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M-Pesa is a virtual banking system that provides transaction services through a SIM card. Once the SIM has been inserted into the card slot of the mobile device, users can make payments and transfer money to vendors and family members with SMS messages. Users with no bank accounts can access the numerous M-Pesa outlets distributed across the country. The money that needs to be stored is given to the kiosk attendant, who transfers the amount in digital form to the user’s M-Pesa’s account. Cash collected from M-Pesa is deposited in bank accounts held by Safaricom. The bank accounts serve as regular checking accounts and are insured up to a maximum of 100,000 shillings (or $1000) by the Deposit Protection Fund. M-Pesa provides receipts as proof of transaction. For a transaction to take place, both parties have to exchange each other’s phone numbers because the phone numbers act as account numbers. After settlement, both parties receive an SMS notification with the full name of the counterparty and the amount of funds deposited or withdrawn from the user’s account. The mobile receipt, which is received within seconds, helps to promote transparency for all individuals involved in a transaction.

Developer of mobile payment application designed to help users to make quick and easy payment through their mobile phones. The company's application services include easy sign up, affordable, convenient, easy payment reconciliation and simple payment notification, enabling users to make making easy payments for purchasing goods and services online.

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Lending through a pandemic COVID-19 has prevented them settling into Kenya, where there are no less than 50 digital lending platforms competing for an adult population that is over 80% financially included.  Reports of predatory lending have increased red tape in the East African country. A newly gazetted directive bars digital lenders from reporting defaulting borrowers below certain amounts to credit bureaus, among other rules.  It increases the time it will take for a new entrant like Carbon to comfortably express its various services. “We haven’t really had a chance to test the engine,” Dozie says, but they have given out enough loans to calibrate their algorithm. In Nigeria, they have reduced lending to shore up against the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, revising the repayment schedule for 9,016 loans. However, Dozie says they are currently at more than half the level achieved last year, in value and volume. Another profitable year ahead? Carbon’s products need overall improvement, in responding to customer complaints (see responses to this tweet) about deductions, and notification lags, among others. The pandemic’s impact on the Nigerian economy could have an effect on the company’s bottom line. Profit in the next report might as well be less impressive than what this year’s report contains. “It will be easier to beat [this year’s] numbers in naira terms, but we are all at the mercy of macroeconomics on the dollar terms,” Dozie says. He says they will report whatever happens, as part of a long-term pitch to customers who, he believes, will be impressed by an honest expression of financial strength. Otherwise, focus remains on leveraging other strategic moves from 2019, notably the acquisition of payments startup Amplify.  The latter’s intellectual property has gone into developing an SME platform, as well as in developing Carbon Express, a smartphone keypad button that can be used for instant transactions within any app. Carbon acquired Amplify particularly for this feature and their engineering. Maxwell Obi, one of Amplify’s two co-founders who joined Carbon as part of the deal, has left the company, but the others have been instrumental in building valuable aspects like an iOS app.

Another value-adding space is credit reporting. Carbon doesn’t produce the reports; they source from partner bureaus, and make them available to customers. 

In an audited report published this week, Carbon, the Nigerian fintech company, declared that it made the naira equivalent of $312,905 in profit after tax in 2019. 

The device is a small blue box that measure the rate of temperature rise rather than detecting smoke which helps in reducing false alarms.[5] The network of Lumkani devices in a specific slum uses radio frequency to send text messages and notify people in cases of emergencies. An alarm will be activated in all houses within a 60 metres (200 ft) radius if the initial alarm is not disarmed within 30 seconds.[6][7]