Designing a Mobile Wallet in South Africa and Nigeria

PayU. April 14- June 15. South Africa and Nigeria

This project aimed at launching a mobile wallet for medium enterprises and small business owners in South Africa and Nigeria.

I conducted ethnographic observations in both markets contributing towards the design, strategic vision and product launch.

Challenge and Team

To create a mobile wallet that allowed SMEs make day-to- day payments.

I led the ethnographic research informing the design, strategic vision and launch of this product.

I managed and executed the work in Nigeria and South Africa with the support of researchers and the CEO and the product manager.

Approach

Immersing in the day-to-day payments journey of small business owners

This project was split into two different discovery phases. In the first instance I combined a quantitative and qualitative approach to identify the samples in both countries.

In the second phase I immersed in the lives of small to medium enterprise owners. The goal was to observed their spending patterns to understand how would they change their behaviour from cash to electronic payments.

Key Results and Learnings

Shifting people’s cash to electronic payments mindset

The successful launch and uptake of the mobile wallet in South Africa and Nigeria. E-commerce is making steady progress in South Africa with projected growth to over $4M by 2018, at a 15% rate through 2021.

This posed a great opportunity for the adoption of cashless payments in South Africa and Nigeria.

This project was driven by a deep understanding of the African mindset around cash payments and the increasing transition to mobile payments for some key services.

The outcome was the design and launch of a mobile wallet that catered for SMEs’ payment needs and middle men in Nigeria who made payments on their behalf.