Accept (Known as Paymob)

The Problem

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) represent 80% of Egypt’s GDP and 75% of Egypt’s private sector employment. With 105 million inhabitants, there are 57,3% of mobile internet users in Egypt. However, most of the SMEs do not operate with e-payments, it is estimated that 70% of transactions in Egypt are still cash based due to a lack of trust in the e-payments system. This causes a lack of opportunities for SMEs to expand its operations, as well as a missed opportunity to attract a new growing market of customers and operations online, especially after the outbreak of COVID-19.

Simultaneously, there are high rates of unemployment amongst youth in Egypt. Between the ages of 15 and 30 the unemployment rate was estimated to be 32,4% in 2019. The urgency to finding a solution to this problem becomes clear when we consider the rate of unemployment among youth was estimated to be 12,8% in 2015.

Additionally, many young Egyptians work in the informal sector, which often does not provide decent and safe working conditions. Because of this, many youths aspire to work in the formal sector, but are not learning nor developing the necessary skills to join it now or in the future.

Women face additional problems when seeking employment, which is reflected in their unemployment rates. 44% of young women are NEET, not in formal employment, education, or training. Which emphasizes on the important of fighting youth employment, especially for young, Egyptian women.

The Solution

With our project, DigitiZ your way to profits, we are proposing the expansion of our current business to reach more merchants in Egypt with and through our products. We will target 2968 merchants to transform their operation from offline to online portals and online payment gateways, helping them pay their bills and pay-outs digitally. We will also use our newly developed application to target more merchants in the following two years.

With this project, we also introduce the Manage Product, which helps merchants to digitally manage their operations in a simple, more cost-efficient manner, while linking them to the government’s portal of e-taxes.

Additionally, we will be working on enhancing and improving the working conditions of our already existing and future employees by improving the employees financial, psychological and physical working conditions. We will do this by renewed HR policies and by providing solutions to pressing needs such as family insurance and work transportation.

With this project we will create employment opportunities for more than 6152 young, Egyptian men and women, and we will improve the lives of more than 2160 young, Egyptian men and women.

We believe that if PayMob develops, then SMEs will be provided with the skills and knowledge that they need to be financially included. This will lead to growth in their business operations and will create more employment opportunities for youth, particularly women, in Egypt.

Additionality 

It is likely that with the CFYE support, the project will be better designed, proceed more quickly, or reach more young people than it otherwise would have. The plan will be able to be executed in four years instead of two.

There are two main reasons why the support of CFYE is important. First, it will contribute to accelerating Accept and Zammits national expansion, by utilizing the fund to hire more employees in a shorter period of time. This will in its turn lead to acquiring merchants in a faster manner and allow us to help these merchants grow. Second, it will help us become more socially responsible and better engaged with our audience, maximizing the impact of the company’s contribution to the growing challenge of youth employment.