Product Management with Agile and Lean Payment Solution

FinWave Payment Solution

1. FINAL PROJECT FinWave Payment Solution Oluwadamilola Awolesi Masters of Business Administration, Nexford University MHY 6800 Product Management with Agile and Lean Professor Nicholas Bucciarelli May 2024

2. INTRODUCTION The FinTech industry is part of the Financial sector and is arguably one of the fastest-growing sectors in Africa. The industry is expected to grow into a $1.5 trillion market by the year 2030 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32% (Digital Banker Africa, 2023). This presentation is geared towards providing a payments and collections solution that offers seamless settlement for our clients to sustain and improve partnerships and collaborations across the industry. User interviews were used to understand users’ pain points, preferences, and requirements, providing insights into the design and iterations of the product (Rubin & Chisnell , 2008). Furthermore, user personas were adopted to curate bespoke solutions for our users The payment solution exemplifies the objective to provide the best-in-class service for customers and promote innovation and creativity in the African FinTech ecosystem.

3. Product Overview FinWave by Khleb Digital is a versatile cross-border payment platform enabling web-based transactions through various payment channels including cards, bank transfers, pay with phone, QR codes, and bank accounts. Our solution offers a self-onboarding process via our website, providing API generation within 5 minutes for easy integration.   FinWave provides businesses with seamless integration into their existing ecosystem, enhancing their productivity and revenue while equipping them with an opportunity to sell their products beyond borders and improve customer experience. FinWave offers businesses and merchants the opportunity to adapt their global strategy to local markets by offering their customers in different regions payment options familiar to them.

4. Product Vision Statement GOALS At the core of our product vision, we aim to revolutionize payments and collections infrastructure for businesses in Africa, creating a solution that seamlessly integrates into our client’s objectives and supports their business aspirations. We aspire to create a solution that obliterates the hassles of cross-border payments and collections for businesses within Africa regardless of the host currency and the exchange rate. ANTI GOALS To avoid a solution that does not support the customer’s aspiration for a seamless, real-time settlement of transactions. A solution that creates a gap in collections.

5. User Interview In a bid to achieve our objective of deploying a seamless solution, we engaged 100 potential users through comprehensive interviews. These engagements provided insights into their genuine pain points, aspirations, and challenges in cross-border payments and collections. The interviews highlighted user needs and consequently underscored our commitment to creating a solution that supports the aspirations of our clients. ( Pernice , 2018). Some key insights from the interview include; Payment Options: Users are keen on a platform that will offer several payment plans and options to allow their customers to make payments for their services irrespective of their location in Africa. API Integration: They highlighted the need for API integration into an existing ecosystem. To ensure optimal collaboration, 76% of the users need a payment and collections platform that will align with existing services through open API. Security: They highlighted security as an important feature. They expressed the need for the platform to be safe and secure for their businesses and their customers/vendors. Real-time value: Similarly, the users expressed the need for real-time and immediate value settlem ent of collections and payments. . This is one of the most important findings highlighted by the users.

6. User Personas Persona 1: Ebunoluwa Name: Ebunoluwa Mctory Age: 25 Occupation: Post Graduate Student in Anthropology Motivation: Need to receive cross-border inflows in local currency during her postgraduate on-field work in Kenya Behavior : A tech-savvy lady, and highly knowledgeable Preferences: Prefers an app that overs immediate conversion to local currency when receiving funds from her parent in Nigeria. She desires a solution that uses the prevailing rate to get real value. Persona 2: Ifeoluwa Name: Ifeoluwa Omiwole Age: 34 Occupation: Creative Artist and Curator Motivation: Ability to transfer funds to African countries for the importation of various African sculptures and heritage Behavior : Highly disciplined, values efficiency, often on the go. Preferences: Desires a secured platform that provides real-time transaction monitoring to ensure her vendors receive immediate value. However, the pricing for the services should be moderate.

7. User Personas Persona 3: Martins Name: Martins Light Age: 40 Occupation: Chief Financial Officer Motivation: A seamless and safe self-onboarding platform Behavior : A risk-averse person, policy-compliant Preferences: A platform that provides cross-border collection for his company’s global marketplace allowing them to receive real-time inflows from various countries. He desires a platform with allowable limits to receive transactions in large volumes. In time past, he has encountered some products that are limited in payment options, thus he expects dynamic payment options for his customers. Persona 4: Clara Name: Clara Salt Age: 38 Occupation: Startup Founder Motivation: Secured API integration option to collaborate with FinWave for other cross-border services Behavior : Creative, innovative, and ingenious Preferences: A platform that enables him to integrate into his existing solution providing other services and creating an avenue for continuous iteration. A platform that allows multiple users in countries in Africa and the middle east

8. Lessons Learned During our analysis of user interviews, it was established that users prioritized instant settlement and remittance of funds. The majority of the users also indicated that the security of the platform is also considered germane in the choice of a payment solution as startups have unsavory experiences with some products in the ecosystem. Furthermore, users highlighted the need for a seamless self-onboarding experience for individual users. They expressed that the UI/UX designs should be attractive and engaging for customers, Lastly, the interviews also provided insights into the pricing mechanism of users and the need to offer competitive pricing to win a sizeable share of the market. This feedback crystallized into adopting a collaborative and iterative approach in the design of the product, ensuring a dynamic business proposition.

