Author: Hubtel

Accra – Ghana’s indigenous eCommerce & SMS messaging company, Hubtel.com, has donated furniture and equipment valued at Eighty Thousand Cedis (GHS 80,000) to support the refurbishment of a new call center. The call center is an initiative of the Ministry of Communication in the fight against Covid-19.

Hubtel.com made the donation in response to requests made by the Minister of Communications, Hon. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, at a recent press briefing urging the private sector to augment the government’s efforts at making accurate, reliable information about this novel virus accessible to the public. By ensuring the flow of useful information, the ministry hopes to improve early detection, reporting, and surveillance, and provide an avenue for prompt interventions. The donation which was received at the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) on behalf of the Minister by its Director General, Richard Okyere-Fosu, and his Deputy Director General, Kwaku Kyei Ofori, included office furniture, laptops, call center headsets, Covid-19 sanitation materials and several meters of network cables.

The donation forms part of Hubtel’s commitment to invest in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic by ensuring that staff, customers, suppliers, and the community at large are supported in diverse ways to stay safe. In her note of acknowledgment, the Minister of Communication stated that “It’s a remarkable gesture. I have the utmost pleasure of saying ‘Thank you’, to Hubtel on behalf of the government and people of Ghana”. The Minister further commented that the donation will go a long way to help set up the unit.

Speaking at the presentation, the General Manager of Hubtel, Ernest Apenteng emphasized that “Our donation to this call center is motivated by people’s desire for accurate, credible and timely information about Covid-19, especially in this era where so much fake news and information abounds.” “Hubtel’s contribution in this war is to give support to those areas that we are not doing so well for lack of poor information delivery, for example, some recovered patients are reportedly been stigmatized on return to their communities. And there are many to whom access to essential information is not so simple. Therefore, we have committed to prioritize delivering information on these essential needs.”

Present at the donation were some management and staff members of Hubtel who urged the general public to continue to heed the health advice by maintaining physical distancing, wearing face masks,s and washing hands regularly. They also urged the public to use technology services as much as possible to avoid personal contact.

Ghana has confirmed over 5000 cases of the novel coronavirus and 22 deaths. In the wake of the pandemic, the government has put in place measures to help with containment, treatment, and accurate information dissemination.

The Covid-19 call center is set up to respond to inquiries from the public about the virus. The center can be reached via 0307007001

Thank you for making us a part of your business and lifestyle.

Kokomlemle, Accra. May 12, 2020 — This month, indigenous e-commerce and SMS messaging company, Hubtel is celebrating 15 years of helping businesses connect meaningfully with customers. From its humble 2005 beginnings, Hubtel has grown into a vibrant and nimble company with over 80 employees.

In the buildup to this anniversary, Hubtel has positioned itself to dominate e-commerce just as it’s done with its transformational work in fintech and bulk messaging. In 2019, the company overhauled its entire eCommerce infrastructure and released an impressive set of features for retailers and their customers; seamlessly merging the shopping experience in-store, online, and on mobile.

A growing number of neighborhood shops, popular restaurants, retailers, grocery stores, and service providers are making their products and services available to customers on hubtel.com; as consumers change lifestyles and routines to Internet-first.

As businesses and individuals buckle under a pandemic and scramble for technology to work, shop, sell, connect with family and friends, entertain, or find community, technology’s power to improve our lives has never been more evident. Hubtel is best placed to help businesses of all sizes, transition from brick-and-mortar to clicks and orders with fast same-day delivery.

“Looking forward to the future,” CEO, Alex Bram clarifies “Our continuing success as an organization is dependent on our ability to continue to retain the confidence and trust businesses have in us. We will keep improving obsessively, not just our platforms and infrastructure, but our people, our values, and our culture!”

“We want to be Africa’s most-loved shopitality platform; helping retailers sell and deliver to nearby communities, whiles blurring the lines between in-store and online shopping for consumers.”

For more information, visit blog.hubtel.com/updates

Africa Fintech firms and banks have called for a consolidated effort to provide as much information and access to digital information as a way of evolving the payment ecosystem under coronavirus (Covid-19).

