Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: 500 gimmick.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Inflation.
Just a word. But like yeast, it makes everything rise, rise so high even our savings can bite. From food to transportation to clothing to even rent, the recent basic income barely feels like it came.
Our hard earned money failing to dance to the rhythm of inflation. We barely get through today only to worry about tomorrow. Yet tomorrow carries so much hope on its shoulders. Hope amidst the fear of how it will turn out. But despite the gloom there, there is good news. We found the best way to save. With Jolof plus interest so high, 21% net, even inflation stands no chance. So today we breathe and choose to secure tomorrow.
Today we save to beat inflation tomorrow with Jolof plus.
Download the Jolof plus app on Google Play Store or Apple store and earn up to 21% net on your savings.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Tech Points Afka podcast. I am Oluwanife Mikola Olle and with me in the studio today is Chimgozurim. We are here to do what we do. I try not to say what you know how to do best, but yeah, this is what we do every week. And thank you for always joining us to discuss happiness in the african tech space every week. Today is not an exemption as we are going to be talking about different things that are happening in different parts of Africa, um, from Egypt to Kenya, and then the overall african tech ecosystem.
One thing that happened online this week that I found, I came across it and it was quite sad. Um, was um, 26 year old indian that um, died from, from, according to the reports, overworking from being extremely stressed from working. Apparently she joined a big four company in India five months ago, quite excited as a new employee. And according to the statement released by the mom, she was stressed and then she died.
It was hard to read and I kind of caused attention back to for one, which counts the cost of any industry we want to go into. Either is the startup space, which is quite fast paced, or is a big four company that requires you to do a lot to lend your ropes and climb the ladder.
May I so rest in peace, and may our parents and our family have the fortitude to bear the loss. And this is a good time to remind us all to take care of our health.
It is your body that you're using to work and if it's not in good shape, then you will not be able to do the work productively. So it's a call to take care of your health. Moving on from that, let's go to the stories that we have in front of us today. First is M copper and a ruling that was not in their favor in Kenya based on their request to be exempt from tax under the double taxation treaty between Kea and UK.
Unfortunately, the tax appeals tribunal ruled against them and said they have to continue paying their taxes in Kenya based on the claims that their headquarters in the country and also their top administrators reside in the company. One thing that came to mind when I read that story was, why? Why did they go and make that request?
That was before I even saw that it was under the double taxation treaty, since M copper is incorporated in the UK. But I just thought Chimwas junior was one that called my attention to it, that it's not the same case with big tech companies that are operating in other markets or african markets. The taxes they are expected to pay is different to this chimpanzee. Is there like a little background you can give us about what the double taxation treaty is about?
[00:05:26] Speaker C: Well, okay, so it's kind of a common practice among certain countries. So basically, taxation is like a major expense for most companies.
And so you will either find some companies trying to either get. So in some cases, the government gives you things called, like, pioneer status. I think we have a few companies have been able to get it in Nigeria. Flutterwave reportedly was unable to get that because they applied after the deadline, if I'm not mistaken. So we have like, tax exemptions, tax breaks that you give to companies either to encourage them to operate in your country or to encourage them to make certain investments. So the double taxation treaties is usually for companies that have operations in one, in more than one location. So, for example, let's say you have your business cuts across, let's say, six, seven countries, and you will, in most cases, you may have to pay taxes in each jurisdiction. So what this kind of treaty does is, okay, fine, you're operating in Nigeria and you're also operating in, let's say, togo, for example. If Nigeria has a double taxation treaty with Togo, then you will probably be exempt. In fact, most times you will be exempt from paying taxes in either Nigeria or Togo.
The governments have their way of ensuring that nobody is sort of losing out and all of that, but it helps companies to reduce their tax burden. So I guess M copper was trying to ride on that and say, okay, we are incorporated in the UK.
Let's get a few million shaved off our tax body. But that did not go very well for them.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
Pardon me, if this question might be.
Might not be the.
Well, let me just ask. I know M copper is operating in some african countries like Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Twizzler, those are like, it's.
The countries is operating. But the fact that it's incorporated in the UK. In the UK doesn't mean it's also paying tax in the UK.
[00:07:56] Speaker C: I mean, if they are making that argument, then they are probably. They are definitely paying taxes in the UK.
