Bitsika is fun and cash in one place. In recent times, we’ve seen companies building products whose social media functionalities flow seamlessly with their main products. This is because social media-like engagement is effective in locking users into a product and getting them to form, maintain and strengthen bonds in-app. For this case, the aim is to keep users returning to use the product’s main functionality.
Ghanian remittance and payment startup, Bitsika is trying to tap into social payment play by launching a social feature that will allow users to create social profiles and content on their spending, follow and be followed, and request and receive cash and donations.
The Story of Bitsika
Atsu Davoh and Samuel Baohen founded Bitsika in 2018 as a USSD solution that allowed customers to buy and trade bitcoin. It evolved into a charitable giving solution over time. In 2019, it released a mobile app for cross-border payment, and its present iteration is a social fintech app.
“I’d say that this is the fourth big iteration we have had, ” Davoh said. Everything we’ve done since the beginning of the startup has led up to this moment. This social app is an upgrade of the normal fintech basic app: containing wallet features and remittance features, but with social media capabilities,” Davoh reveals.
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Davoh, being a heavy Twitter user, realized that there is a disparity between social media and fintech, which makes moving between both worlds difficult. He explained: “For example, when someone creates a GoFundMe account, they can’t just leave it on GoFundMe. They have to come to Twitter to post the link because there’s no social component on GoFundMe or a GoFundMe component on Twitter.”
As the brain behind earl, a social media app that connects individuals to influencers, professionals, and celebrities, Davoh explained that Bitsika’s last funding in 2019 encouraged it to experiment with bold ideas. “I didn’t want to just release the same old boring fintech that everyone was doing. I wanted to challenge the system and bring new ideas.”
“So, It got me thinking: Is it possible to create a social medium that combines fintech intrinsically and automatically marries both worlds?” Davoh says.
The new Bitsika app allows users to receive money or donations when someone comes to the page without them having to supply a wallet address or tag.
While Davoh sees the new update as big progress, he admits it is largely an experiment: “I don’t know if this social update will make our growth easier or difficult, but we anticipate that it will turn out as well.”
Another popular social payment app on the continent is Abeg, a Nigerian fintech app that allows users to request and send money to one other with tags. It was able to grow its user base from 20,000 to over 2 million by using giveaways as a use case during the Big Brother Show is sponsored.
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However, Bitsika, which has over 95,000 registered members, according to a Twitter thread Davoh wrote in January 2021, qualifies as a full-fledged social media platform because it has more functionality than other social payment apps on the continent.
The new update allows users to request money from friends, organize in-app giveaways, and crowdfund for important projects, as well as a pizza for a night out, according to Davoh. It also facilitates bill splitting among friends and serves as a record of how much money was spent between them.
While KYC verification is required for users who use the app’s financial services, users who just want to create or read social postings are not required to do so, Davoh explained.
New Bitsika Feature for businesses
Bitsika customers have been requesting a feature that allows them to utilise the Bitsika app for their businesses since the app’s inception two years ago. Bitsika is also developing Bitsika Bitsika Console, a merchant dashboard and API that allows online businesses to create invoices that allow Bitsika users to pay them. Business owners can process payments directly from other Bitsika users through the merchant console. Bitsika can eliminate the friction online businesses face with payments by processing these transactions in-app.
Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal, Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso are among the nations where Bitsika’s merchant function is currently live. This social feature is available to anyone in these eight countries as well as the rest of the world.