The call was made during a webinar session COVID-19 Pandemic discussed by African Tech Leaders’ Outlook: under the topic: “The Fintech Outlook: How will the Payments landscape evolve?”

The 2 hour session moderated by Adedoyin Odunfa, CEO Digital Jewels, was attended by Dr. Diane Karusisi, CEO Bank of Kigali; among other Managing Directors like Michell Elegbe, Interswitch Group; Alex Bram, Hubtel, ; Agnes Gathaiya, CEO IPSL Kenya.

During the discussions, panelists said that the coronavirus pandemic lock down caught the financial and fintech sector unprepared but has left them with lessons to enable the sectors improve especially in payments and clients digital experiences.

Karusisi said that with the current Covid-19 lockdown Africans need to build an eco-system that brings aboard clients digital engagement to shift trends of clients having to walk to agents and bank branches to make payments or withdraw money.

Using her experience in Rwanda, Karusisi said during the Covid-19 lockdown, it has been difficult to process all the information and needs of clients who applied for digital services almost at the same time.

“There is a lot to be done and there is change in client’s digital behavior at this time, of which we have been overwhelmed by the demand for services when the partial covid-19 lockdown was announced,” Karusisi said.
Karusisi called on fintechs and banks to look for better solutions moving forward without waiting for clients to ask for them.

As part of the solution to this Karusisi said that Bank of Kigali has embarked on building interactive interfaces (between financial institutions) which are user friendly, to mitigate the challenge of being understaffed to meet each of the client’s needs.

So far in Rwanda, banks like BK have managed to integrate personal bank data with the mobile money subscription services offered by telecommunication companies, and the Rwanda Central Bank has scrapped all service fees on points of sale and on mobile money sending.

Karusisi also suggested that fintech should use the data collected on clients’ needs to create a tailor made digital payment plan for each of the clients since not all clients were equally affected by the lockdown.

Other panelists also agreed with her suggestion but insisted on building trust of clients on their financial data and how it is used with accountability and transparency.

For example Alex Bram, CEO Hubtel in Ghana said the country has faced a challenge of access to client financial information, but with their central bank trusting and opening up data to fintech companies they have managed to ease movement of clients from bank to bank.

“We thus have to be more open on transactions to increase trust of clients. Openness empowers clients to trust us. They will not need to go to the banks or branches and this will make us invest more in digital tech to see more change,” Bram said.

For Agnes Gathaiya, CEO IPSL Kenya, she said that client digital experience has to be the main focus of changing the rudiment financial payment systems (of going to the banks) before coronavirus into effective trusted digital payments.

“Once a person has tasted a user friendly and trusted digital payment system, they get caught up in it, and can never go back; unless it is not trusted. So fundamentally we should have clients use these systems and stay there,” Gathaiya.

Africa’s fintech ecosystem raised $320m and grew a 60% in the last two years accounting for approximately $395.7 million accounts out of a global total of $866 million- equivalent to 46% of global mobile money.

Interestingly, despite having the highest level of mobile phone and internet penetration, only 10% of all payments and transactions in the continent are based on technology.

Source

April 2020 Product Update

Your New Business Dashboard, Repeat Payments & More…

See what’s new in this update:

New Business Dashboard

Your new business headquarters where you see the major trends in your business.

New Business Dashboard

View your sales, estimated profit, customer trends and other vital information that helps you manage your sales and deliveries.

Sell on USSD

Request for your USSD Shop Code (*713*000#) and attach items or a service, for your customers to quickly choose and pay for on any device.

Repeat Payments on Favorite Services

As a vendor of digital services on Hubtel, your customers can now set Repeat Payments on their frequently purchased services to occur automatically on a periodic basis.

Allow Repeat Payments on your services

By ticking the “Allow Repeat Payment on this service” button when adding a service to your business, your customers will be able to create a simple standing order for the service on all Hubtel portals (Mobile app, Web and POS)

Customers opt in to complete their Repeat Payment setup

Your customers can easily set Repeat Payments on their frequently purchased services, using their MTN mobile money wallet, Hubtel wallet or their Bank Cards.