They have to. I mean, I don't. I don't see why you would make an appeal to be exempt from taxes in a specific country based on a double taxation treaty if you're not paying tax in the other country. So they are. The most likely are. Definitely. I don't see the. Because I haven't checked, like, their tax records and all, but they most likely are paying taxes in the UK.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: In the UK. Okay.
[00:08:31] Speaker C: So although what is in. What is. I don't know if I'll say. Interesting to me is I can understand being incorporated in the UK, but I do not know what the setup of the company looks like in the UK for them to want to claim tax exemption in Kenya, because. So from what I've seen, a few companies, a few african companies that are incorporated in the UK, they don't have any operations and I don't think M corporate has an operation in the UK. So what they typically do is we are incorporated in the UK. Fair enough. But we are nothing operating in the UK. So even things like filing, filing financial statements or financial reports, they would. What you typically see, I can't remember the name of that.
They do a filing, but it's not like a full financial filing. So you wouldn't. It's just, you may. You may just see, like, okay, shareholders. Like, there's a company structure that they use. So I don't know how M Corpus is set up that gives them that. Is it the confidence to go claim that exemption? I wonder what their own setup looks like.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Well, the tribunal's claim is until the company is able to establish that those people that are making the decisions, administrative decisions for the company, are not residents in Kenya. Maybe they can revisit the conversation by then. But there is a claim that the CEO, the CFO, the CCO, are all residing in Kenya. So maybe if they change their place of residence to the UK, maybe they can have a claim.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: I mean, it's back taxes. So even if you change it, it doesn't really do much for you. It will affect you in the future. But not all the back taxes.
Except those guys were also living abroad during that period.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So.
Well, as you mentioned, something has to give them the confidence to go after this and if they are probably serious about it, maybe they will appeal. Hopefully.
[00:10:44] Speaker C: I mean, it was an appeal that brought them here, so it's left to be seen. What comes out of it?
[00:10:49] Speaker A: What comes out of it? Yes. The insight for the week is about Kenya's tax revenue. Over the years, Kenya doubled its tax revenue in less than a decade. It increased from 1.7 trillion Kenya shillings in 2014 to 2.17 trillion Kenya shillings in 2023. To get more insights like this and others in different industries, visit Intelpoint.
So let's move from Kenya to Egypt.
An egyptian startup made raised a precede, a $250,000 precede fund. And it is not the raise that actually got our attention, but what the startup does. So the name of the egyptian startup is Farid or Faridgesthe. Let me use Yoruba to pronounce it Farid. It used to be called Farid Academy and it's an ethic platform or startup, and it just raised two hundred fifty k dollars in precede now to what the startup offers or the solution it offers. Interestingly, unlike the typical, the typical ethic, this platform focuses on helping children rather to develop their.
To develop, say, their thinking skills, their personalities, help them to develop good morals, etiquette, help them to explore other cultures in the world. Basically, the things that are probably the back burner when it comes to learning these things are the things that this startup is focused on. And not just that, that solution is actually focused primarily on kids between three and 16 years, if I'm right. So it's focused on kids. But aside from that, the company, the startup also has a solution or a product that focuses on business.
B. Two. B side of it is it's helping companies to train their employees in these basic soft skills that are very important to the work they do. Now, as I mentioned, what this startup does turns out to me, because recently I've been having different conversations about talent development, talent management. And one of the things that experts have mentioned is that some of the things that people are supposed to learn in their formative stage before they enter into academic institutions, or some of these things they are supposed to learn alongside the academics are supposed to help them when they eventually get into the job market or start working, are missing. And that is why we see many of the things we now see among talent missing, soft skills like teamwork, communication skills, creative thinking. These things are supposed to come up during the affirmative stage and it's nice to see a company or a startup that is focused on it. This startup has started operating since 2018 and he just got his precede fund six years later. Right.
Ethic, we understand that etech do not really get funded that much, but their, their proposition what is, is there a possibility of it scaling? Although it sounds like a nice to have, it sounds like something I would love to see more startups do. Right. But do you think it is scalable, this solution they are offering?
