Value Proposition

The Finclude eWallet solution offers:

  Closed Loop OR Banking Interface
  Consumer and Multi-Tier Reseller on same system
  Multiple eWallets or fund allocations
  Donor or Bursary defined spending rules
  Customer service / interaction portal
  Loyalty Programmes
  Product Sales:
  Directly off system
  Via 3rd party components (e.g. Electricity, Airtime, Insurance)
  Qualified Retailers (e.g. bookshop)
  Card or Non Card based payment clearing
  Balance Enquiry / Mini Statements
  Detailed Transaction History
  Account payments
  Revenue collection
  Balance Transfers
  SMS Interaction
  Data acquisitioning (surveys, questionnaires)

Technology Used

Finclude uses a unique fusion of WAP, XHTML-MP and compression to produce lightning fast transaction speed and ultra-low data usage on any cellular phone with a WAP enabled browser.

A complete set of web services are available for all the functions within the system, allowing for easy integration by other systems.

The entire application is language enabledand all screens, labels and messages can be easily customized by client support personnel and simultaneously displayed to sellers speaking a variety of languages.

Sellers are sensitive to cellphone data-usage as they typically pay for it by kilobyte. Finclude ’s design uses a miniscule amount of cellphone data usage.

If a user goes through the entire menu system (multiple levels) and then selects a voucher to sell and sells it, the whole navigation and selling process involves just a single roundtrip to the server and just 4,200 bytes of data usage. In most countries 4,200 bytes of data will cost the seller around 0.1 USA cents.

Database design closely coupled with server-side application allows a small server to easily handle 15,000 sellers selling hundreds of thousands of airtime vouchers per day, all with sub-second response.

System Extensibility and Customization

Finclude has “extensibility exit points” built into both the database (able to be customized by database administration personnel) as well as into the object model (able to be customized by programming staff) which allows full site customization by a customer to perform the following:

  Automatically feeding an external financial system with real-time sales data
  Allowing various discrete types of seller discounting models based on sales volumes / minimum target levels or level in the distribution chain.
  Allowing multi-level recruitment royalty schemes to be implemented. These could be based on receiving royalties from more than one level of recruits or          schemes whereby royalty percentages increase depending on the number or quality of recruits.
  Adding some additional incentives (such as weekly prizes) based on certain sales or recruitment targets being met.
  Performing some additional sales validation. Such as not allowing certain sellers to sell certain items or only allowing certain sellers to sell in a certain            way (e.g.. SMS of voucher numbers only).

Savings

  No data network costs (tiny cost carried by seller)
  No handheld or other devices (sellers use their own existing cellular phones)
  No fixed lines
  No shops, stalls or other formal infrastructure required
  No contracts (no trust needs to be established between seller and cellphone company)
  No credit exposure (as sellers must maintain positive balance)
  No equipment maintenance & insurance (the seller’s cellphone is their POS)
  You get a massive distribution network of tens of thousands of sellers spread to the most distant and remote regions of any country within weeks as it virtually spread with an almost zero investment in infrastructure or marketing.
  Stock holding is kept to minimum (all airtime voucher stock is on central server) – no stock held at various points throughout distribution network.
  Positive cash-flow turns into a huge asset.

Q: What mobile phones does Finclude work on?

A: Finclude will work on all mobile phones which support both xHTML and WAP 2.0. In practice 99% of all mobile phones produced in the last 7 years throughout the world do indeed support both xHTML and WAP 2.0. The compliance of any phone can be examined by looking at the website www.gsmarena.com and after selecting (or searching for) a specific phone look at the “Browser” section to see that it supports both xHTML and WAP 2.0. Two notable exceptions of recent mobile phone’s which do not work are the Apple iPhone (which runs the Safari browser – doesn’t support any WAP) and many of the early i-Mate Windows smartphones (such as the PDA2K) which run a standard IE browser which again didn’t support WAP. Finclude has been tested on a vast array of phones including: Sony/Eriksson, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, LG, HTC, Sagem, Benq, Siemens, Sharp and Panasonic. As long as the requirements above are met Finclude will work no matter if the cellular operators are using either a CDMA, TDMA or GSM network.

Q: How does a user access Finclude on their mobile phone?
A: Typically as part of the recruitment process the user will be sent an SMS containing the URL to the distributor’s site where the WAP pages of Finclude will be “served” from. When the user clicks on this link their mobile phone will open its default browser and navigate them to this URL without them having to enter anything. Once they are on the site they should add a Bookmark on their browser to navigate to the site in future.

There are a few unusual phones which use a separate second browser on the phone to access WAP sites (like Finclude ). For instance on a select few Nokia Series 60 phones (such as the Nokia E65) the WAP browser is accessed by the following path on the mobile phone Menu -> Media -> Live or Menu -> Media -> Services.

Q: What languages does Finclude support?

