MaTontine, a financial inclusion service provider’ in collaboration with Afrimoney is today launching a new digital solution for professionals that aims to promote the culture of savings among participants in traditional Osusus, in order to get access to a range of services and benefits that include, mobile money bonuses, monthly cash prizes, savings products, discounted loans from partners, discounts on Tobaski food items like rice from preferred suppliers.
“The solution is specifically for the Osusu manager to manage his Osusu as well as get access to the benefits mentioned above for their members. Each Osusu member pays a small participation fee of just 48 GMD per month (you get that back as bonus for the first 3 months!), but will not incur any fees from using Afrimoney,”said the Mat
Osusu is an age-old practice where members of a group periodically put money together which given to a member each week until all members of the group get their turn. The process is then repeated for another round.
The company behind the new innovation MaTontine said the move to digitalise Osusu will uptimise the traditional process and take care of, basically few important things. ”Firstly, the money would be secured because sometimes the Osusu managers run away with money collected. Also, with this prodcut the winner for each turn will not have to carry cash and again no one outside the Osusu club would know who has won on each occasion, thus the person is saved from being robbed or harassment for money by relatives or friends,” MaTontine director general, Bernie Akporiaye said.
He said the new product would also help transparency because sometimes Osusu members query the method used by the Osusu manager to determine the winner on any given occasion.
Mr Akporiaye disclosed that the product being launched today in partnership with Afrimoney is only available to Afrimoney subscribers. He added that the launch today would be an online thing, but later, there would be a series of activities promoting the App, such as Afrimoney bill boards online stuff. ”There could also be a small physical launch where we could invite some Afrimoney subscribers,” he said.
