Dopay, a London based startup backed by Barclays Bank, have championed this approach with their cloud-based payroll service in Egypt. Their product allows employers and small businesses to calculate salaries and pay employees electronically without having a bank account. By taking the time to learn about users’ emotional frustrations around money, they were able to design a service that caters for a diverse local audience, with different financial and educational backgrounds.
Central Bank of Egypt in Cairo. The challenge of reaching Egypt’s 53.3 million job holders with no bank account requires businesses to rethink their ways of working. Photograph: Mohamed Abd El A young generation of tech savvy users in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region are forcing companies, businesses and government agencies to reimagine the way they connect with people on a local level. This shift has revealed new market opportunities and a previously unexplored category of consumers at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Entrepreneurs in the region have looked at global innovations to inspire their own. What has resulted isn’t a reinventing of the wheel, but a reimagining of existing products and services that can better meet consumers’ needs.
