Bank of Uganda has reinstated operating licenses of Pivot Payments, a Financial Technology company that deals in mobile wallet banking.
The company had cumulatively traded over UGX 72 Bn with more than 1.4 million Transactions and 100,000 customers, before the Central Bank put a halt to their activities 8 months ago.
“The Central Bank requested that we have a fully constituted board, unwind the shareholders from direct management, which is myself so that I sit at the board exclusively, hire an internal auditor, do regular reporting to the Central Bank and raise more capital to suit the trade volumes,” said, founder and Managing Director, Princess Shamirah Kimbugwe.
As the situation stands, the names of the proposed Members of the Board await approval by Bank of Uganda and the company is about to complete raising capital to a tune of $10 Million since their trade volume had superseded the capital reserves.
Ms. Kimbugwe, says that they have complied with all requirements to about 70 percent and will finalize all by end of January 2025.
“Internally we have already started, we are reorganizing ourselves having been down for 8 months, definitely we have a lot to catch up and incorporate the recommendations from the Central Bank, we started last week but we will open to the general public on the 20th of this month”.
For a company that has been existent for not more than Five years, the demands from Bank of Uganda are strenuous amid concerns of sustainability. However, the Managing Director remains highly positive and optimistic.
“From a provider’s perspective we always feel that it is constraining but from a customer’s perspective it is in their best interest that companies dealing in money are highly regulated because you have seen people run away with clients money without any form of redress and that we have learnt from our engagements with the Central Bank .”
“Their first and most important priority( Central bank) is consumer protection and customer redress, for example all the customers that had balances with us and they wanted them were all paid back and those that were comfortable, we still have their balances so that should teach you that it is not over regulation but necessary regulation,” remarked Kimbugwe.