Customers can also set frequency

Customers can select their preferred billing interval as well as the date on which the Repeat Payment should end. This could be daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly intervals.

Integrated Notifications

Customers receive notifications on all Repeat Payment activities which includes successful setup notifications, pre-billing notifications, successful payment notifications and payment cancellation notifications.

Personal Control

Customers have total control in managing their Repeat Payment. They can view and cancel their Repeat Payments either on the Hubtel App or by dialing *713*51#.

How does this work on Web?

1. Customer visits hubtel.com/services to purchase your service.
2. Provide all the service details based on the interaction. Eg: phone number for airtime.
3. At the Confirmation stage, customer selects “I want to make this a Repeat Payment” checkbox.
4. Select the duration and the end date of the Repeat Payment.
5. Confirm and pay for the service based on the customer’s desired wallet.
6. Customer receives a confirmation SMS.

How does this work on Mobile?

1. Customer chooses the “Repeat Payment” button on a previously purchased service receipt.
2. Selects the frequency and payment option for the repeat payment.
3. Customer receives a confirmation message in stream.

March 2020 Product Update

Deliveries, Customer Pickups & More

See what’s new in this update:

Deliver with Hubtel CareForce

Take your customers’ delivery orders on Hubtel POS! Your customers can call and place their orders to be delivered within Hubtel’s operating cities.

Add your own delivery riders at no extra cost

Got your own riders? Setup all your riders to accept deliveries and deliver orders to your customers from your Hubtel account.

Your customers can place orders and pickup later

Give your customers more flexibility. Create sales on Hubtel POS with the customer’s mobile number and track anytime the customer goes to the branch for pickup.

Add your customer’s details to a sale

Customers are the heart of your sales. You can now add customer details to a sale at any point in the sale process.

API keys for messaging API integration

Create HTTP API Keys from your account for messaging integration.

Notify Has A New Home

Your messaging account is now on Hubtel.com

Complete activation process to start sending your messages on Hubtel.com

You’ll no longer need username and password

Login with the mobile number associated with your Unity account and select Messaging to see all features.

Click on Activate if required

All your existing data such as Sender IDs, Contacts, Templates, SMS Credits/Bundles and Reports will be available once your activation is completed.

Bundles give you more

Buy bundles directly from their Hubtel wallet, prepcontaineraid wallet, bank card or mobile money. There is no need to top up your SMS credit first.

SMS Bundles at discounted rates.

New pricing and expiry options now available for SMS bundles. Get bigger bundles at half-year expiry.

Delete Schedule Campaigns

There is now the option of deleting Scheduled Campaigns you no longer need from your account.

The inaugural list of the 2019 50 Most Influential CMOs in Ghana compiled by Avance Media, Reset Global People and Afiba Consulting, has been recently released.

The list, which was not ranked recognized the works of CMOs who are motivating performance, broadening markets, creating new trends, impressive financial performance in the Ghanaian market as well as brand perception.

A team from Avance Media today presented a placard to Elsie Bram, CMO of Hubtel as part of this exercise.

21 of the 50 people listed are women. Sectors considered cut across media, technology, banking & finance, insurance, food & beverage, telco, oil & gas, among others.

November 2019 Product Update 

Easy & Direct: Subscriptions, Payment Plans & Using Digital Wallets.

See what’s new in this update:

More Ways to Top Up 

Fund your Hubtel Prepaid account or Wallet balance from hubtel.com/services or on the mobile app

Recurring Payments 

Create recurring invoices for your customers with unique payment terms 

Recurring Messaging

Schedule your daily, weekly, or monthly messages to be sent to customers later

Recurring Payments APIs  

Integrate recurring payments into your applications for installment billing  

Messaging for all accounts on Hubtel.com
Send messages to your contacts, schedule messages to be sent later and view all SMS campaigns.  

Payment from Prepaid Balance
Top up SMS credits and purchase bundles from your Hubtel Wallet. 

Contacts
Create and save contact groups. Add individual contacts or upload bulk contacts from a file. 