[00:15:03] Speaker C: I think it's scalable. I think so the, my first thought was, okay, what's, what's this all about? Why do you want to, why are you starting in business to basically teach kids etiquette?
I mean, basically teach kids soft skills. Right. And yes, I see your point about why it's important or why such eventually is necessary.
I'm just looking at how defensible is such a model. It's too niche in my opinion. And I'm wondering how defensible is this? So Anetek, could, that already targets this same category, could tack this on as a feature, and if they are better executors or they have a larger market, all of a sudden the feature you had could just go off like, because this is, this is essentially a feature to me. So that's why on its own, I mean, we've seen features turned into products, but it just feels like a nice to have feature. Like you said, and like I said earlier, I'm worried about, not worried because I'm not the one running this business. I am just concerned, cautious. I'm not even concerned because it feels like I'm a nice person. Like I'm just cautious about the business.
What happens if a computer, like I said, comes up and then they decide to do something similar? Because it really takes nothing for them to say, okay, we already have like a healthy number of students who are using our platform. How about we just give them soft skills and all of a sudden you see your market share shrink because of that. And now, because they already have a number of, like, if they, if they have a large enough market, your product or your feet, okay, your product now could be offered at the subsidized race. I was trying to get, find, find their pricing. I couldn't find that, but if I already have. So imagine let's, let's move away from kids.
So a coursera, for example, has courses on stuff like this.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:17] Speaker C: Um, and then let's say you now, we have finishing schools in Nigeria. I know back in 20 20 13, 20 14, 20 15, there were quite a number of finishing skills. So the problem of, um, talent not being enough is, is not new. There are finishing schools in Nigeria that we were not startups, of course, but they were finishing schools that the goal was, okay, you're done with school, we would teach you certain skills. I don't know where most of them are today. I think recently I was trying to look for one that I remembered. I think I could only find the founder and she had moved on to other things. So how long can you stay without having someone else build out your feature? That's one concern. The other would be your. I don't know if this is VC funding because they raised all of the money from one person. So I don't know if it comes with the pressure that you having a VC backed startup comes with now, not just scaling quickly, but you have to, you could scale quickly and not have the returns that the VC's need. So if it's a, let's say it's a passion, a lifestyle business, it's fine, you could probably get to a couple millions in revenue and the investor would make some money off their, of their investment.
But I don't know if they are, if they have plans of raising venture capital from like proper VC firms, I think they will struggle.
Yeah, I think they will struggle. I haven't seen too many startups doing this, and if there are not too many people doing this, then there's probably a very good reason why that isn't the case.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: As you mentioned, the possibility of them like going really far because of how niche the solution they provide is. But the fact also remains that if it is a problem, maybe, maybe what they are supposed to do is slap it, slap the startup tag on it. But if it's a problem, then it is worth solving.
[00:19:20] Speaker C: I'm not saying it isn't worth solving, I'm only saying if you're building something like this, we've heard people say what you're building is a feature that a big tech company can easily replicate. And yes, the famous retort is how frequently do you see them do that? But it happens a whole lot of like, it happens so frequently.
I was watching a video, I think yesterday night, and Sim Shagaya was mentioning or mentioned that two of the earlier startups he built or attempted to build basically dead on arrival, because just a few, a few months after, I think one was one of them, Google Maps was responsible for his demise. I can't remember the other one. What basically, like, I think it was Google both times that came up with a product and all of a sudden because one, they have more reach and they have deeper pockets automatically, they could get way more people using their product. So I'm not saying don't build it. I'm only saying if you're going to do something like this, yes, there's a cleaning. Oh, there are a lot of problems, in fact, with the business model. So that's ethics training, which is, I guess, okay, there's. So I think I saw something about morale. Morale training. I don't know why you want to take on that body, to be fair, because we are in an increasingly polarized world. I do not want my kids to be, I don't want my kids to be getting their morals, in quotes from some random online school. So I don't know how acceptable you would be to parents.
That's one problem. Some of the things that you would, you want to teach, apart from the soft skills that are needed in the workplace, some of the things that they want to teach. I saw something spiritual, I think. Physical. Okay, no, spiritual, emotional. These are things that typically you expect the parents to take charge in. Right. And if you're going to be doing that, I don't know how you get acceptance, really. I really don't know how you're going to get acceptance because there are already other institutions that are set up, even if they are not startups, their institutions set up to do a lot of those things.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: So I really want to know what's going on in the mind of the founders of this startup and if this podcast gets to them, to the founders of Fareed Academy, it would be great. It would be nice to see how they've been faring since they launched in 2018.
