Service Cops, one of Uganda’s leading Financial Technology and Business Processes Outsourcing (BPO) firms has entered into a partnership with Awash Bank, to support the bank’s digital strategy.
The partnership, with Awash, the biggest private Bank in Ethiopia, was signed on the 25th of April 2022, at the bank’s headquarters, in Addis Abbaba by Mathias Kamugasho and Joseph Kiiza Ndiho, the Service Cops’ Managing Director and Executive Chairman respectively, as well as Mr. Tsehay Shiferaw, the Awash Bank Chief Executive Officer and Mr. Yohannes Merga, the bank’s Chief Information Officer.
The partnership will see Service Cops providing a variety of its digital/technology solutions ranging from Edutech solutions such as E-School products as well as other Financial Technology products, API and Channels management solutions. Initially, Awash Bank will support the rollout of the one-of-a-kind School Suite and eventually other products shall follow suit.
E-School (School Suite), the Enterprise version of the popular School Pay platform is a paperless school management system that eases the management of education institutions by creating one central data management point that enables school owners, administrators, parents/guardians and learners to each perform their functions easily. The system, for example, integrates a payment portal that allows parents/guardians to pay school fees via a multiplicity of channels that include banks and mobile money from the comfort of their homes, and at the same time, allows school administrators to monitor the payments in real-time. School Suite also allows for e-learning, allowing schools, learners and parents/guardians to collaborate.
Other key features include:
- A Comprehensive student information management system.
- Realtime transaction view to allow school administrators and parents/guardians and students to monitor payments with real-time reconciliation between students, banks and schools, which eliminates the need to maintain multiple school collection accounts with payment providers as well as eliminates costs of issuing paper bank slips.
- Each student is assigned a unique student code that allows them to pay from partner payment channels; banks and mobile! The code also allows students, and parents/guardians to receive payment confirmations by SMS as well as monitor outstanding fees, and transaction history using the mobile app. There are no bank slips, No queues, No hustles
- Powerful reporting and business intelligence module that includes a teacher and staff management module, and a learners’ attendance management module that generates customized reports for school managers and owners.
“The signing of the partnership, with Awash Bank on the 25th of April 2022, is the beginning of a long term partnership that will see us support the bank’s digital strategy,” “Within the Ethiopian market, Awash becomes the second bank to sign up for our Technology solutions, which is a testimony to the value of our digital value proposition, cements our position in this part of Africa and we are optimistic that we shall get other partners to expand our offering within this market commented, Mathias Kamugasho, the Service Cops Managing Director.
Service Cops, is the first Ugandan based fintech to set foot in the Ethiopian market and one of a few Ugandan fintech brands operating outside Uganda. Ethiopia, one of Africa’s 10 largest countries by GDP, and the second-most populous is a strategic market in the Service Cops’ expansion strategy as the fintech firm eyes early leadership, beyond the East African Community.
“Our long term growth plan is to have a significant presence in all the emerging economies in Africa and Asia targeting the major economic blocks; East African Community (EAC), Southern African Development Community (SADC), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). We already have a major presence in the EAC and are at formative stages in the rest of these markets,” said Joseph Ndiho Kiiza, the Service Cops’ Executive Chairman.
Ethiopia becomes the fourth country to embrace School Suite in Eastern and Southern Africa. Just about two years ago, this solution was rolled out in Zambia, in partnership with the Government of Zambia, Financial Sector Deepening, Zambia, alongside key telecoms- MTN Zambia, Airtel, ZAMTEL and partner Banks like Atlas Mara and ZANACO
In Uganda, where the initial SchoolPay platform was launched in 2016, the service is relayed via 13 commercial banks, and the three leading telecoms i.e. MTN Uganda, Airtel Uganda and Uganda Telecom. Today, the platform serves over 3.2 million enrolled students, but cumulatively SchoolPay has to date processed over 9.2 million school payments worth over UGX2.8 trillion!
