Digital payments has become one of the most appealing FinTech segments, but it is competitive and demanding, and not all fintechs are up to the task. In this interview with TechCity, John Babawale, Chief Technical Officer at HabariPay, discussed how Squad, a product of HabariPay Limited is meeting the challenge of providing businesses with seamless payment solutions.
At Squad, business owners are given the tools they need to thrive in a digital economy while also being promoted and introduced to a market that is beyond their current reach. The payments platform is dependable, secure, cost-effective, and simplifies the receipt of in-person and online payments.
Could you please tell us what unique problem SQUAD solves and how the FinTech unit accomplishes this?
Squad is a digital payment product of HabariPay, a subsidiary of GTCO Plc, created to simplify payments. The unique problem that Squad solves is creating access to a cost-effective, efficient, and easy-to-use turnkey digital payment solution that merchants of any scale can leverage to receive payments online or offline.
With years of research and deep insights into the payments landscape in Africa that we at HabariPay leveraged from our holding company, we discovered that there are evident gaps yet to be bridged. Businesses still miss out on many opportunities to sell because they do not have the right tools to receive multiple payment methods available to their customer bases. Based on this, we needed to create ONE tool that could simplify payment processing, accounting and reconciliation, financial management and e-commerce so that African businesses may be supported with the tools they need to thrive in this digital economy, and so we did.
We envisioned a future where every payment is digital and decided to get to work – creating a product that would offer simple digital payment solutions for every merchant to help them receive payments from anywhere in the world.
Who exactly are your clients/customers?
Our products are tailored for everyone who wants to or has the capacity to sell – individual businesses, micro or small enterprises, medium-scale companies, and large corporates. Whether offline or online, there’s a Squad solution for you.
Talk to us about SquadPOS. What’s unique about this flagship product?
SquadPOS, our flagship product, allows merchants to accept cashless payments with NFC-enabled android devices, requiring no additional hardware such as physical POS devices. It is a first-of-its-kind payment technology in Nigeria built to simplify in-store transactions by reducing contact during payment, long checkout queues, and costs incurred with physical POS terminals.
We introduced this solution because we saw the urgent need for a more affordable yet effective tool to help businesses receive card payments without requiring a hardware POS device. Before now, merchants in Nigeria only had the option to apply for POS terminals from their respective banks and hope they meet the required criteria. Now, they can receive card payments via SquadPOS on any NFC-enabled android device. This feature is key to reducing reliance on cash and encouraging more digital payment collection in-store across Nigeria and beyond.
In terms of the benefits to small businesses:
- SquadPOS helps save costs on handling and accounting for cash, as it is simply free software usable conveniently on any NFC-enabled android mobile phone. So these merchants do not have to pay for additional hardware to use it.
- This technology also helps merchants to transact on the go, receiving card payments anytime, anywhere, which means they never have to miss a sale. It makes receiving payments faster, which means shorter queues — allowing merchants to attend to more customers daily.
- Choosing a unified solution like SquadPOS gives SMEs access to a single point of payment and reconciliation so they can focus their time and resources on other areas of their business.
As for the other solutions under Squad’s portfolio, we offer Squad Payment Links – which help businesses without a website sell anywhere online; Squad Virtual Accounts – which are beneficial for merchants that need instant credit confirmations and payment reconciliations, Squad Storefronts – where merchants can easily upload and display products and services they offer, Squad USSD – which gives merchants access to a unique code that they can share with customers to pay them seamlessly when there is no internet coverage, and Squad Payment Gateway – for easy integration into your website for seamless checkouts.
How has the market responded to the product since its launch?
The market’s response has been positive, and we are witnessing a steady adoption of the product by businesses of different scales. It is apparent that there is indeed a gap in the availability of affordable payment solutions that can simplify the facets of financial management that businesses need, and Squad is helping to make this a reality. Though this product has only been in the market for a few months, we are excited to see how much businesses are steadily adopting it to help simplify their daily business processes. We have successfully onboard 30,000+ merchants and counting, with more opportunities to onboard in newer markets on the continent.
Considering the peculiarity of payment system infrastructures, what are some of the biggest risks to SquadPOS?
Using “risks” in this context may not necessarily apply to how we created SquadPOS. As earlier highlighted, we have leveraged years of experience from our holding company concerning the payment system infrastructure in Nigeria, which gives us an edge to create the right payment tools businesses can use. SquadPOS comprises layers of security features that ensure the customers’ card information is safeguarded and not stored. It is also PCI DSS certified.
However, a challenge faced while launching the product was deepening trust in the minds of customers and cardholders towards it. As with any new technology, we would expect to see some scepticism at first, like when ATMs were launched or the hardware POS terminals. For us, we would continue sensitizing customers and consumers about the safety offered by SquadPOS – comprising the added layers of security that protect the information of both parties. So far, the adoption of the solution has been steady, and we expect that more and more people will learn about the tech behind this and become more open to using it to make and receive payments.
As you think about the future of SquadPOS, what are you most excited about?
The most exciting thing for us would be fully capturing micro-merchants in their respective selling points – whether in corner shops, the roadside or even in traffic – because we created the solutions for them. They no longer need to be qualified to apply for POS terminals from their respective banks and hope they meet the required criteria – which is another opportunity for us to deepen financial inclusion.
It would be an exciting future to see a further drop in the reliance on cash for transactions and the adoption of this simple solution by everyone toward receiving card payments seamlessly. We are already receiving testimonials from merchants using this solution about how it has helped them sell more because they can cater to more card payments like never before. We look forward to more exciting testimonials from businesses all over the continent in the near future.
What are your five-year projections?
The future of Squad is one in which we have succeeded in making every payment in Africa digital. In the next five years, we would have built out the product and launched it in more African markets, localizing it to meet more local needs.
Anything else you’d like your clients/customers to know?
We appreciate the support we have received so far from our customers and are encouraged to continue to do more. For those who are interested in signing up, all they must do is visit our website at www.squadco.com. Sign up for your free account and complete your KYC. You do not have to be a registered business to create an account. Just sign up as an individual business and start receiving payments in minutes.
