Table of Contents
Introduction
In Kenya, many residents use a unique form of digital currency called M-Pesa. This currency was born from people trading cell phone minutes to pay for goods and services. Eventually, a technology was created to transform that trading of minutes into a formal currency.
While M-Pesa has allowed Kenyans to easily send and receive money for years, most of the world doesn’t understand this unique economy. Because of this, money struggles to flow freely from the global economy into M-Pesa.
Rex Mercury wanted to change the narrative and create an app to allow money to easily exchange into M-Pesa. They decided to start with US nationals working in Africa, and they approached Simple Connections to help them make it a reality.
The Problem
The biggest challenge facing Simple Connections in this project was security. When dealing with thousands of financial transactions, having air-tight security is a necessity. Client data needed to be locked-down and each transaction had to be secured and accounted for. The team here at Simple Connections designed and implemented several security features to make sure Rex Mercury’s clients have peace-of-mind about the security of their money.
Reliability was another challenge the team at Simple Connections had to tackle. Rex Mercury’s clients expected to manage their money any time, any where. We needed to build a system that would allow clients to access their money at any time, with no down-time. From the start, we used the most current and reliable technologies to ensure Rex Mercury clients would always be able to access their money.
The Solution
After sitting down for an initial project meeting with Rex Mercury, we created a development plan and wireframes for the project. Before any code was written, Rex Mercury was able to see how the app would work, what it would look like, and what the result would be.
This style of development allowed us to accelerate the development process and ensure Rex Mercury received exactly what they needed. Because of our unique development process, we were able to produce a prototype for the app in just 8 days.
Our solution was to develop an app that allows US nationals working in Africa to transfer their US currency to M-Pesa currency. The app accomplishes this by utilizing secured next-day payouts from US banks.
This ensures that Rex Mercury’s clients are never stuck waiting weeks to convert and transfer their US currency to their M-Pesa account. The app checks exchange rates the moment a client makes the transaction and uses that up-to-date exchange rate for the transfer. Not only does this enable Rex Mercury’s clients to easily manage their M-Pesa, it allows money to flow freely through the African economy.
The Technology
After sitting down for an initial project meeting with Rex Mercury, we created a development plan and wireframes for the project. Before any code was written, Rex Mercury was able to see how the app would work, what it would look like, and what the result would be.
This style of development allowed us to accelerate the development process and ensure Rex Mercury received exactly what they needed. Because of our unique development process, we were able to produce a prototype for the app in just 8 days.
Our solution was to develop an app that allows US nationals working in Africa to transfer their US currency to M-Pesa currency. The app accomplishes this by utilizing secured next-day payouts from US banks.
This ensures that Rex Mercury’s clients are never stuck waiting weeks to convert and transfer their US currency to their M-Pesa account. The app checks exchange rates the moment a client makes the transaction and uses that up-to-date exchange rate for the transfer. Not only does this enable Rex Mercury’s clients to easily manage their M-Pesa, it allows money to flow freely through the African economy.
Methods
- Angular JS
- Apache
- PHP
- GIT
- Atlassian Bitbucket
- Atlassian JIRA
- ACH Bank Payments
Project Highlights
- Built a robust, secure, reliable app for transferring money
- Helped connect Kenyan farmers, especially female farmers, to the digital economy so they can build their own economic freedom
- Our proposal of blockchain technology earned Simple Connections the MIT BitComp Competition “Next Billion” prize
- Created a way for money to flow more freely from the African economy to the US
- Built a working prototype for the app in 8 days
- 5 years of successful transactions without a single missed payment, breach, or legal issue
The Result
The result was a completely custom Content Management System, database migration, web framework, and secure web app.
By combining tried-and-true technologies with cutting-edge advancements like blockchain, the Simple Connections team was able to deliver a bullet-proof app that has reliably transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars. More importantly, it’s helped open the M-Pesa economy and allow money to flow from Africa to the US banking system.
Rex Mercury’s clients have been happily using the app for 5 years to make reliable, fast, and easy transfers from M-Pesa to US currency at US banks.
