VTN, Nigerian e-payment site set to raise N1.5 Billion ($10M) for expansion

We interviewed VTN CEO, Peter Ojo recently about their innovative e-payment system. Today comes a very big news, Virtual Terminal Network (VTN) is set to raise N1.5 billion ($10Million) in private placement. I got the scoop in my mail just this morning.

The fund is said “… will be used for the expansion of the company’s network, enhance its working capital and increase its operational capacity.”

The placement comprises of 1,520,000,000 ordinary shares of N1.00 each at N1.05 per share. This means that with about N55,000 you can participate.

Remember, this is a private place and not IPO. It’s usually opened to institutional investors and not the general public. If you are one, why not request for info here.

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CashEnvoy.com another epayment platform from Nigeria

I have always said on this platform that, e-payment is the major driver of e-commerce which ultimately is the driver of the internet. So many sites have come up these days to address this issue. Let’s take a look at CashEnvoy and see how their service can benefit Nigerians and other customers of theirs.

About

Cashenvoy.com is a web application that aids the transfer of money from person-to-person, person-to-merchant and vice-versa using the web application and personal email addresses. The service allows account owners to send money without sharing financial information, with the flexibility of payment using their bank accounts and debit cards. The company was founded by LA Systems Limited, a Lagos based company.

How it works

To make a Cash Envoy payment:
- Fund your Cash Envoy account using Interswitch debit cards or online bank transfer
- Select Cash Envoy during checkout on a merchant website.
- Funds are transferred securely through Cash Envoy and money is deposited into the seller’s Cash Envoy account.
- Funds can also be withdrawn at anytime from your Cash Envoy account.

A New Deal?

The deal is not new on the world scale but on the Nigerian scene, it a welcome development. Imaging being able to pay for services with just your email address? That’s cool! A very brilliant paypal-like service to aid ecommerce development in the country.

The Real Deal

Cool features

• Funding via Interswitch: you can fund your CashEnvoy account via Interswitch card
• Only email address is needed to make and receive payment
• No need to share your account information on every site.
• SSL secure for all your  transaction on the site
• It’s save because you only fund your account to the tune of how much you need to spend. No frivolous spending.
• You can receive donation through the account

Downside

• Somehow we need a form of verification for merchant who receive money on their site, how do we safeguard people from phishing sites?
• How long will it take a merchant to clear their money from you? Incase the merchant is a fraud? How do you deal with it?
• The percentage commission is not available on the site. How much do you charge to receive or send money?

Business Model

The business model employed by this site is awesome giving the strategic importance of the segment on ecommerce. Model falls under transaction broker.

As we see many e-payment platform spring up, their ability to scale and gain traction will eventually liberate Nigerians from the stronghold of Interswitch on the industry. The best should win at the end of the day!

Visit: Cashenvoy.com

Update:

I recieved an update email from the operator:

Somehow we need a form of verification for merchant who receive money on their site, how do we safeguard people from phishing sites?

Merchant verification tests were sent to you in the last email. Below is an excerpt from the last mail sent to you:

Merchants are to submit photocopies of Utility bills (PHCN bills) for address verification.

Personal IDs for personal verification

Together with the CashEnvoy Merchant Application form (Sent to merchant when he/she requests for integration codes).

And other types of myriad methods.

Other security measures can be found on our official blog: http://www.cashenvoy.com/blog/?p=19

How long will it take a merchant to clear their money from you? Incase the merchant is a fraud? How do you deal with it?

When merchants make withdrawals on CashEnvoy, the merchants CashEnvoy account would be audited and the funds paid into the merchant’s bank account. This is usually done within hours but it takes a maximum of the morning of the next working day. This is because not all banks practice adequate online banking.

The percentage commission is not available on the site. How much do you charge to receive or send money?

This question should not be listed because the CashEnvoy fees can be found on ALL CashEnvoy pages (footer). (sorry I still cant find this)

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Are You in Ghana? Send Free SMS from your Gmail

Google has continued its investment in Africa as a new service was just rolled out of its lab; Google SMS. The feature allows you to send and recieve SMS from your Gmail account.  Guess what? The SMS is free (though a standard charge require if you are sending from your mobile phone)!

