Airtel, Zambia’s leading telecommunication network provider has signed a memorandum of understanding – MOU with Unity Finance to provide Airtel mobile money customers with loans to purchase smart phones.
Speaking during the signing ceremony, Unifone representative Akash Singh said Unifone is a product that is powered by Payjoy in partnership with Unity Finance. The product offering gives the consumer the ability to purchase a smartphone and pay it off over installments which is a unique offering on the Zambian market.
“Technology has advanced drastically and in this digital era, the importance of smartphones is ever growing in the Zambian Digital Financial market. The average selling price of a good smart phone in Zambia remains high and due to this high cost, two thirds of the Country’s population will remain offline at the end of 2020 with a greater share of individuals from population groups including women and those on low incomes.
Smartphone growth in Zambia will be driven by increasing affordability through innovative technology and financial solutions. We needed to find the right partners to help solve this problem, he said.
Singh adds that the partnership is significant as it solves a fundamental problem for Zambian. He says financial inclusion together with digital inclusion is very important for development as it provides economic and social benefits to unconnected populations, fueling a cycle that reduces poverty and improve livelihoods.
Meanwhile, Airtel Mobile Money Director James Chona said that the partnership that has been created has helped the company to come up with a lot of innovate approaches and solutions that will benefit the communities they save.
He says a phone has become essential tool in our today lives and that to afford a good phone becomes very difficult sometimes as for customers hence the Unfone initiative is in line with the vision to connect the people to each other even as the world is evolving in doing business using mobile phones.
“We have come to understand the importance of strategic partnership that we have here today. It is for this reason today that we have an exciting day where technology links with the financial sector and bringing this partnership that will enable customers access a loan to buy a phone.
With mobile phones, we all know that there is a huge potential to leverage digital technology and bridge the gap especially for informal sector and those living and working in rural areas. So this facility that we are looking at is in line with our digital financial inclusion strategy where we want to make sure that everybody out there can actually have access to digital financial services,” he said.
He says the country’s economy cannot be sustained by the government alone but that the partnership signed should be able to compliment government efforts in leveraging their different resources and expertise just to create a more sustainable and developed country.
And UN Capital Development Fund – UNCDF country representative –Nandini Harihareswara said, “with mobile phones, we know that there is huge potential to leverage on digital technologies and reach the informal sector especially those living and working in the rural areas.
Since the push of digital financial services is about creating access and affordable products and services to financially include the populations at large, we see this partnership as a great opportunity for customers to own phones and thus empowering them.”
