Only 20% of Africans have a bank account, and cash is dominant in many local economies. The bill payment system for electricity, water, gas, TV, and internet is a complicated for many people.
There’s a demand for tech innovators to help Africans pay their utility bills easily. The problem is that developing a payment tool from scratch takes time and resources. You would have to integrate your technology with many providers, where much of the digital infrastructure is outdated.
There is an easier way. You can use an API, such as Reloadly’s utility payment API. This allows you to connect with existing data and software to provide a simple, reliable bill payment system project to help citizens pay for utilities.
In this article, we’ll explain what bill payment is like for Africans and how technology and APIs can help.
Find out how Reloadly’s API can transform your bill payment project. Reach out to our team today.
The state of energy access in Africa
Energy consumption in Africa is on the rise. People now have greater access to utility services like electricity, water, internet, and TV. A study from the World Bank found that around 48% of people in sub-saharan Africa have access to electricity, and this number is steadily rising.
The outlook for energy provision in Africa is positive. In a survey from the PwC Africa Power & Utilities Sector:
- 73% of respondents said that connecting new customers to the grid was a top priority
- 75% said that more sustainable and reliable power generation was a priority.
- 96% predicted a more reliable electricity supply by 2025. They expected that load shedding (planned electricity cuts to avoid excessive load on the generation source) would be the exception rather than the norm by 2025.
As power and utilities become more widely accessible in African countries, people need a more efficient bill payment system.
As Reloadly’s Engineering Director, Arun Patra, explained:
“Africa’s consumption of utilities is increasing rapidly, and large parts of Africa are coming under managed coverage. However, the digital systems and infrastructure to pay for these services via digital means are lacking. Integrating with power and other utility companies remains a complex and laborious process.”
The problem with utility bill payment in Africa
Paying utility bills should be simple. Unfortunately, it’s frustrating for many Africans. If the bill payment system is complicated, consumers lose essential services, and businesses grind to a halt.
Customers sometimes have to wait in long queues to pay their electricity or water bills in person or send checks in the mail. If they can’t get there in time, or the checks don’t arrive, they face getting cut off.
Paying for broadband internet and TV services is equally complicated. People must navigate separate, often complex payment systems from multiple providers.
What people need is a simple way to pay all their bills. This presents an opportunity for bill payment projects to create systems or simple mobile platforms for utility payment.
Digital payment services already exist in Africa. But, as Arun Patra explains, the technology is not always efficient and up to date.
“The technology and processes either leverage outdated technology or are too cumbersome to use in a scalable manner. Well-designed APIs and onboarding processes for B2B customers are not very common in the African continent at the moment.”
Integrating your technology with an API like Reloadly enables your customers to conveniently pay for their utilities seamlessly, all in one place, across borders.
Cash and airtime as currency
Around 90% of retail transactions in sub-Saharan Africa are cash-based. However, thanks to fintech innovation led by companies like Kenya’s M-Pesa, mobile currency is growing.
In many emerging countries, people use mobile airtime as currency. Mobile wallets allow for flexible and frictionless money transfers. Mobile money can be a more reliable alternative to fluctuating, unstable currency. It’s also accessible to people who don’t have bank accounts.
People can collect, store, and exchange mobile credit using airtime wallets. It’s common to use airtime money transfers for peer-to-peer transfers and to pay for services like taxis, insurance, and utilities.
What is a utility payment API?
An API (application programming interface) is a software intermediary that allows computer programs to communicate with each other. Developers can use an API to create new tools that connect seamlessly with existing software.
A utility payment API enables customers to select and pay for multiple utility services all in one place, using their mobile.
Integrating Reloadly’s Utility Payments API into your mobile or web application means your customers can pay for electricity, water, internet and TV through their mobile phones.
How can you use a utility payment API?
There are many ways entrepreneurs and businesses can use the connection to utility providers that Reloadly’s API provides.
For example:
- Local agents can provide mobile terminals for people to pay their bills.
- Kiosks can accept digital payments for utility bills.
- Large utility companies can make it easier for customers to pay through their mobile app. Customers can make credit card and bank account payments, check their balance, pay their monthly bills, or renew their service without contacting customer service representatives.
- Bill payment aggregators help customers bring all their bills into one app and make utility payments from one place.
- NGOs can use utility payment APIs to enable donations from abroad. People can donate towards paying electricity and water bills for people living in warzones, poverty or disaster-stricken, remote areas.
- Digital wallets, money transfer websites, and tools can enable people to transfer money to relatives or friends from abroad to cover utility bills.
- Businesses can reward their customers with airtime bundles which they can use to pay bills.
There’s no limit to the possibilities. Reloadly’s API accelerates innovation so entrepreneurs can use their creativity to create a wide variety of solutions. Grab your free API key today!
Why use an API to create a bill payment system?
The Slashdata Developer Economics Survey 19th edition found that nearly 90% of developers now use APIs.
You could code a utility payment solution without using an API. But, there are many reasons why APIs make software development easier and more effective.
- Save time — APIs help you get a digital business up and running with less time and effort spent on development.
- Reduce cost — You can reduce the development costs because you need less time and effort to develop an app or software.
- Efficiency — Organizations can increase their overall business value and efficiency with minimal costs by integrating the right kind of API.
- More connectivity — with an API, you can connect to many different utility companies so users can pay all their bills in one place. You can connect with all the major African providers to enable bill payment across the continent.
- Use automation — API integrations improve automation processes. Thanks to connections between applications, tasks that once had to be done manually are now effortless.
- Find new ways to innovate — APIs allow for innovation, most importantly by providing a tool for developers to easily access data and functionality from other applications. This can lead to technological improvements and the ability to create new capabilities.
Using APIs means that developers can get most of the software functionalities they need without building everything from scratch. This saves time, effort, and costs, allowing the development team to focus on other goals.
Build your bill payment system project with Reloadly’s API
“Reloadly is making bill payment accessible to everyone using digital means like mobile phones,” says Arun Patra.
By using Reloadly’s utility payment API, you can enable payments for electricity, water, internet, and TV bills through your customers’ mobile phones in seconds, wherever they are located.
Reloadly has an established network of service providers in Africa. It’s easy to manage transactions and pricing from different providers and industries through a convenient dashboard.
It only takes three steps to start integrating our utility payment solution.
- Sign up for free (no contract needed)
- Get your API keys from Reloadly’s portal.
- Integrate our API and add balance to your wallet to go live.
Find out how Reloadly’s API can transform your project. Reach out to our team today.