In Google’s own word: Let’s say you’re in Ghana and you need to chat with somebody in Gmail Chat, but they don’t respond because they just walked away from their computer. Or maybe you’re in the middle of chatting with them just as they need to leave. But you still need to tell them something — something really important, like where you’re going to meet tonight … or perhaps it’s about a new spot for delicious kelewele. This is why we’ve built a way to chat with your friends even when they’re away from their computers. Now you can keep the conversation going with a new feature that lets you send SMS text messages right from Gmail: you chat from your computer, and your friends can reply from their mobile phones.

The goal is to keep you connected with your friends wherever they go! Google understands that mobile penetration in African is much more than internet penetration and most people still log on to the internet via their mobile phone.

Nigerians at the last G-Nigeria Day asked the question… when will Google SMS come to Nigeria? Google said, very soon! so keep your fingers crossed!

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NetNaira.com another Nigerian e-payment site

If you have been following this blog since the start of the year, you will notice a growing pattern in the Nigerian web space. I wrote last time about an e-payment service for Nigerian (FasteCash). I went o Interswitch on yesterday (Tuesday) to ask for any update regarding their payment platform, well nothing has changed in the setup fee and transaction commission and no plan (as much as I know) to review the price.

In their own word: “NetNaira is a secure pointing/credit system designed to solve the problem of exchanging goods and services for value online speedily and securely.”

NetNaira aims to help small businesses with facility to accept payments directly on their websites without having to share their bank information with their customers.

A New Deal?

Not really a new deal but very strategic deal to the growth of the industry. A number of websites have been online for quite sometimes now providing the same service. Looking at Nigerian web industry, this service is yet to be fully embraced and any site that starts early and can build its trust capital should be profitable when people’s apathy to online payment is relieved.

Real Deal

• NetNaira Allows easy, secure payment platform for those who are not willing to disclose their card detail to just any website, like in the case of a recent fraudulent site we wrote about.
• The platform is secured with Comodo.
• Helps merchant accept payment on their website.
• It also has a simple website integration API that allows communication with its server.
• Referral commission on new customer introduced to the platform
• Transfer fee is 1.2% + 10 naira
• Account is free to open and to receive payment
• An escrow service that allow anyone to become a cashpoint for the platform
• It’s seller are numerous (where you can withdraw your money)

Downside

• Just about 7 merchants are available on its directory
• Maximum transaction cap on personal account

Business model

Transaction broker; it helps people fulfill deals across the internet and making money from commission.

At this point in time, services like these are extremely needed to help facilitate buying and selling on the internet in Nigeria. Given the peculiarity of Nigeria Trust wise, having your money channeled through third party could be a safe way to buy stuff online

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G-Nigeria Day 2010, What has it changed?

We covered the event live on our website and twitter through out the three days. I wrote a follow up article on the impact of Google on Nigeria and African Internet market.

The Organization of the event was above average, except for the first day when all startup glitches showed up. The second day was the best in my own opinion given the interaction level and the VCs invited.

Yea, the G-team! Excellence! They are the best! I am still learning on how to build a company that will have that highly dedicated staffs. They were ready to listen and very smart!

The audience, I think we need to step up our quest for knowledge and to know that though we are late in the technology market, but we can grow faster by leveraging the technology of the advanced countries (Google, Microsoft, Facebook and the likes). Majority of the questions asked could be gotten from Google search! Also on the code side, the code repository has all the information you will ever need for their APIs. A note my people, when there is an event, I think we could explore the products online before coming to learn from the expert, learning before the actual teaching I think will stimulate “Action Learning”.

The online audience following the event were also awesome as they kept asking what is happening if there is a long silence! I believe they enjoyed the flow of the event to have wanted more! The event was covered both on twitter and Google buzz, which was a great product for events back channels, very engaging!

All said and done, I think the way forward is to continue to engage the African community, keep casting the vision on them, support and training the techies. There are Google User Groups one for Lagos and Abuja. These are great was to make sharing easier.

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This week on the Web, weekly recap

Interview with Chiemeka Ozumba, CEO of ishopinlondon.com

As Nigeria ecommerce market continues its aggressive growth, ishopinlondon.com joins the league of site launch this year.

