Financial Inclusion brings together innovators, industry leaders, and digital experts to further understand key issues faced in reaching the global unbanked and underbanked. In The Gambia, there is limited access to digital financial services for women and youths. To bridge this gap, UNCDF launched an initiative which provides financial and technical assistance to Fintechs to test out and scale innovations to provide digital financial services DFS to the underserved , Gambian youths. Ping, a UK based financial technology start-up, was one of the FinTechs selected to develop a simple mobile wallet that enables remittance customers to store, send and receive money.
The Ping Wallet will offer free cash-outs to incentivize its usage in The Gambia. With various services such as Mobile payments, Merchant payments, BillPay and Airtime recharge, Remittances, Government payments and Mobile banking, the Ping Wallet initiative will stream through three subscription plans Free, Basic, Premium , with limited fees on transaction and commission on airtime.
Given that 69 per cent of the Gambians are unbanked or underbanked β this segment lacks the means to safely and conveniently store, send and receive money affordably. Ping in collaboration with UNCDF would enable digital financial footprints to make the users more attractive to financial service providers for a suite of other financial services and create access to new jobs for youth and women.
Ping was founded by Gambian migrants and headquartered in Cambridge, UK. It aims to promote financial inclusion and economic empowerment for Africans on and off the continent by offering a service designed for and with the migrant customer in mind. In , Ping kicked off its Gambia operations by opening headquarters at the Standard Chartered House by the traffic light on Kairaba Avenue. This will serve as a base for wallet operations and remittance pay-outs.
As a result of the project, Ping has been able to increase the size of its team to 9 employees, 5 of which are based in The Gambia. Ping has formally signed agreements with several bureaus and banks to facilitate remittance pay-outs and wallet cash-ins, and cash-out. Currently, this number stands at locations across the length and breadth of The Gambia. As part of the Ping Wallet initiative, the partnership network will include partnerships with AfriMoney, QMoney and other banks.