Market acceptance, for instance, feedback from parents. We also like to know that, because this will give, like, a clearer view of how receptive the market is to this idea. But the b two B one, do you think there is a.
There is a market there.
[00:22:33] Speaker C: So it depends on what your, your offer is. If it is soft skills training, then there's definitely a market there. Whether you will now take advantage of the market is an entirely different case. But yeah, there's a market. There's a market there for the b two b side.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: All right. Yeah. So you don't like me saying this, but all the best academy. I said it. I said it. I like all the. I like the solution.
[00:23:00] Speaker C: Of course you like it.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Of course I like it.
Okay, let's move on to the last conversation we are going to have today. So there's an ongoing conversation about fraud in the financial services space. Right. Something comes to mind, and there was a time where there were a lot of noise about how much fraud is committed with crypto, for instance. And people are like, what are you talking about? If you see the amount of fraud that is committed with fiat, you will not even be paying attention to crypto. So the issue of fraud in the financial services space is nothing.
And the available data showed that in the first quarter of 2020, 411 thousand, 472 fraud cases were recorded. That's according to the financial institutions Training Center, FITC. And in the second quarter of the year, 11,532 fraud cases were reported. But when it comes to the amount of money lost in those two quarters, it's like the gap is significant.
For instance, in the first quarter, 2.9 billion naira was lost. But in the second quarter, 56.3 billion naira was lost. So that shows, goes to show the gravity of how much losses go into fraud, financial fraud in the financial services space. Some of them have affected fintech and a lot of them have been reported so far this year. Flutter wave.
Then there is inter switch. Then there is Wema bank. So there are a lot of fraud cases that have been reported this year. And maybe it's a good sign that it's not getting talked about right. More people are not talking about it. I remember there was a time get acquitted CEO also talked about it, wrote a very informative, insightful piece about it and how communication between startups can help reduce it, maybe not entirely, entirely curb it. And I feel this is the conversation that we should have. Again, what is, what are, what is, what are the regulators doing about this? Right. We know that fraud will always be since money is involved, right?
I mean, this is ending startups and businesses. What are regulators doing about it?
[00:25:56] Speaker C: In Nigeria, for instance, what are regulators doing about it? I'll say a lot, or maybe a few things. One would be from the KYC angle, which is just strengthening KYC regulations. So what has changed? What has changed since.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: There was a story earlier in the year about increasing KYC for requirement. I'll be tightening KYC requirement for fintechs.
[00:26:26] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: When they were, when, at the point when they were told not to register in your account.
[00:26:31] Speaker C: Yeah. So it was, it was a, that directive was, was like, it was directly related to the fraud incidents. So a common practice for fraud stars is you, you move a large amount of money from one account and because of regulations, banking regulations, you'll typically be unable to move that money out of the banking system at once. So what you do is like you distribute it into multiple accounts in banks, fintechs, like just anything. And the easiest way to do it is those tier one accounts that have very minimal KYC requirements. Right. So basically what the CBN has done or has, let's increase the, let's increase, we increase the requirements that we have for tier one accounts. Now, if you do that, it would reduce how quickly those monies are moved out first as we would have to think twice. Okay. Should I really take this channel anymore? Because now you have to provide a little bit more information than you were doing before. So that's, that's one major change. Um, of course, banks, for example, are required to report, um, fraud cases. But like, a few people have said how many? Like, there are too many fraud cases that they can't possibly report. All of them. Um, so for the sake of their brand, not just for the sake of their brand, like, you're not reporting to the public. You're reporting to the CBN.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:02] Speaker C: So there are too many. Not that they are not aware. Like, they are just too many. How many do you want to report?
[00:28:08] Speaker A: Everything.
