two has to go hand in hand. The number of customers that you are acquiring and the number of I mean the cash point because the the cash point is the one that is supplying the float to the customer.

[00:47:22] Abdallah: Now, if you have the customer who are demanding for the float and there is no cash point, then it becomes a problem. So you have to find a sweet spot there between, um, demand and supply basically. So you have to. Yeah. So those are the kind of things that you, you have to work with in terms of specific number. Now that I cannot say exactly what is the number, because now it depends on how much customer you’re bringing in and what is their demand for float. So the demand, the supply that they get from the cash point, that is why you can you can figure out how many, uh, cash points you need. Because at the end of the day, the cash point, you are not giving them money. They are using their own capital to circulate the money. So how much are they? Are they willing to commit to circulate? That’s another thing that you need to take into into account. So there is that, uh, array of variables that you need to keep in balance to make sure that, uh, your, your ecosystem is, is operating as you want it to do. Yeah.

[00:48:35] Egidijus: Yeah. And another last question about this piece is, so how did the banks React into your products, you know. Did you did they give you a high five? And it’s like, yay! Uh.

[00:48:52] Abdallah: At the at the beginning when we started, um, the banks were they didn’t want to invest in this space. And, uh, probably they are not believing that there is something that can get out of it. But as time goes, um, they are now getting, uh, they’ve realized that this is the segment that I’ve been that they have been missing it and, they need to do some, uh, some innovation. And they’ve come out really strong there also as well. So the but the good thing is that they’ve come, uh, during the time that we have all, uh, we have already captured the segment. And, uh, you know, there’s there is that barrier now between if I want to have an account and I want to have a mobile money account, how easy is it? You see, that’s it’s an issue. You know, for Bank, there’s more steps to have account. But for mobile money, there are few steps. But now, as time goes, now they are also um, um, simplifying these processes. And it reaches a point. Now you can have your account like the same way as you can have your, your mobile money account. So they are evolving very fast to capture the, the segment. And uh, the good thing is that the mobile money already have established themselves in this segment. So there is the fight is there, but, uh, still, mobile money has the upper hand at the end of the day. Yeah, yeah.

[00:50:44] Egidijus: I hope you will win, you know.

[00:50:47] Abdallah: Yeah, yeah. But but the thing is, you cannot relax. You have to keep on innovating, finding new, more use cases, new use cases. Because we’re in the situation there whereby the one who is innovating more is the one who is going to win. You have more services, your services. How easy are they to access? If I get stuck, how easy am I being able to be sought out? Those are the kind of things that, uh, as a mobile operator should be focusing on. So the customer overall customer experience, how is it because that is the most important thing if I’m able to access my money anytime when I want, then I have trust. And the only thing that you can win in this game is if you have the customer trust that they can use your platform to make payment, then you have the your you have the upper end. Yeah.

[00:51:50] Egidijus: Okay. So, uh, and I think you learned a lot over these years and, and you have this upper hand right now.

[00:51:57] Abdallah: Yeah.

[00:51:58] Egidijus: So, uh, Abdullah, let’s move to the last part of our, uh, podcast where we ask our, um, guests to share some personal, uh, learnings. So, yes, uh, from your perspective, what was your proudest moment in your career? Could you share it with our listeners? Like, uh, what can you say? I was super happy achieving this, you know?

[00:52:34] Abdallah: Okay. Uh, Ah, okay. So in my career, the, um, the moment that I was, uh, I could say I was, um, I was happy is, uh, when I was able to, um, uh, okay. A lot of a lot of moments that I will be proud of, but, uh, the one that I remember is, um, when I was able to put in place the mechanism to, um, you know, the there was that, uh, we wanted to have a flexibility when it comes to pricing. Um, there is this what we call the dynamic pricing? I can decide who are doing the same transaction, the same amount, but you’re being charged the different from me. So the system point of view, we we had we lacked this flexibility, I would say. And um, um, I was able to, um, sit down with the, with the technical team and, uh, you know, have a technical background. So we started with and discuss how can we make this happen. And, uh, we came up with an idea, a series of, uh, of, uh, requirements. Then we put it down and then, uh, the team sit down, and then they were able to pull this one. And, uh, it was really happy for me to see that we were able to achieve that and, uh, put into, uh, into implementation. It was very good.

[00:54:26] Egidijus: Abdullah, did you say to your team, guys, if you say that it is impossible, I will sit down and write the code myself.

[00:54:34] Abdallah: No no no no. We didn’t reach that point because they are very good guys. So we were able to understand each other and then. Yeah, yeah, we you know, there is a there is a business point of view that you can bring to the table. And then they have the technical side of it. And then, uh, yeah, it’s uh, it’s, it’s interesting that we were able to accomplish that. Yeah.