A: Currently Finclude supports the simultaneous use of any number of non-double-byte languages. In practice this means that any one implementation of Finclude can simultaneously support sellers working in any number of languages. The application is completely language enabled and this includes all screen messages, headings, fields, error messages, menus etc. Each seller has the ability to select their language choice from the available list of languages offered by the vendor. Of course if they select a language whose character set is not supported by their phone’s browser then certain character letters will not be displayed correctly. The intention is to allow the use of double byte languages in a left to right reading format in a release slated for late Nov 2008. Double byte languages (which Finclude does not currently support) include the following:

  Chinese
  Japanese
  Korean
  Hebraic
  Arabic

Q: What platform does Finclude’s backoffice run on?
A: Finclude is written in .NET using MS SQL Server as a database and hence simply needs a Windows XP or Vista server running IIS with MS SQL Server installed in order to execute. The server also needs external internet connectivity in the form of at least 1 unique IP address in order for the mobile phones to access it.

Q: How powerful does the back-office server hardware need to be?

A: Microsoft documentation shows that a server running both IIS and SQL Server should have at least 2GB. Due to the fact that Finclude makes extensive use of WAP “cards” roundtrips between the mobile devices and the server are minimized. This means that even a server running a countrywide network of 10,000 active sellers selling 500,000 airtime vouchers per day needs no more than the following modest configuration (~$7K purchase price): CPU: A single quad core 2.66GHz OS: Microsoft XP Pro or Microsoft Vista Memory: 4GB 800MHz DDR2 Disk Sub-system: 6 X 73GB 15k Seagate Savvio drives arranged in a single RAID 10 solution.

Q: What security does Finclude use?
A: All administrative tasks require a secure server login to have occurred. Finclude’s functions have been broken up into 7 administrative groups corresponding to each of the tabs on the web pages. Various administrative personnel can therefore be assigned access to one or a number of these administrative groups. There is also an overall group scadminstrator which can perform all functions. All of the seller passwords as well as airtime voucher pin numbers are encrypted before being placed onto the database. The encryption used is uncrackable 256 bit AES using a composite “seed” key (half supplied by your administrator and half hard-coded into Finclude ). This way even your own administrators don’t know the full “seed” key and hence should a copy of your database fall into the wrong hands there isn’t a person on this planet who knows the whole “seed” key in order to decrypt its contents. In addition the administrators of the site can set the length of the ID’s and passwords which the sellers must use in order to login to the site to sell airtime vouchers in order to increase security.

Q: Does anything need to be installed on a seller’s mobile phone in order to work with Finclude?

A: No Finclude simply uses the mobile phone’s built in internet browser to communicate to the vendor’s server.

Q: What happens if the seller’s mobile number changes?
A: Finclude does not use the mobile phone number for any normal operations. However it’s prudent of the seller to keep their cellular number up to date in case they forget their passwords or require help. They can update their cellular number on the Alter Personal Details screen.

Q: What happens if the seller forgets their password?
A: They can request on Finclude that their password is SMS’d to their phone by entering their UserID.

Q: What if a seller is misbehaving or not acting in the best interests of the vendor company?
A: The vendor has the option of disabling a seller or sending the seller a warning message. In the case where a seller’s status is disabled they will receive an SMS informing them of this change so that they could contact the vendor and argue their case if they believe it has merit.

Q: What happens if the seller makes a mistake on the deposit slip when depositing money into one of the Vendor’s bank accounts?
A: The seller will contact vendor support once they find that their account balance has not been updated after a few hours. The vendor administration personnel have the ability to interrogate both allocated as well as unallocated bank transactions and manually allocate erroneous deposits to sellers.

Q: What if a seller insists on being paid out their outstanding balance?
A: Typically a seller would normally take the cash that they have earned selling airtime vouchers and (after pocketing the profit) re-invest the money into increasing their balance in order to sell yet more airtime vouchers. Typically any positive balance on Finclude they have can easily be converted to cash simply by selling airtime vouchers and pocketing the cash rather than reinvesting it. There may however be instances where it is necessary to pay out an individual’s balance and reflect such payout in Finclude. For this reason Finclude allows the vendor’s administrative staff to record sundry credits and debits against a seller’s account (together with explanations) which provides a full audit record in case of a query.

Q: In the case of a dispute with a seller what information does Finclude carry?

A: All transactions performed on Finclude are logged in full by the system in order to provide a complete audit trail. This includes all airtime voucher sales (including the voucher pin number, voucher serial number, voucher purchase value, voucher sales value, the cellular number that the voucher was SMS’d to, the date and time of the sale, the seller making the sale), sundry debits and credits, bank deposits, recruitment commission earned etc.

Q: What financial costing model does Finclude use?

A: Finclude uses an actual costing method whereby a voucher’s actual cost is logged directly onto that voucher serial number as the system captures it when it first enters the system. This cost is then “carried” by that voucher all through the sales and commission process and logged in the resultant audit trail.

