Pesapal, a leader in building payments and business tools for Africa, is today announcing the commercial rollout of Openfloat in Kenya. The company’s latest software tool is a low-cost, consolidated solution to manage expense payments across multiple channels, recipients, and currencies.
This follows extensive market testing with Kenyan merchants in retail, hospitality, and transport. Tests showed that these businesses could half the amount of time taken each month to process their expense payments. Openfloat’s capacity for real-time visibility and cash flow control also proved popular.
Openfloat offers faster settlement to Pesapal merchants. For most Openfloat users, this is the first time they can access a single digit account to manage salaries, supplier payments, travel expenses, and other bills. Plus, they can disburse payments via pay bills, tills, mobile numbers, and bank transfers, all from the same account.
In the current economic climate, all businesses are looking to do more with less, through a close watch on expenses. Pesapal’s market research shows that not tracking and analysing expenses and paying for too many separate services, are common pain points for Kenyan businesses.
“Paper-based expense processes are a minefield for errors and fraud. With Openfloat, businesses can track their spending 24/7 and remotely if they want to. Our design ethos on this, and all our products, is simplicity, accessibility, and affordability,” Pesapal CEO Agosta Liko said.
Openfloat allows approved business managers to customize expense processes with automatic payments, recurring transactions, and alerts for unusual activity. This automation helps drive greater productivity among managers and staff.
Pesapal has identified that failure to automate is a massive brake on productivity in Africa. The OECD has acknowledged that low productivity reduces inclusiveness and, “labour productivity levels in emerging and developing countries continue to be well below those in advanced countries”[i].
“We don’t see why any business in Africa should be excluded from improving productivity through better decision-making and automation. We believe Openfloat is a game-changer for African businesses and are excited to include it in our suite of business tools,” Mr. Liko added.