Reports
View real-time reports on each message sent and aggregated reports of all SMS campaigns. 

International Payments
Make payments using international cards on Hubtel web check

Recurring Payments 
Setup standing orders for customers to pay for a service or product from their mobile money wallet. 
A one-time setup and approval process automatically bills customers’ mobile money wallets, based on agreed payment terms and intervals with quick payment tracking access.  

Key Features: 

• Multiple Payment Schedules
  Create subscription plans with different payment intervals. You can choose to bill customers on a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. 
  
• Integrated Notifications
  Receive notifications on all recurring invoice activities; when invoices are created, installments are paid or an invoice is cancelled.  
  
• Varied Payment Amounts
  Offer flexible payment plans for customers. Initial deposit and subsequent installments can be set at different amounts as agreed per purchase. 

How does this work? 

1. Select Add New Invoice tab, from Sales under Recurring Invoices and indicate: 
   – Business branch  
   – Item being sold to the customer 
   – Initial amount 
   – Recurring amount  
   – Customer details  
2. The customer will receive a One-Time-Password sent to their phone for verification. This password will also be indicated on the customer’s payment order. 
3. When the agreed payment time is due, the customer will be debited automatically from their mobile money wallet.  
4. All recurring invoices setup are available under Sales.  Select Recurring Invoices tab to view invoice details. 

Transforming local corner stores into all-purpose neighborhood service points. 

ACCRA, GHANA – November 21, 2019 – Hubtel, Ghana’s first fully integrated business retail system, and messaging service provider, today announced a series of new features for retailers and their customers at its 2019 Rethink – Keynote Edition, which was attended by more than 100 businesses.   

Hubtel as an  eCommerce platform has been expanding in innovative ways focused on helping businesses of all sizes with tools to accept payments, engage customers and improve service delivery.   

In its biggest update since the company’s rebrand in May 2017,  Hubtel has released several features including an all-new inventory management system, with functionalities to manage both tangible products and digital services as well as generate notifications for stock movements and expiry.   

The latest updates also include insights for sales, customer visits/purchases, and employee management. The company also announced new interfaces for bulk SMS services on its new platform – with advanced options to schedule and automate messages for future delivery.  

The company since 2005 has delivered billions of business-critical SMS messages and pioneered mobile banking and online payments in Ghana. Its latest feature release includes a new ISO 8583 compatible banking system to assure proper accounting and hourly settlements of all payments. This has enabled retailers using Hubtel to gain full control over their transfer schedules. Payments received from retailers’ customers on Hubtel via bank card, QR, or mobile money can be transferred to any connected mobile wallet or bank account on daily, weekly, or monthly schedules. 

“In preparing towards regulation and increased capacity to manage higher merchant sales volumes, the company has since June 2018 embarked on a major overhaul of nearly all our systems. The overhaul has also included several improvements to user interfaces…” says Alex Bram, Chief  Executive Officer at Hubtel. 

The company also released two infomercials about the work it did towards the release of its new platform and how Hubtel’s product development teams worked with customers to create the latest features.  

A capstone to the event was the release of a new feature to allow the sale and distribution of commission-based digital services. This marks a fresh beginning for service providers to integrate their service for immediate distribution to all retailers and customers on Hubtel. Some services already integrated on Hubtel include airtime on all networks, Surfline, Busy, GHIPSS Instant Pay, and many other utility services.

“It’s really exciting that we can now provide our customers a comprehensive platform that allows them to attract customers, handle inventory, optimize sales, with integrated messaging, one-click online web store, and deliveries into one simple very inexpensive solution for all types of payment,” says Hans Nilsson, Board Chairman at  Hubtel. 

For more information, visit blog.hubtel.com/updates

Standard, Scheduled or Instant Transfer

Your Money. Your Rules.

Transfer funds from your Hubtel account on your own terms. Starting Monday 18th November 2019, you will have the flexibility to pick and choose how you would like to transfer funds, based on your business needs with any of these settlement options:

Scheduled Settlement:

Set and save daily, weekly or monthly funds transfer to your mobile money or bank account for each branch of your business.