Mpesa comes to South Africa

In a move that could pitch Vodacom competitively against local banks for the first time, its parent Vodafone has announced that it will launch M-Pesa, Kenya’s wildly popular mobile money transfer service, in SA.

Africa Meet AppStore

Apple in a bid to consolidate usage of its products in Africa, Apple on the 18^th of February launched the AppStore for Africa. This will make buy app for Apple platform for African countries easier. Countries listed are: Botswana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, and Uganda. The question you may want to ask is where is Nigeria on the list?

Facebook Drives 44 Percent Of Social Sharing On The Web

If you are still wondering why Google is pushing so hard with its new product Buzz, it is because it wants in on social traffic. For many sites on the Web, social traffic coming through Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace is beginning to rival, and in some cases overtake, search traffic as the single biggest source of traffic. This traffic comes from shared links, photos, and videos. By its own numbers, 5 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook every week.

Microsoft Fights Google With Google-Hosted Videos

Yesterday, we saw Microsoft shamelessly go after the iPhone with a video which played at Mobile World Congress for its new Windows Phone 7 Series. But it’s not just Apple that Microsoft is taking on with videos, it’s competitors like Google and OpenOffice.org as well.

How we built secret London in a weekend

This is a guest post by Tiffany Philippou who started the Secret London Facebook Group. Two weeks after launch the group had amassed over 180,000 members, propelling its 21 year old creator into her first startup – see our previous coverage.

Google Launched New Maps domains in 30 African Countries

As Google increase its penetration in Africa, it has improved effort to put Africa on Google Map. Haven launched the products in Kenya and South Africa, this latest effort is a big step forward in reaching the Africa audience.

G-Nigeria kick starts with day one

Google starts the much anticipated event, G-Nigeria in university of Lagos on Thursday 17^th of February. The event saw a large turn-out and the auditorium was filled up. Google introduced its technology to the African developer and how to market better use of them. Google believe, than local developers are needed for the next phase of advancement on internet.

G-Nigeria Day two

The second day accommodated technopreneur, web markets and business people with interest in Google. This day was the best day I must say, well organized and coordinated. Google top products, Adwords and Adsense were explored and questions answered from the audience. The entrepreneur and VCs, session was mind blowing as young people asked the VC how to raise fund, develop business mentoring.

G-Nigeria Day three

On Friday was the focus on Computer Science students, a repeat of day one but focus was made on the students. Google believe the university community and students are the next point to expect great idea, hence the need to help them get started faster. Students asked question from the G-team and was delighted to learn from Google.

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Impact of Google Presence in Nigeria Internet Market

I was at the Google event for 3 straight days and covered the event; it was very interesting as hundreds of developers and internet business people in came around. Read more on Day One, Day Two and Day Three.

The Nigerian internet market is growing progressively; in recent stats, Nigerian internet users are over 11 million second only to Egypt in Africa. Social media adoption is also on the rise as more than a million Nigerians now use Facebook. Before this, Nigeria is widely known for scam in Nigeria, but now things have changed! With the rate of internet adoption and technology development, in the next couple of years, the perception would have changed.

Google, the brand!

Google is hugely a successful company with more than $171.95B market capitalization. World biggest internet service firm company and biggest advertising company in the world. If there is one thing Google is known for, that is search! Google’s goal is to organize world’s information and make them accessible from any device connected to the internet.  With its success in search, it has leveraged it to launch other successful products!

Google has to a large extent done well and has earned brand loyalty and trust! It has so far acquired 61 companies since 2001 and has projected to acquire at least 1 company per month. The acquisition is largely influenced by available cash-at-hand of over $23billion and strategic plans of Google to organize world information.

Google launched its first phone (Nexus One) this January and will be launching Chrome laptop this year. This has set it against Apple and indeed, (as I think) is a very strategic step by Google; because 1. the future is mobile 2. Platform is key (hence android) 3. Data is awesome 4. Mobile ad will be the future of Adsense (Google Acquisition of AdMob) the cash machine for the company. Innovation in the mobile hardware industry is not fast enough, and Google known for software prowess.