[00:28:09] Speaker C: Yeah. How many do you want to report? That's a lot of work. So do you want to leave your banking work and go and do fraud work you have to choose about? So that's one problem. So I think it's mainly around tightening those KYC regulations and kind of putting now putting like, consequences in place so you don't adhere. Because, for example, the fintechs whose, and we've talked about the defendex whose account onboarding process, if you stopped, you definitely will feel it. It's very simple. I mean, initially, it was a long time. Yeah, I think it was about a month or two. Yeah.
I think I argued against the manner in which that was done. And I still, like, I still maintain that argument. But if you know that your regulator can move funny, you will try to anticipate the regulator. So in a way, the bad, the not so several tactics of the regulator will prompt fintechs to, like, just think twice about how they do KYC. And this is important because, so union 54 had to shut down because, or had to pivot because they had a lot of chargeback fraud. And talking about the new product they are building, which is still doing something similar to what they were doing. But now b, two c, CEO talks about how previously they had to pass on the burden of KYC to the fintechs they were working with because they were b, two b, so they were not customer facing. But now that they are customer facing, they have full control over what their KYC processes look like. And yes, everybody doubts that they are. Everyone says that KYC processes are the best, I guess, except we see your processes in house before we can make a decision. But everyone swears that. Oh, we don't, we don't. We are not lax with our kyc. Everyone swears that. But I mean, until we see your in house processes. So, yeah, just tightening those KYC regulations and we. There was the whole issue around Pos, whether you want to. Registration of agents and then geofencing of the, of the POS terminals. That hasn't started. To the best of my knowledge. The registration is still ongoing and like, I don't know how it's. How. This was also a problem we, we talked about.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:39] Speaker C: The time that it would take. Geofencing is kind of easy in some way because it's a software. It's like a software.
What do you call it now? It's a software upgrade. So I just need the stereom to come and then that happens. But, yeah, then we also want to.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Retrieve from the market.
[00:30:58] Speaker C: Yeah, because the numbers are ridiculous. Like numbers of pos terminals we have. That's one problem. I think there was also the re registering of POS terminals. So we haven't seen a lot of those moves take off because I guess they are taking it one by one. But POS agent registration is still ongoing. They had to extend the deadline.
And these other ones haven't started, to the best of my knowledge. So it's probably going to take. We are probably going to start seeing some of these things by next year. The year is almost over. This is, I think, four months now since they talked about having to register pos. I'm expecting any concrete move to happen in 2025.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So the glitters are doing theirs. It's just execution that is the issue. Right. They have things to do, but they just need to execute it. So going from there to the players in the space, the main players in the space, the fintechs, the financial services providers. What are they doing about it? What are they not doing about it?
[00:32:02] Speaker C: What are they not doing about it? Okay, let's start with the easy one. What are they doing? Which again, KYC. Stronger Kyc.
Training of employees, ensuring that you have proper AML. Depending on the kind of service you offer. Ensuring you have proper AML and AML practices. Really?
So that's on one hand, I think I've talked about training their staff, having the best hands around and also spotting patterns, like spotting the common fraud patterns and trying to nip it in the board. Another thing would also be customer education. So your customers could be weak points.
It doesn't have to always be something that maybe, yes, we know that, like, collision among employees is a common cause of fraud, a common source of fraud. But we also know that customers can be weaklings. So if a customer, for example, has given out their pin to a relative, or maybe they've gone to use their pin on a compromised device, then they could lose their money. And really you can help them. You've probably seen people who lost their money, and then they go to the bank or financial institution and they're saying, look, it's out of our hands. This transaction shows that it was initiated with your credentials. So we really can't do anything because it was authorized. There was no, there was no hack, there was no forceful breaking into your account or anything like that.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: But seriously, that needs to be revisited.
[00:33:44] Speaker C: Why should it be revisited?
[00:33:45] Speaker A: Because, okay, one, people, sometimes people transfer out of this seat. People move fund out of this seat.
[00:33:52] Speaker C: They were, okay, so how's that my business?
[00:33:54] Speaker A: Yes, that is why you're dead.
You can't, I'm not saying you should take on the liability. I'm just trying to say that you should have a system in place to protect, I guess, you, because people transfer on that duress, you are kidnapped at gunpoint. You are, these things are happening and transfer and move money.
[00:34:17] Speaker C: True. But I would like to see, and this might be difficult to find. I'd like to see, like, what percentage of those cases, like what percentage of fraud cases are as a result of duress or maybe deceit.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: I'd like to see it usually deceit.