Instant Settlement:

Access day-to-day funds for your business without any hassle. Instantly transfer funds to your mobile money wallet directly using the Hubtel App.

Hubtel to Hubtel Account Settlements:

Settle payments to other businesses on Hubtel with ease. Transfer funds directly from your settlement account to other businesses on Hubtel.

Set Settlement Account Details on Multiple Branches

Track sales per branch. Set unique settlement details for each branch of your business. This could be the same bank account or mobile money wallet details.

October 2019 Product Update

Stock Adjustment. Services. Reporting.

See what’s new in this update:

Services

An entirely new Services page; redesigned and better organized so you shop and pay for everyday services with ease

Programmable Services

Allows developers to sell digital services; like airtime and data

Stock Adjustment

Track every single movement of your stock

Online Checkout Assistance

Instant support to quickly resolve any issues for customers during checkout

Download Reports

Request and track downloads of your sales report, funds transfer, and service debits

Hubtel Mobile App Updates

New features have been added to your Hubtel app. This requires that you update to the latest version. Older versions may not work as expected.

• Save order and pay later: Save items you want to buy while you continue shopping and pay when you’re ready.

• View all your receipts on Hubtel: Receipts of all your payments now shows in Stream.

• Support on the go: Report issues to our support desk directly on WhatsApp.

• Update card details: If you’ve got bank card(s) saved, you will need to complete the card details and save on the wallet page after the update. Your mobile money wallets will, however, work as usual.

Stock Adjustment

Manually reduce and increase your stock, as a result of any of the following reasons:

• Expiry 
• Theft/loss 
• Damaged  
• Returned  
• Recount 
• New Stock 

How does this work?
1. Select the product you wish to adjust stock on from the list of products on your Products & Services page. 
2. Tap the action icon, select Update Stock from the list of options to display a pop-up. 
3. Enter quantity to increase or decrease and save. 

Upcoming Features

• Create Your Own Messaging Plan: Schedule messages to be sent to your customers daily or weekly. Set up and save recurring campaigns for future use.

• Real-Time Messaging Reports: View real-time reports on the status of messages sent to your customers.

• Buy SMS Credits From Your Prepaid Balance: Top up your SMS Credits and purchase bundles from your existing Prepaid Balance.

The efficacy and profitability of Farming have become More Profitable Than Gold. Yes, you read that right, “Farming”.

Africa is changing and you need to be a part of this big dream that’s finally coming true!

Like Author, Samuel Amartey-Armah rightly puts it:

“What if I could teach you how to watch plants grow or livestock live with you while making money?”

A simple and but very profound question. The good news is, it’s a question that has been answered in his pioneer book “More Profitable Than Gold”

Food never goes out of fashion! This makes Agribusiness one of the best opportunities worldwide. Africa has a ready market and a high demand for agricultural produce. We currently spend billions of dollars every year to import grains, flour and all kinds of finished and semi-finished foods that can be produced locally.

As Africa’s economies continue to grow, the demand for raw materials will surely increase and create more interesting opportunities for agribusiness on the continent. This presents a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs who can provide cheaper and locally-grown alternatives to the food that Africa imports.

“More Profitable Than Gold seeks to help any serious-minded Agribusiness Entrepreneur start and run a successful Agribusiness with special focus on farming and be able to reap a relatively higher profitability than the average Gold business” – Samuel Amartey Armah

Agribusiness is very scalable. You can start with whatever you’ve got! Whether you own one plot of land or 10,000 hectares, agribusiness is one of few business opportunities that allows you to start on any scale, with whatever you have!

The opportunity to start small means that people with little capital can become part of Africa’s multi-billion dollar agribusiness industry. Because of the guaranteed demand for agricultural produce, that small vegetable or poultry farm in your backyard could just become a huge business tomorrow.

So, if you’re looking to start a business or invest in an industry that makes a significant social impact, provides jobs and creates sustainable wealth, More Profitable Than Gold is surely the way to go!

The potential of agribusiness in Africa is not just promising but immensely profitable. If would like to explore it much further, we have just the right resource for you!