Google Around the World

Google has a mantra, which is “Don’t be evil” this has been their guideline around the globe. Google’s presence is felt everywhere in the world. With offices in 35 countries and serves the whole world except countries with censorship and restrictions.

Google in Africa

Google have offices in Egypt, South Africa, Kenya and now Nigeria. Google is increasing its presence in Africa and hope to accelerate development in the continent.

Google’s mission for Africa is to make the Internet an integral part of everyday life.

Make the Internet relevant and useful to Africans through;

• Content
• Education
• Relevance

Eliminate access as a barrier to all potential users
* Internet affordability
* Devices – affordable devices
* Latency – drastically improve latency

These were highlighted in the on-going G-Nigeria Day holding in University of Lagos, Nigeria.

Google in Nigeria and the future

Some of the understanding of Google about Africa and Nigeria is that;

• More than 50% of 16yr olds who are familiar with the Internet don’t use it due to “lack of access to a PC” (SSA ICT Survey)
• Africa: 14% of the world’s population but 2% of Internet users.
• Nigeria has one of the highest mobile adoption rates.
• Local content for African countries is scarce.

Google is willing to enable local developers to collaborate on content generation, API integration and other Google products so as to accelerate the growth. It is wonderful to note that, Google has youth-like corporation and supports open source projects and other technology development around the world.

Impact on Local Developer and Internet Market in Nigeria

Well, in as much as we understand that Google is not an NGO, so for every investment made, there should be corresponding return on investment (which is great for every business), so Google’s entrance into the Nigerian internet market will get the attention of other internet giant who are still skeptical about the Nigeria. I see it stimulating the growth as it has in other countries.

Google projected to acquire a company per month, yeah! So for developers who thinks that funding is a problem, get started with something now, bootstrap it with a little fund you can, if you get Google’s attention you can become a good candidate for acquisition. Imaging joining the Google EconomyL!

For other Nigerian internet companies who are yet to get creative in there web business, I think the faster you do that the better, 1. You could be acquired or compete with Google 2. You will become a late comer to the party. Google brand capital is enormous and anything it touches turns to gold, so how will Google turn Nigerian internet market to gold now?

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G-Nigeria Event, Day 2 Live updates recap

We followed the event live here from our twitter page and on this site, you view day 2 live feed here.

Day 2 started off with introduction on setting up online business.

Session 2 Adwords and Adsense

Second session focused on Adwords and Adsense; the two Google advertising product helps you to reach your target audience and also make money from serving ads on your website. Some of the highlights are ;

-          Adsense are structure based on Content, ads group and keywords

-          ad text helps you concisely tell about your product in your ad. So a call to action is always good to drive action.

-          types of keyword match exact match, phrase match, broad match & negative match

-          search marketing is one of the best ways to meet your target audience

-          mobile internet access is growing massively

-          useful links to backup this presentation; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_Score http://faizbash.wordpress.com/2009/01/17/targeting-the-nigerian-audience-google-vs-facebook-ads/

-          banner ads and text are base on pay per click or impression

Question and answer session

Q: how to make money from adwords & adsense?

A: Google says it’s all about relevance!

Session 3 Google Analytics and Site optimizer

-          Google analytics helps you know where your customers are coming from, what they do on ur site etc.

-          Google trends helps you know search volume of keywords

-           site optimizer helps you check performance of your site to enhance customers conversion

-          Goals in Google Analytics helps you target your web goals, to enable you measure performance

-          what are your website goals, to generate leads? Sell product or allow people to sign up?

-          Funnels consist of number of pages to be click before you get to the goal! eg. from product display page thru payment confirmation page

-          You can know where people are dropping off from your site while attempting to buy stuff through funnel

-          using funnels in analytics, u can manage your campaign effectively by seeing your response rate

-          Where is your landing page? where people get to when they come to your site through a particular link, it could be an ad

Questions and Answers

Q: how does Google track user by location, IP or what? how relevant considering Nigeria’s ISP with foreign IP?

A: inconsistency in ISP people use is one of the major problems in targeting people location through IP, people changes their providers quite often in Nigeria. Google plans to work with ISPs to solve this.

