AFK Insider Interview with Beyonic’s CEO
Note: This interview was part of an article originally written for AFK Insider by Dana Sanchez. It is reposted here with permission.
Recently, Luke Kyohere, the CEO and co-founder of Beyonic, spoke to AFKInsider about Beyonic, and how it fits in to the African mobile payments landscape. Some of the questions below are attributed to Roxana Elliott, director of communications for Mobile Accord.
1) AFKInsider: Beyonic is integrated with M-Pesa. How is it different from M-Pesa?
Luke Kyohere: Beyonic is a mobile money aggregator, rather than a mobile money system itself. That means Beyonic is connected with multiple mobile money services such as M-Pesa, and Beyonic clients can log on to our platform and send money through M-Pesa without being directly connected to M-Pesa themselves.
M-Pesa is great at peer-to-peer and merchant payments. Beyonic adds in a missing piece by making it easy for any business to make a payment to a large number of mobile money customers at once.
2) AFKInsider: How will Beyonic compete with other mobile money services that were there first?
Luke Kyohere: Beyonic’s strength is in our relationships and connectivity with other mobile money services. We aren’t competing with established mobile money networks, instead we are connecting with them in a way which makes it easier for businesses to make payments across multiple mobile money services in more than one country.
Right now, businesses would need to connect themselves to each mobile money service to do this.
3) AFKInsider: How can Beyonic help an Ethiopian who lives and works in Minneapolis and sends money home to Ethiopia?
Luke Kyohere: Beyonic’s focus is on business-to-business transactions, because businesses and NGOs run into the most difficulty when trying to send money to multiple mobile carriers. While remittances through mobile money do save individuals money over traditional banking transfers, Beyonic’s system is currently focused on enabling businesses to make payments over mobile money.
4) AFKInsider: How can Beyonic help a company based in Cape Town that has customers in Mozambique and suppliers in Miami?
Luke Kyohere: A more relevant example would be, how could it help a company based in Uganda with employees in Kenya and vendors in Tanzania? That company would be able to login to Beyonic’s online platform and make, track, and manage payments to both their employees’ individual mobile money accounts, and to the mobile money accounts of various vendors. Mobile money systems vary by country, and by carrier within each country. Without a mobile money aggregator such as Beyonic, the Ugandan-based company would have to integrate themselves with every mobile money system their employees and vendors use, which is time-consuming and difficult.
5) AFKInsider: Why does this partnership make sense for Mobile Accord and GeoPoll?
Roxana Elliott: Mobile Accord is a mobile platform company with an expertise in building scalable mobile solutions in emerging markets. Mobile money is a growing industry, especially in Africa, and we see great potential for the type of platform Beyonic has built. We look forward to working with them to expand their presence over the coming years.
6) AFKInsider: Who is Beyonic competing with?
Luke Kyohere: Since Beyonic is a mobile money aggregator, we are looking to bring mobile money services on board with our platform rather than competing with them. Our system is beneficial for the mobile money services as well, since Beyonic opens up mobile money for business expenses.
Other aggregators may compete with Beyonic in one country, but none has the reach that Beyonic and Mobile Accord are bringing across leading mobile carriers in key African markets.
7) AFKInsider: What is Mobile Accord’s/GeoPoll’s role in the partnership?
Roxana Elliott: Mobile Accord and Beyonic are entering a strategic partnership in which Mobile Accord will leverage their existing connections with mobile network operators to enable Beyonic to rapidly expand into additional countries. Mobile Accord also brings a strong knowledge of scaling mobile solutions, having already expanded their mobile survey platform GeoPoll to over 20 countries in Africa and Asia.
8) AFKInsider: How much will the service cost customers?
Luke Kyohere: In general, businesses save $10 for every $1 spent by using Beyonic’s services vs. using cash. Exact costs will depend on specific per-network contracts, but cost parity with other payment methods is important to us — the aim is to have a lifetime cost that is less than cash, and about the same as other modes of enterprise payments.
