Our product’ll phase out PoS machines -Happiness Etuk, CEO Tatup International Services
Happiness Etuk is the Chief Executive Officer of Tatup International Services Limited, a financial services company that acts both as a banking agent and Fintech company, which uses USSD to make cash deposits.
On September 18, Tatup presented its services to the public. In this interview with journalists, Etuk explains how their product would impact the financial industry. He had also earlier spoken with Pascal Oparada in a another interview.
Can you tell us what Tatup is all about?
Tatup International Services Limited is a banking agent and our focus is to make sure that we extend financial inclusion in Nigeria. That means we take banking services to the under-banked and unbanked population in Nigeria making people who don’t know what is a bank to experience banking. We do that through a digital platform. We want to see a situation where a large number of Nigerians will operate the banking system.
We came up with the idea that we should make every phone both Android and feature phone become like ATM in someone’s hands. By the time you dial our code that phone automatically becomes an ATM whereby you can do some strategic financial transactions such as cash deposit, cash transfer and every other transaction we might talk of.
But the major one is cash with us because it has been a problem that you must carry the cash to bank or to wherever to pay in the cash. In our case, you can also bank the cash wherever you are. You don’t need to move your cash around.
How do customers who have cash to send to somebody do so, do they take it to your agent who will now take it to the bank? How does the transaction happen?
The thing is that our code is able to push the amount involved to the bank without one going to the bank. So what we do is that our agents are scattered everywhere.
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In fact, our product is at every doorstep. So, you don’t need to travel far to get. Just as we can recharge our phones the way our product is there. So you take the money you are going to deposit and buy the pusher. Our product is the pusher of that money. It is not equivalent to the money but it is the pusher of the money.
So by the time you say you want to pay in N200,000, our agent around you will collect the money with a little service charge may be like N100 then they will give the code that acts as the pusher that will push N200,000. Then you use your phone to input the code it and immediately you have your alert.
Now the Federal Government is asking people to go cashless and you’re talking about people carrying cash. Isn’t there a conflict between you and the Federal Government policy?
No. There is no conflict. In Nigeria when we talk about cashless, we cannot totally eradicate cash in the system. This helps in pushing the cashless policy. We are like 10 that are supposed to carry cash to the bank. Ten of us now carry the cash to one person. It means that the rest of us can go home and it is now one person that will carry the cash. So, this helps to increase cashless policy.
How do you think this your product will boost the economy?
We looked at the problems and decided to solve part of the problems in the banking industry and we really know that our product will solve 80 percent of banking problems in terms of reducing the waiting hours for customers in the banking halls.
We know that banks don’t produce enough seats for people to sit on and wait. Our product will take care of all that. You just get and do your transactions yourself immediately. Everybody admires our product. When we go for market survey, there is no body that heard about it that said they don’t want it. With that I know that it will positively affect our economy.
How do you handle the issue of fraud both insider and external fraud in the system?
When we talk about fraud in the banking industry, we can not shy away from it. We expect that some people will want to try it. Measures have been put in place to make sure that those who try will fail.
But even if it will happen, I don’t think it will be much. I can’t just say it will be 100 percent. It happens even in the banking industry but they come out to announce that this is how much we’ve lost. I think we are capable of handling both internally and externally.
The security has been put in place to make sure that it is not possible to do it. By the time you pass through the bush track, we too are in the bush waiting for you, you pass the road, we are on the road waiting for you. I think we are able to tackle the issue of security.
Before you are allowed to sell one of our cards, you must be a licensed agent and then each of the cards belongs to someone. If someone used my card to defraud anyone, the first person that CBN will ask is me. How did the person get hold of my card? So me as a distributor or as dealer I need to keep myself because CBN has my particulars, BVN.
Whatever that happens to my card has a link to my BVN so that I will not defraud people with it. If I do, my name, my BVN and phone will signal CBN that such a person has done this. We put all this in place so that we minimise the issue of fraud.
Don’t you think that PoS is a threat to this business?
No. PoS is not a threat to our business. Last week, a little girl was crying that somebody went to her that he needed cash of N50,000 and he fraudulently transferred N50,000. The girl got an alert of N50,000 but the money was not in the account and the girl has already given the man the N50,000.
At the end of the day, the money was not there. He gave the lady three phone numbers. He said call these numbers if there is any issue. They called all three numbers but none of them went through. That is the risk in PoS. Even in PoS now, there are queues. You see people waiting for others to finish transaction. So, PoS is not a threat but rather this our product will remove PoS in the system.
When do you expect to start seeing results?
We are ready at any time and we are expecting that in the next three months the product is everywhere.
