Cote D’Ivoire based CinetPay is a mobile money payment hub that federates mobile money payment methods in Africa. The company exhibited and won at the 2018 Ivory Coast Leg of Seedstars competition, and represented the country at next year’s final in Switzerland. TechMoran spoke to CinetPay about the company and its vision moving forward.
Tell us about yourselves; your team, your educational and professional backgrounds
My Name is Idriss Marcial Monthe, I am a CEO and Co-founder of CinetPay. I am passionate about new technology, Payment, Mobile Money, and Innovation.
Our Team today is 16 people in four countries in Africa (Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal) It is a young and amazing Team. I engineer in Computer Science and I follow a training in accelerator Founder Institute in Abidjan. My professional experience, I have worked as a technical support in many companies and my last position was Head of Presales for West Africa in a company in Côte d’Ivoire.
How would you best describe Cinetpay briefly, what does it do?
CinetPay is an African Mobile Money Payment Gateway. CinetPay allows merchant or e-merchant to sell online or offline and accept all Mobile Money payment available in West and Central Africa.
What market gap did you spot that motivated you to start this company?
The problem of digital payment in Africa. It is very difficult to develop a digital economy in Africa because we are front of three problems. Payment, Delivery, and Regulation. So we create CinetPay to solve the problem of digital payment online and offline in Africa. We help the merchant to accept all Mobile and card payment in Africa in their website, mobile App, Shop in six (06) countries in Africa (Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Senegal, Mali, Togo, and Guinea).
Who is your target market?
Our Target is an e-commerce website and shop
How does your company make money?
Our business model is very simple. Merchants pay a subscription fee and we charge a commission in each transaction.
Who would you say is your major competition in this space at the moment?
We have many competitors in Africa. SycaPay in Côte d’Ivoire, money bill in Cameroon, Paydunya in Senegal, VitePay in Mali and so one.
What is your vision for the company in the next 5 years? What is your plan for expansion? Any new products coming soon?
Be present in 14 countries in West and Central Africa. We are working to be present in all these countries in the few years. We are working to a new product to help the merchant to accept payment in rural area without the Internet. Because many villages on the continent don’t have access to the Internet. So How can we help all this population to use Mobile payment and have access to digital payment!
At the moment, how do you measure your own success? What are your metrics?
We measure our success by the number of transaction and the number of active merchants.
What advice would you give to upcoming entrepreneurs?
to be passionate, perseverant and especially to see all obstacles and difficulties as opportunities