I’m Serge, a reformed banker, turned entrepreneur, CEO of Diool, an app to make payment transactions with others simpler, using the method of your choice, online or at merchant’s store nearby.
I grew up in Africa, studied in Europe, traded complex financial derivatives for a large french bank on various markets around the world for 15 years.
I wanted to do something that mattered to Africa and its people.
Diool is a financial services platform, where users can make all sorts of transactions with others, using the payment or receiving method of their choice.
Transactions start with simple P2P payments and merchant payments, and underscore every aspect of our lives when we interact with others.
Our mission is to make them simpler for consumers in Africa, using data, financial and software engineering, at scale.
How did you get the idea to start your business?
The problem of payments and the time it takes to make or receive one is endemic in Africa.
It’s something that plagues consumers like you and me, financial services providers like banks, merchants like the ones we meet everyday in our streets.
We were frustrated by it and wanted to create something that would be as good as cash to use.
That mobile operators and banks started offering mobile money services to consumers was the opportunity we saw to create value for everyone with simple payment interchange
I cofounded Diool with Philippe Boupda, my younger brother, a telecom engineer with a large experience in working/integrating telecom systems.
We were later joined by Florian Mbayen on sales, and Nizar Klibi on technical architecture.
We’re now 15 and growing, around commercial, product, operations and support functions.
We’re always looking for talents anywhere, as long as they like Africa and technical challenges
Most people in Africa have difficulty chosing which method to pay or accept payment from someone else because it’s complex to reconcile multiple payment methods.
As a result, most resort to using cash, wasting a lot of precious time in the process of gathering or reconciling payments.
Diool makes the whole experience simpler by providing fast interchange as good cash
We provide payment interchange between different payment and receiving methods.
We earn fees on transactions executed for services integrated on the platform such prepaid recharges, bills, or other financial claims, that are issued by our clients.
We’re developing new products and adding new integrations for a bigger pool of clients, from financial institutions to retail consumer ones.
We’re scaling the network of merchants that serve as delivery/reselling points for their goods as services
Our goal is to scale that across Cameroon, then Central and West Africa for a start.
We have put a lot of dedication to create a product that would solve the need of consumers and distributors of financial services.
Our goal it to make it even better to simplify the life of our users.
Being able to speak about it and how it impacts lives is a great opportunity.
What are the contacts of the startup? Website, email, Mobile / WhatsApp, links to social networks?
You can always contact me by email (sergeb@diool.com) or twitter (@sboupda), or the team (contact@diool.com / @dioolapp)
We’re present on facebook, linkedin, twitter and instagram
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