9. Key Performance Indicators Transaction Volume: This metric measures the total amount of successful transactions processed through the payment solution. A high volume suggests an efficient and reliable platform. Monthly Active Users: This metric measures the total number of users who process their transactions through the platform every month. This can be used to measure month-on-month growth or decline in customer retention. Average Transaction Value: This is a key performance indicator that measures the average value of each transaction carried out within a period. This metric measures the significance of each transaction to the total volume consummated within a period. Payment error rate: This is a key performance indicator that measures the rate of error over a period. A high error rate could suggest issues with data entry or data validation and this should be resolved promptly. Turn Around Time: This metric measures the average time to process a transaction and receipt of value by the recipient. Transactions should be real-time hence a maximum TAT of 5 minutes.

10. Key Performance Indicators Downtime: This is a key performance indicator used to measure the amount of time that the platform is unavailable or experiencing issues. Downtime could be caused by internal and external factors such as systems upgrades, new updates bugs, MTO downtime, etc. This should be resolved promptly. Net promoter score: This measures the likelihood of an existing customer referring the platform to a prospect. This can be measured through specialized referral programs Customer Satisfaction: This is a key performance indicator that measures how satisfied customers are with our product. It is measured through feedback and ratings regarding customers’ experience using the product.

11. Features Lists Versatility: FinWave supports various payment channels, ensuring flexibility for both businesses and consumers. With the options to choose from cards, bank transfers, or pay-by-phone options, FinWave has you covered. Self-Onboarding: Getting started is a breeze! Visit FinWave’s website and experience hassle-free self-onboarding. No lengthy paperwork or complicated processes—just a few clicks, and you’re ready to roll. API Integration : FinWave provides API generation upon approval. Integrate FinWave into your applications effortlessly and enhance your user experience. Security : FinWave prioritizes your data security. Rest assured that your transactions are protected by robust encryption and authentication protocols. Multi Currency Exchange: FinWave offers instant multi-currency exchange for the settlement of payment into the merchant’s account. Payment Options: The platform will offer several payment plans and options to allow customers to make payments irrespective of their location in Africa.

12. Features Prioritizations The proposed product features lists rightfully align with customers’ expectations. However, some product features will be prioritized to provide assurances to customers in line with our interviews and insights into their pain points. Security: We would upgrade the security feature on the app providing a two-factor authentication requirement for all transactions. For corporate users, in addition to the two-factor authentication, we would add a multi-level authorization for transactions capped at an agreed amount. Currency Exchange : There would be a change to the multi-currency exchange feature of the product. The updated feature will reflect the desire of the users for a prevailing exchange rate providing maximum return to the beneficiary. Pricing: Similarly, the revised features will consider flexible pricing for large-volume transactions and repeat users. This will provide us with leverage over competitors in the market.

13. Competitive Analysis The payment service industry is highly competitive and dynamic. It is an industry that is open to new entrants, innovations, and creativity despite the array of regulations and constantly changing landscape. The industry is designed such that a payment service provider will face competition from other payment service providers, such as banks, credit card companies, mobile wallets, and cryptocurrencies, that offer similar or better features, prices, or customer service.  Globalization and Digitization have impacted consumer behavior and shaped how customers access their preferred products around the world creating a truly global marketplace. Within the African space, products such as Flutterwave , Paystack , Ripple, Ebury, Sendwave , Monex , and Fiserve are being adopted by customers in different locations. Our product is rivaled by different innovative solutions from our competitors in the industry. Although the similarity in these solutions can be traceable, FinWave offers integrated, versatile, and multidimensional payment solutions to our customers.

14. References Amplitude. (2024). Product and Analytics Definitions, Terms, & Examples - Glossary . https://amplitude.com/glossary/terms/user-persona Deming, E. (2023). Lean-Agile Leadership. Scaled Agile Framework. https://scaledagileframework.com/lean-agile-leadership/ Digital Banker Africa. (2023).  Africa to be fastest growing fintech region as global industry grows to $1.5 trillion by 2030 . Digital Banker Africa. https://digitalbankerafrica.com/africa-to-be-fastest-growing-fintech-region-as-global-industry-grows-to-1-5-trillion-by-2030/ GmbH, A. (2020). User persona.  airfocus . https://airfocus.com/glossary/what-is-a-user-persona/#:~:text=A%20user%20persona%20is%20a,a%20business'%20core%20customer%20base. Rubin, J., & Chisnell , D. (2008). Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests. John Wiley & Sons.