[00:55:06] Egidijus: Sounds, sounds very exciting project.

[00:55:09] Abdallah: Um, yeah.

[00:55:10] Egidijus: And on the flip side, uh, do you have anything to share that you would say? Oh, my God, I, I this was such a huge failure. Uh, but now I learned a lot. Uh.

[00:55:24] Abdallah: No, I will not say it’s, uh, there are some failures, but not big. Because if it is huge failure. Then I will not be here. Yeah. So basically, the moment I, uh. Uh, that I remember, I remember at some point we, we had a promotion and then, um, uh, in the configuration it was misconfigured and then it was misbehaving. Now the difference now fintech is when the promotion is misbehaving. Uh, you are not sending SMS here or you’re not giving MMS. You’re giving money. And people, they are getting money. A lot of money. And, uh, the good thing is that I was there. I was standing there while I was seeing that happening. And then, uh, immediately I told the guy, no, just stop this. And then, uh, we should figure out how we can do it better. So that was the moment. Uh, yeah, it was not. So it was not a very good moment for me. Uh, because, yeah, it was not it was not good at all.

[00:56:37] Egidijus: So, uh, Abdullah, did you want to share some companies with your customers?

[00:56:45] Abdallah: No, I didn’t want. Yeah. So immediately you had to shut it down basically. Yeah.

[00:56:54] Egidijus: Okay. And, um, for the people who are working in our industry and, um, uh, what would be your recommendation? You know, how to how to learn how where do you get the inspiration? Uh, where do you get new ideas? You know, how do you keep yourself up to date? What would be your recommendation here?

[00:57:19] Abdallah: Okay, so recommendation basically is to keep learning. Keep learning. We are in an era whereby technology is moving very fast and there is a lot of, uh, of, uh, technologies that are coming up, a lot of, uh, solutions that are coming up. You have to keep, uh fintech , you have to keep up with, uh, with the new with the technology movement. Uh, the the other thing is I recommend reading the books. Um, this book, there is one book I recommend recently. I just read it to. The title goes by decisions of a decimal, basically striking the balance between intuition and information by Christopher J. Frank, I don’t know if you have heard about this.

[00:58:18] Egidijus: I haven’t read it, but I will put it on my list today.

[00:58:23] Abdallah: Yeah, yeah. So this book position itself in a sweet spot between the data intuition and, uh, and, between data and the intuition, basically. So it has three core objectives for the, for the readers basically is to enable one is effective, uh, effectively how they can frame the problem and then how they can synthesize the insights from the incomplete data, and then how they can deliver decisions that are impactful and sustainable. So, you know, uh, at this crossroads of statistical analysis and business strategy and the psychology. So the book employs the Goldilocks principle, okay, of finding the right balance between intuition and data. So I recommend this. Uh, it’s a good read. And, uh, yeah, it can it can add value to two people who are working with data and people who are in the strategic strategy position where they can. Then they are using data to make a decision or set strategy for companies. I would recommend that. Yeah.

[00:59:47] Egidijus: Okay. And Abdallah, I have the last question for you. So we are on a mission of making customer value managers famous across the industry. How what would you be what would be your recommendation? How do we make a dysfunction in organization famous. fintech.

[01:00:11] Abdallah: Yeah. What do you guys are doing right now is very is very it’s very cool. Basically, uh, making noise. Um, making sure that we showcase what CVM, if it is properly positioned in the organization, what are the values that it can bring in? What are the company missing by not positioning it properly in the in the organization? Um, you know, you’re missing the autonomous. You can miss the, uh, a lot of things that they come in with the, function itself. But if you’re putting all your positioning it in a way that it is closer to the C-suite level, then it becomes easy for, uh, for the organization to take advantage of it. And now, since we are moving into the world of, uh, artificial intelligence, whereby data and analytics is the key for growth, I think CVM becomes the crucial, um, uh, part of the organization, so to say. So this is what you are doing, basically. It will help a lot. But, uh, the most important thing is that getting the right people to see what you guys are doing also will help. It will help a lot. fintech.Yeah.

[01:01:48] Egidijus: So thank you. Abdullah. It was, uh, very interesting to talk with you today. I still have some questions, but, uh, I think I will, uh, keep them for the next podcast.

[01:02:03] Abdallah: No problem, no problem.

[01:02:06] Exacaster: CVM Stories is produced by Exacaster. We help companies take their customer value management to the next level. To stay updated on our latest episodes, subscribe to the podcast or sign up for an email newsletter at exacaster.com/cvmstories.