I REP CAMER....: PURSAR.com Digital Payments for Cameroon. Simple. Secure. Anywhere.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

PURSAR.com Digital Payments for Cameroon. Simple. Secure. Anywhere.

Hello People..Introducing Pursar Dot Com..

Pursar launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund launch operations.

We invite everyone, especially Cameroonians (at home and in the Diaspora) and tech enthusiasts, to participate in raising our target funds in exchange for various perks (t-shirts, keyholders, artist portraits, wallets, etc.) so that we can bring Pursar to market in Cameroon. It will be an uplifting community experience. Stay tuned!

Background

Pursar is a Cameroonian digital payment startup founded in 2013.

Mission: Our mission is to use technology to make financial services understandable, relevant, accessible, and affordable to the lay person, starting with Cameroon.

Motivation: Financial inclusion, Technology Adoption, Improved Consumer Experiences in Cameroon.

Vision: We look forward to the day when anyone in Cameroon can pay for goods and services with the convenience of digital methods like SMS, the web, smartphone applications, or bluetooth. We are working to make this happen in the near future and hope that other industry players share this vision and will join us in this endeavour.

Tagline: Digital Payments for Cameroon. Simple. Secure. Anywhere.

Pursar Application Working Features

Secure web application located at https://pursar.com (webapp itself is currently invite-only as we are in beta stages but will eventually be expanded to all).
E-commerce integration using application programming interface (API).
Free peer-to-peer money transfers.
Free to load cash via agent network.
Free to cash out via agent network.
Simple web and mobile interfaces.
Tight security technology and methods.
Simple fee structure for merchants.

Features in development, some will be available before launch (planned for midmid 2014)

Integration with reputable local banks and microfinance establishments.
Secure SMS portal that enables transactions via SMS.
Smartphone and Feature phone Integration.
Point of sale devices for offline shops.

Pursar Benefits

Individuals

Convenience: Using Pursar to make payments both online and offline is much more convenient compared to traditional methods of cash or mobile money.
Cost savings: Free deposits, withdrawals, and money transfers implies Pursar users enjoy significant cost savings for money transfer operations.
Peace of mind: Pursar users can sleep comfortably knowing their money is secure, accessible at all times and from anywhere.

Merchants

Reduced cost and risk of scaling: By using Pursar to power their payments, online merchants can scale beyond their geographical locations, reaching and serving markets they have little or no physical presence.
Reduced risk of cash theft and pilferage: Given that by using Pursar physical cash transactions are eliminated, merchants significantly reduce the probability of cash theft and pilferage.
Insights for better decision-making: Pursar enables merchants to identify patterns in their customers' behaviours, enabling them to make better decisions to reduce costs or increase revenues.

Banks (Under development)

Cost savings: By using Pursar, banks and microfinance institutions enjoy huge cost savings resulting from:

Subscription fees which are significantly lower than the maintenance cost for hosting their own online banking applications.
No need for upfront investments as they don't have to buy new software, hardware or applications.

Reduced technology risks: Given that Pursar develops and maintains the platform on which banks and microfinance institutions run their online banking services, Pursar enables financial institutions to significantly reduce their technology development and deployment risks.
Insights for better decision-making: Pursar enables banks and microfinance institutions to discover patterns in both actual and potential customers that will enable them make better decision vis-a-vis costs, revenues, customers, and products.
Renewed focus on customers and products: By using Pursar to power their online banking services, banks have the latitude and energy to focus more on the things that really matter to them--customers and financial products.

Team

Pursar is supported by a huge family of mentors, volunteers, interns, and well-wishers. It would not be what it is without their invaluable contributions. Pursar began as a project incubated at ActivSpaces, Buea, Cameroon.

Our core team is currently made up of: Fawah N. Akwo, Ryan J. Yoder, and Otto B. Isong.

Fawah is a software engineer who is currently in law school. She grew up in Limbe, Cameroon, where she attended GHS Limbe (incoming Class of ‘97) before earning her A’ Levels from St. Bede’s College, Ashing Kom (‘04). Fawah is an MIT graduate (EECS ‘08) and worked as a Senior Applications Engineer at Oracle for over 3 years. She is currently working on her Juris Doctorate at Georgetown Law, in Washington, DC, where she is a Public Interest Law Scholar. When not obsessing about women’s human rights, technology policy, and international development, Fawah enjoys traveling, designing and appraising fashion, and most especially, her family.

Ryan earned his Bachelors in Computer Science from Oregon State University. After graduating, he worked for two years as a Software Engineer in bioinformatics. Ryan then joined the U.S. Peace Corps and served three years in Cameroon. He is currently working at Intel as a Software Metrics Engineer. Ryan is otherwise a news junkie who enjoys improving his French.

Otto is a trained financial analyst with over 6 years of experience in finance and operations-related roles. He is from Lobe, Ndian Division, SWR, and attended Saint Joseph’s College, Sasse (incoming Class of ‘96). He earned his A’ Levels from the Bilingual Grammar School in Molyko, Buea, before going on to study Accountancy at the University of Buea (UB). He is currently based out of Buea, Cameroon, and enjoys many hobbies, including photography, architecture, Sci Fi movies, music (Makossa and Hip Hop), and gardening.

Pursar’s mentors, from Synovum Partners, are Samir Rath and Teodora Giorgieva.

Samir started his career as a macro-economist focused on monetary and economic policy, and advises on strategy for cross-border investment opportunities. He has extensive understanding of financial markets having traded G10 currencies, equities and fixed income in most markets in Europe, North America and Asia. He supports social enterprises in India and Africa as an associate partner with Acumen Fund. He is a passionate Angel Investor in early-stage startups and practices design thinking as a method for innovation.

Teodora has 10 years experience in business support consultancy. Her expertise lies in the field of technology transfer and innovation, innovation brokerage services, SMEs consultancy on project development with focus on research and innovation, startups and business incubation management mentoring. She worked on various EU projects and ARC Fund, Bulgaria. She is also an Infodev (World Bank) certified Incubator Manager trainer.