Our team has worked hard to be one of the leading contributors to Mojaloop, the world’s first open source platform for interoperability in a real-time payment network. Mojaloop is set up to scale real-time payments because it is modern, open source, low-cost, and was built for all types of digital financial service providers (DFSPs) including mobile money, microfinance institutions (MFI), banks, and others. Most importantly, it was developed with the purpose of driving financial inclusion for the poor.
However, Mojaloop, and even ModusBox, can’t solve this global issue alone. That’s why we created the Mojaloop Partner Program – to help the community scale and provide opportunities for interested companies and developers to respond to the increasing need for Mojaloop projects.
There are nearly 2 billion people in the world who do not have access to modern financial services. That means they are forced to rely on the use of physical cash that has been proven to quicken the spread of illnesses. Financial inclusion and the move to digital, real-time payments are more crucial today than ever before given the current global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
ModusBox has been on a mission to accelerate access to new financial services since we started building Mojaloop almost 4 years ago. Today, this mission has literally become a life-saving initiative.
The key to Mojaloop’s success and creating financial inclusion will be the development of partnerships that scale its adoption – accelerating real-time payments where they’re needed most. However, there are challenges and opportunities involved.
Mojaloop is easy and hard
Since Mojaloop is open source, it’s easier for anyone to check out the code and build a Mojaloop hub. It also creates a simpler process for a DFSP’s technical team to integrate into it. To further simplify the process, ModusBox has onboarding tools and simulators that automate much of the process.
However, just because it’s easier, doesn’t mean it’s easy.
While we encourage everyone to read about Mojaloop and learn from the content that is freely available, it can be insanely time consuming and difficult to properly educate and train multiple stakeholder teams. And, without a critical mass of ecosystem actors unified around a similar vision and roadmap, the rate of adoption and utilization of Mojaloop will be slow.
Introducing the Mojaloop Partner Program
That is why ModusBox created the Mojaloop Partner Program. The program contains over 200 hours of available training sessions so far and tools to help you learn.
The Mojaloop Lab, a workspace we developed, allows you to use a Mojaloop workbench instance to learn, experiment, and test scenarios and code for the platform. Different components can be spun up to meet your needs. This allows for the opportunity to prove new functionality and create a customizable sandbox for validation.
No matter what your role is in a Mojaloop ecosystem, the training courses will help you understand that role and tailor your expertise to the needs of this system. There is a course for everyone, even if you’re just trying to understand Mojaloop. However, the program was designed with two main groups in mind:
For hub operators (organizations that run payment systems) and the technology providers that support them, we have courses aimed to help you accelerate your team’s ability to securely deploy, configure, and operate the Mojaloop platform for the market.
For financial institutions (e.g. banks, credit unions, mobile money operators, and MFIs), their technology partners, and system integrators, the courses will cover best practices for onboarding, integrating, and connecting securely to Mojaloop.
We’ve already deployed structured in-person training for several banks in Ethiopia and online for the MFI industry in Myanmar. At the moment, courses are only being offered as online experiences and can be completed at a self-paced tempo or in trainer-facilitated sessions. We will resume offering in-person training options when it becomes safe to do so.
Help us accelerate Mojaloop
Mojaloop’s open source code and community unlock a tremendous advantage by promoting sharing and collaboration. Best practices are only “best” until something better comes along. As the community grows, and more teams build commercial implementations and contribute back to the community, this results in an accelerated learning process.
If Mojaloop is to achieve its potential by accelerating access to inclusive financial services that benefit people around the world, it will need a global army of qualified payment technologists and operators who have access and understanding to best practices.
Whether you’re a system integrator, hub operator, MFI, core banking vendor, or just trying to understand Mojaloop, check out the Mojaloop Partner Program or sign up for the Mojaloop Lab.
We are ready to help you get started. Please contact us here or send a note to [email protected].