[00:34:38] Speaker C: Okay. I would like to see what percentage and maybe is even big enough for someone to commit significant resources to doing that.
[00:34:48] Speaker A: Maybe not necessarily. Maybe they just need to be, to pay attention. I probably want to investigate or something, because most of the times investigate towards end.
[00:34:58] Speaker C: Okay, so one trigger can be like, increased activity on a user's account. So, for example, someone has had a stable amount of money, little influence and outflows, but they've basically maintained, like, a steady or stable account, like account balance. And then all of a sudden, maybe you see that there have been subsequent, like, frequent withdrawals within a very short period. So it could be, I think they flagged that. Yeah, exactly. In a, in a lot of cases, um, that is flagged. So that, that helps already. But, man, if you go and give out your Pin, which is why it's very, it's very, very, um, tricky. Right.
If you can give out your pin, if you will do that, just do what a lot of people already do, which is if you're going to be giving out your pin, then that account would, it would be an account that typically doesn't have a lot of money. So you want someone to go to help you withdraw, you give them a particular ATM card. Okay, precious edit signal, ATM card. You give them a particular debit card. And then the, like, you transfer money.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: Cards.
[00:36:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I think even some fintechs now have it, so that's something you can do. But really, I think there's a whole lot that customers can do on their own end, but without having the adequate knowledge. Because the truth is, I don't know anyone who is waking up every day is like, okay, let me see, is anybody trying to hack my account or something like that?
Yeah. So I think companies can do a lot on their end to encourage customers to be more security conscious. Whether it's you running frequent ads, it could be you hosting webinars, something like that. But I think companies can do a lot and then also strengthen your own abilities to detect fraud. I mean, we've talked a lot about collaborations, industry collaborations, and there was a project, I think it was a project that was mooted last year between certain fintechs for this, to combat this problem. And well, we haven't heard much about that, so I don't know when that is ever going to come, like when that's going to happen. And interestingly, I found the, I found a fintech that I guess let's call them is if, you know, for all purposes, they are compliance startup that just raised a precede round this week and they are doing so when I, like, I think that was, I think I saw the day I published that article after, but when I said I was like, okay, interesting. So just as fraud is growing, there are people who are already building solutions to do that. So yes, the fraud problem is going to create a new set of companies, or companies would have to build in house solutions for themselves. I think the startup already works regful. Um, it already works with carry wise and piggyvest. So yeah, um, it would create opportunities. But I think startups are probably, well, the ones that are serious about what they are doing, they are taking it seriously, the others are not.
[00:38:12] Speaker A: I feel like a collaboration between the regulators doing what they say they want to do, startups collaborating more and coming up with defense mechanisms, and also customers getting educated on what they should do. I think a collaboration of those three is going to go a long way. It's going to go a long way. And I think to a large extent, because of the way liability has been shifted a lot to customers.
[00:38:44] Speaker C: Liability hasn't been shifted to customers.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: I'm not saying, okay, so what we.
[00:38:49] Speaker C: Assume what the case is, in the.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: Case of the losses, I mean, cases of losses that involve, not internal fraud committed by the financial institutions, in case of those losses, the liabilities are shifted.
[00:39:05] Speaker C: On them, on customers. I build a house. I'm a landlord and I build a house, I rent that house out, and then I tell you, hey, for security purposes, lock your doors at night.
Ensure that you do not make, if you make duplicates of the key, do not give them out to strangers, or do not give them out to people who do not live in this house. Before you go to bed at night, ensure the gate to the house is always locked. And then for some reason, one day, you either slip off and forget to lock the gate.
The best I will do for you, and I may be a wicked person, but the best I would do for you is to do a.
And that would be it. I am not going to be.
