Nigeria’s cash app ‘abeg’ enables users to send money through tags.
The app has been compared to Cash App which is based in the United States and are both very similar. Unlike other cash apps this particular one has targeted the youth and has been said to be easy to to use and has even been described as a fun experience by the users.
Co-founders Dare Adekoya and Akanni Muheez said they wanted to create a cash app that does not involve bank accounts. This means that users can easily send money through tags and one can send money to people on their contact list phone numbers or payment links but after funding their digital wallets.
In an attempt to appeal to the younger generation the founders called the cash app abeg which is pidgin means “please”. Their long term strategy is to do an online giveaway that will target young Nigerians which makes sense as a digital marketing strategy instead of a large marketing campaign that will probably bear little or not results.
While building a startup it is important to create a team of experts that have enough experience to build a company. For starters, Adekoya, Abeg CEO has worked for Sterling Bank as a product designer while the co-founder is a software engineer by profession which proves that an important collaboration between experts is needed to succeed in kick starting a startup.
Users have to sign in where they give basic information and a bank verification number. Once that is done, create a tag that can be used to request or send money. So far Abeg has listed over 5000 users who transact millions using the app.
The long term objective for this app is to simplify how money payments are done. If this new method is adapted by other countries people won’t have to go through complicated bank procedures. In future, the app plans to diversify into stock investment and bitcoin. There also plans in play to have an in-app store that will allows users to save and even buy items from abeg.