Q: What’s Google doing about open source?

A: open source is about tools and software not data! Google gives u tools and helps you in data analysis… not giving u access to users data

Q: How does Google give authorize consultant for Analytics, any establishment in Nigeria?

A: A website that gives u instruction on that… there is Google Nigeria now that can help with certification and training. More information shall be posted on our site.

Q: site integration of analysis access of Google analytics on clients site.

A: answer shall be added to the slide.

Q: Any plan for local filtering of user location by city, town etc

A: Google understand that it’s difficult in Nigeria, but needs developers help to get local content and relevance. This will help solve d granularity of local content!

Q: we need download version of Google codes guideline to help read offline.

A: This is available in slides and video in conversion university here http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/?hl=en.

Q: how to add Google analytics to dynamic sites built on PHP, .Net etc

A: tools are available on conversion university here http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/?hl=en

Session 4: Search 101

-          Google crawls your pages for relevance

-          Google reads through your meta tags for page information

-          To make Google crawler index your site properly; improve your website, refine your website

-          robot.txt specifies pages you don’t want Google to index

-          what can you do for your site to make it more searchable?

-          build your index properly, go to web master central on Google, it  helps you with tools u can use

-          Create a sitemap! sitemap.com or .org is great tool. sitemap helps you instruct  Google about your site structure.

Questions  and Answers

Q: How does Google access information on invisible web as against other search engine?

A: Google is working with partners to improve on this, Sitemap and proper indexing are best ways to direct Google to your content.

Q: How can my site be at top of search results?

A: Site’s relevance is the most important factor in this aspect. Google tries to analyze your site to search text!

Q: How do we restrict download of paid content from Google?

A: Google follows instructions in your robot.txt to crawl your site.

Q: How can I have search results on my website?

A: Google has features and API can make that possible.

Q: What is Google’s plan to make flash based website possible?

A: Google is working extremely hard on it, but the solution is not perfect yet. One of the best way to get your site index is to develop a text based version so that Google can index it properly.

Session 5 Knol, Blogger and Youtube

-           Google knows that not everyone can build CMS sites, hence blogger

-          Google thinks 2% of Africa related content online is unaccepted, so it wants to help!

-          Google’s target is on hyperlocal content, to generate information that are relevant to every are.

-          now a live demo on how to create a blogger account and youtube

Session 6

VCs and Entrepreneurs Session

Recipe for success…

Do you have an idea or opportunity? everyone have ideas but do you know if people wants you proposed service?

Do you have what it takes to develop ur biz idea? do you understand ur market? These are what helps you to maximize your opportunity.

Entrepreneur defined

if you are an entrepreneur, how much risk can you take?

Trust and understanding is key to working together with VC

It’s not about ideas, but how to bring it to market place and make it successful!

Investors want to see implementation of your idea, how will they make d money back from d business

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G-nigeria day 2010 live feed, follow the event

Google Nigeria day is going on currently in University of Lagos.

You can stay connected to the event on twitter here with the hash tag #gnigeria.

Google Buzz back channel here.

Nelson Mattos delivered the key note speech, highlights below;

• More than 50% of 16yr olds who are familiar with the Internet don’t use it due to “lack of access to a PC” (SSA ICT Survey)
• Africa: 14% of the world’s population but 2% of Internet users.
• Nigeria has one of the highest mobile adoption rates.

Google’s mission for Africa is to make the Internet an integral part of everyday life.

Make the Internet relevant and useful to Africans

• Content
• Education
• Relevance

Eliminate access as a barrier to all potential users
* Internet affordability
* Devices – affordable devices
* Latency – drastically improve latency

Google needs help of local developers to enhance the map and provide local contents.

Christian Miccio  is now discussing Google map, Mapmaker and API

Google AppEngine Overview, Introduction to Google Web Toolkit

Google AppEngine Hands-on with GWT

Google developers went through the engine and languages you can develop with. Emphasis were on Python and Java, in the hall, we had many PHP developers so they asked if there is support for PHP and .Net. Google developers said they can volunteer  to kickstart it.

View The Event Images here.

Tomorrow will be for Technical managers and internet marketers. Make sure you are available!

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