If they, for example, not only stole from you, but also destroyed the door to your house, and now you have to fix it, or probably someone else will come in, I won't help you, because when I did this, when I gave you the house, I said, take these actions or take these steps in order to protect yourself. So there's the responsibility that financial institutions are to have, but you also have your own responsibility. And where it is established that you breached your own end, I mean, that's why terms and conditions exist. And it's not just fintechs now that do this, like, or it's not just financial institutions that do this. You will see in certain cases where the businesses put it in their terms and conditions, that, oh, this is our own part. This is your own part. If for some reason, you reach your own part of the bargain, then we are not going to be liable because it's probably underreported. Right. But financial institutions already lose a huge amount of money through fraud. Now, if they have to tack on the responsibility, because investigating costs money, even like investigating costs money. All the steps you have to take to recover money that was lost or funds that was lost, it also costs money. So it may not be a loss, like in the sense that you were hacked, but that's money nobody's going to pay you for.
So I think that the situation of things as it stands, I mean, maybe it could be better. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I disagree that customers are like, they be at the brunt of the, of the.
[00:41:36] Speaker A: No, they're actually saying the same thing. I'm not saying that. I'm saying the ones that are responsible for, they bear the liability. So what, where I was heading with that was that there are a lot of, a lot of effort should be put into educating customers. Yes, I know you've told them before. I know this, this should be common knowledge, but you should still pay more attention to educating them about it. Right. Make putting it in their faces. The one that is mostly common is financial institutions always calling you, or you see it in your bank app or you see it as messages. Don't give anybody your pin when somebody calls you, don't give them your OTP. And all these things, they go a long way in helping.
[00:42:14] Speaker C: Hopefully people are reading it because.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: Yes. Like if you use the sms, are they reading it? If you can use billboards, you can use. I'm just trying to say that they can put effort in those things because customer education is still a very huge part in protecting every party involved in from financial fraud. So that was where I was heading. Yes. So this is another moment we are using to tell people that be careful. You give your pin.
[00:42:44] Speaker C: Don't give anybody your pin.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: To be fair, you should not give your child.
[00:42:47] Speaker C: Yes. Don't give your child because you don't. I mean, except.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: So my parents should not give me their pin.
[00:42:53] Speaker C: Yes. You may be a criminal for what? It's what may be a criminal. If you're not a criminal, you might know. You might know a criminal. If you don't know a criminal, you might go and meet a criminal. Exactly. Or you may write it down. Like, especially with kids, it's tricky because usually they will write.
Write the pin down on sheets of.
[00:43:12] Speaker A: Paper, put it on their palm.
[00:43:13] Speaker C: Exactly. And someone sees it. And like. So, for example, something I occasionally think about when I use pos is like how insecure it is when it comes to protecting your pin. So I'm about to impute my pin and there are like two or three other people standing around me and I'm now. Exactly. I'm looking around my shoulder and I'm trying to like, think of some interesting maneuvers in order to ensure that you do not guess what my opinion is. And I don't know, I'm, I can be a bit paranoid when I'm doing stuff like this. It's not like I have plenty money, but the little one I have, I don't want it lost. So I can be very paranoid. I'm looking around like, okay, how do I move? How do I time the movement of my fingers across those keys so that you do not guess? And then sometimes I leave and I'm wondering, okay, is it possible my fingerprints is still on it and they'll be able to trace it or replicate it?
[00:44:10] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, I guess, yes. It's still. We just have to be careful. Exact care is needed on our, on our end to prevent ourselves from financial fraud. And there's more to uncover in that story. You can go to Tech Point Africa website. You find some of the stories we've discussed today, and especially this financial fraud case. You can read it and also drop your comments. You can send us your feedback via podcast at Techpoint Africa. Podcast at Techpoint Africa will be, will be to be great to receive that. You can also send us a DM or comment on any, under any of our snippets on our social media platform, Techpoint Africa on X, Techpoint Africa on Instagram, on Facebook, on LinkedIn. You can follow us on those platforms. You will see some of our snippets. Don't forget to comment and drop your feedback for us. There also is a good time to remind you that we have other podcasts running in tech points. We have asides the tech point of our podcast. We have the modern workplace conversations. We have liquidity merchants. We have Au Ku tech works. And all these podcasts also have their corresponding newsletters. So subscribe and follow us on all these platforms.
Kim Kazim, is there any other thing.
[00:45:37] Speaker C: You want to tell in no, M cop, I can't pay your taxes.
[00:45:46] Speaker A: Crush guys. Bye. Catch you in the next one.
[00:45:50] Speaker C: Bye.
