Freelancers and digital nomads have for decades faced big challenge with receiving payments for their services.
Their inability to access financial banking services as they move from one location to the other has affected the growth of their businesses and impacted negatively on African economies. Co-Founder/ CEO of Grey Inc. , Idorenyin Obong Obong, speaks on how his company has stepped in to ensure that people across Africa, including nomads can send and receive payment in any currency safely, quickly, and affordably.
The payment industry has seen rise in the use of unofficial channels to send and receive money due to high cost of sending funds to receivers in remote areas through the official channels. How is your company dealing with this challenge by making the cost of your services affordable to customers?
We understand that our customers should not have to suffer from expensive fees and charges when it comes to international money transfers. That’s why we built Grey, a platform that enables users to send and receive foreign currencies safely, quickly, and most importantly, affordably. We absorb most of the operational costs to ensure our transaction fees remain fair. Our users can be reassured that we will maintain this approach
How are you able to deal with currency risks associated with sending funds from one country to the other and what rules do you apply is converting such currencies?
At Grey, we are very mindful of legal and regulatory rules regarding our products and services. This is why we have a highly-competent compliance and legal team that conduct rigorous checks to ensure we remain compliant with the laws in each country.
Is Grey Inc under any regulatory supervision, especially central banks of countries where it operates?
Definitely! We are registered and regulated by FINTRAC and FinCEN. Though we are a fintech company, not a bank, our banking services are provided in collaboration with licensed banking partners who are also subject to all of the appropriate regulatory bodies in their countries.
You are the Co-Founder and CEO of Grey Inc. How would you advise start- ups and other entrepreneurs who always complained about challenge of getting funding, and difficult operating environment as hindrances to their operations?
I encourage start-up founders to focus on creating products that solve problems, validating them, and understanding the metrics that drive their business. Once they have mastered these steps, they will naturally position their product to attract capital. They should also consider networking with other players, taking advantage of accelerator programmes, or other capital opportunities that may become available.
Grey Inc is one of the payment companies bringing financial services closer to the people at the grassroots. How are you able to do that and what impact has your operations had in its areas of coverage?
Our mission as a start-up has always been to make it easier for digital nomads to work and live in the modern world. We are helping to bring seamless transactions of foreign currencies to the grassroots, allowing anyone in Africa to send, receive and convert foreign currency anytime, any day through Grey.
It all began when we identified that remote workers and digital nomads, including myself, had difficulty accessing global banking services. We then brainstormed and developed a product that was initially called Aboki Africa but is now known today as Grey.
We have begun operations in Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania. We have helped over 200,000 people in these countries open foreign bank accounts. They can now receive payments from companies around the world with our services.
Africa’s remote workers and digital nomads are known to have limited access to global banking services. How are you able to serve this class of customers and what services do you provide to them?
In solving the payment issues that African freelancers and digital nomads experience with global banking services, we first identified their pain point: the need for more access to international banking. Then, we developed products that addressed that pain: foreign accounts.
Recognizing this issue, we developed a product to address it. Our services include creating foreign bank accounts,
transferring funds, providing 24/7 currency conversion/exchange, and our most recent offering of virtual cards.
We aim to help digital nomads reduce the difficulty of receiving foreign employers’ payments.
The Covid-19 pandemic affected several businesses, but it was a great growth opportunity for others. Where does Grey Inc. belong in these two divides?
I like to think that the year of the pandemic was significant for us. We realized we could go beyond what we believed was possible during this year. Grey was established the same year the pandemic began, so it’s been an incredibly fruitful opportunity for us.
We noticed that freelancers in Nigeria were having difficulty receiving their salaries from overseas employers, so we created a platform that, at that time, offered instant currency exchange services to bridge that gap.
Tell us about Freelancing and how it impacts your business of payment?
A freelancer is not an employee of a company and is, therefore, free to work on multiple projects simultaneously for different people or businesses unless they have a written contract committing them to do so until a specific task is finished.
Freelancing is when someone works on individual client projects without being employed full-time. Often they take on multiple projects with various clients at one time. Payments are typically made per project, task, or hour, depending on the agreement. A freelancer is not an employee of a company and is, therefore, free to work on multiple projects simultaneously for different people or businesses unless they have a written contract committing them to do so until a specific task is finished.
At Grey, freelancers and digital nomads are our main customer base. We rely on them for our business and provide a service that solves their foreign payment problems.
How would you describe all that Grey Inc does to a layman given that its operations seem not to be widely known in this part of the Africa?
Grey is a platform that helps freelancers and digital nomads send and receive foreign payments.
Nigeria has a lot of challenges facing its e-payment industry led by commercial banks, Fintechs and other financial institutions. Some of these challenges include poor network quality, rising cases of e-fraud and arbitrary charges by service providers. How best do you think these challenges can be tackled to enhance the confidence of the people in the financial system?
So, speaking about how Grey addresses the challenges of the e-payment industry in Nigeria, we partner with top-notch service providers and adhere to strict rules and regulations so that our users’ safety and security are always top-of-mind. As for fees, we absorb most of the operational costs to ensure they remain fair. Through these measures, we have been able to boost people’s confidence in the financial system.
Have you considered the challenge of facilitating payment for nomads or people that work remotely whose Know Your Customer (KYC) may be difficult to ascertain and how are you dealing with that?
Regarding facilitating payments for nomadic or remote workers whose KYC may be hard to ascertain, Grey adheres to an extensive verification process as part of our KYC compliance protocol. This process allows us to foster greater trust, transparency, and collaboration while managing risk.
Tell us about the performance of Grey Inc. in terms of profitability, and years of operation?
Since launching in 2020, we have seen tremendous growth in profitability, structure, and operations. In just two short years, we have already expanded our business across three African countries and look forward to expanding into even more locations.
What is your view on partnerships and collaborations by payment service providers to ensure seamless services delivery to customers?
We are all for partnerships and collaborations with payment service providers – after all, we already have some excellent industry partners with whom we work to ensure our customers receive seamless services.
What is Grey Inc.’s five-year vision, on expansion, profitability, and product development plan?
Our goals are not just to expand; I believe that’s every business goal. Our five-year business vision is to move beyond expansion and profitability, even though that comes with it. One goal is to serve more countries and to increase the number of digital nomads we can help with our products.
Another will be to ensure the process of using the product is as seamless as possible. That’s why we are currently looking for ways to either improve our products or look at a new product that can effectively serve the needs of our desired clients.