Q: Which banks can Finclude interface with?
A: Finclude can interface to any bank which can export its statements in an OFX/QFX format. In practice almost all banks have this ability as the OFX/QFX format allows users to import these statements into 3rd party financial systems such as MS Money and Quicken. Finclude performs checks to make sure that the information being imported belongs to the correct bank and branch and has not been previously processed.

Q: In what formats can Finclude accept airtime vouchers?

A: Finclude can accept airtime vouchers in almost any readable consistent format (with formats varying depending on the source supplier of the vouchers) as it allows the administrator to specify which type of delimiters are to be used and in the case of files with no delimiters it allows the user to specify absolute field offsets. The program also allows the user to specify different start and end delimiter characters as well as a number of delimiters to skip. The user can also specify the exclusion of heading rows at the front of the file as well as trailing “total” type rows at the end of the file. Finclude performs checks to make sure that the vouchers being imported were never previously imported or used by the system at any point.

Q: How does Finclude’s stock management work?
A: The system administrators set the safety stock level required in terms of hours at maximum sustained usage in Finclude. Let’s say, for illustrative purposes, that they set the stock level at 48 hours. The system constantly monitors the available stock level of the various stocked items and compares this with a weighted usage history over the last 10 days. When the system determines that insufficient stock remains to support the next 48 hours of usage then both emails as well as SMS’s are sent to the personnel of the purchasing department to procure more stock. Warning emails and SMS’s will continue to be sent at regular intervals until the additional stock has been purchased and loaded into the system. The system also contains a number of reports showing inventory levels both in absolute available quantity terms as well as hours of usage remaining. For new products recently introduced into the system (and which therefore have no usage history) the system allows the user to specify a minimum safety stock level to be maintained.

Q: Can the system stock and sell items other than airtime vouchers?
A: Yes it can. Finclude can stock and sell any item which has a unique Serial/Pin number. This could include power vouchers, SIM card Starter packs even cellular phones themselves.

Q: Can the system sell items stocked in other systems?
A: Yes, Finclude can indeed sell items which it does not stock itself and whose stock needs to be retrieved from another external system at the instant of sale. Finclude provides an object interface to external systems for each product to be sold. This object reference can be accessed on the Product administrative screen.

Q: How much data is typically transmitted between a seller’s cellular phone and the server per sale?
A: We understand that the GPRS data transfer costs are borne by the seller and seek to reduce these as much as possible. Finclude’s architecture uses an innovative fusion of xHTML and WAP “cards” to greatly reduce the number of roundtrips made to the server whilst the seller navigates the menu system and then concludes the sale. This results in a far quicker transaction turn-around time for the seller as well as vastly reduced GPRS data transfer costs. Typically a seller can navigate the entire menu system and conclude an airtime purchase and view their resulting balance in less than 5 seconds and with less than 3,000 bytes being transmitted/received. This translates into a GPRS data cost for the seller of far less than 1% of the profit that the seller will typically make from such a purchase.

Q: What level of system customization is possible by a vendor?
A: Finclude allows the vendor to control almost every aspect of the system operation. The vendor can:

  Use their own logo.
  Use their own product name.
  Create a Menu schema they desire or which makes the most sense for their sellers.
  Use any combination of languages for the sellers in their region.
  Customize the currency and other symbols used by the system.
  Place their own copyright on the system start page.
  Change all screen headings, labels and messages generated by the system both on the mobile pages as well as the content of any SMS’s sent by the system.
  Control the viral spread of the system amongst sellers by adjusting incentive percentages and other business rules.

Q: What licensing models does Finclude allow the vendor to use?
A: Finclude can be licensed in one of two ways: A fixed percentage of gross revenue. On a “per transaction” basis
Please request our license agreement for more details

Q: Does anything need to be installed on a seller’s mobile phone in order to work with Finclude?
A: No Finclude simply uses the mobile phone’s built in internet browser to communicate to the vendor’s server.

Q: What happens if a seller’s mobile phone is lost or stolen?
A: As Finclude stores nothing (no airtime stock and no transaction history) on the seller’s mobile phone there is no problem if the seller loses or misplaces their mobile phone. Once they have another mobile phone (with either the same cellular number or even a different number) they simply login using their ID and password and continue to sell where they left off.

Q: Can the system stock and sell items other than airtime vouchers?
A: Yes it can. Finclude can stock and sell any item which has a unique Serial/Pin number. This could include power vouchers, SIM card Starter packs even cellular phones themselves.

Q: Can the system sell items stocked in other systems?
A: Yes, Finclude can indeed sell items which it does not stock itself and whose stock needs to be retrieved from another external system at the instant of sale. Finclude provides an object interface to external systems for each product to be sold. This object reference can be accessed on the Product administrative screen.