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Executive Summary

Financial inclusion continues to increase globally. The ubiquity of internet connected

mobile phones has led to the rapid gains in access to banking. According to The World Bank

globally 69 percent of adults – 3.8 billion people – now have an account at a bank or mobile

money provider, this is a crucial step in escaping poverty (Cornish). With our product we can

help increase the amount of people that have access to banking products.

As the world moves forward into a cashless society, a web banking application is a must

channel for small businesses. This is another avenue for financial institutions to maximize their

portfolio as well as help underserved users. This is a great opportunity to tap into this

underserved user base. With digital payments and electronic transactions, we help lift

communities into more prosperous financial levels.

To address the banking gap, we are creating an accessible and fair web banking

application KDkash. Our web application can be accessed via the internet on mobile devices.

Our web application will leverage a microservice architecture. While leveraging an open

payment REST API we can build a valuable product. This would be a great opportunity for both

financial institutions and society.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary 2

Part 1 of Final Proposal 4

Introduction/Background 4
Project Name and Description 4
Problem and /or issue in technology 4
Solution to the problem and/or issue in technology 5
Evidence that the proposed project is needed 5
Project Goals and Objectives 6
Environmental Scan/Literature Review 7
Stakeholders and Community 7
Approach/Methodology 8

Part 2 of Final Proposal 9

Ethical Considerations: 9
Legal Consideration 10

Part 3 of Final Proposal 11

Project Timeline 11
Resources Needed 13
Final Deliverables 16
Usability Testing/Environment 16
Team Members 18

References 18
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Part 1 of Final Proposal

Introduction/Background

According to a World Bank report on the use of financial services, a vast majority of

people living in developing countries are still unbanked. However, an overwhelming number of

them own a mobile phone with internet access (Cornish). The use of smartphones in developing

countries has given rise to a multitude of services, one of which is the mobile payment and

remittance service. The advent and growth of the telecom technology in these countries, and

particularly the convenience associated with mobile technologies, presents an opportunity to

provide solutions for many deficiencies, such as the lack of adequate transportation and limited

access to services. We want to take advantage of the widespread internet service to provide a

payment solution to unbank communities.

Project Name and Description

KDkash is a web application that implements a user to user payment solution that will

allow users of the platform to make payments to each other. It can later be made into a mobile

application to extend its functionalities to include other services such as paying bills. The

primary focus of this application is to simplify transactions conducted by individuals on a daily

basis, including long distance money transfer and payments.

Problem and /or issue in technology

The French telecom company Orange provides a similar service in Guinea, but its service

is not open to allow developers to create applications to facilitate user-to-user payment.

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Additionally, Orange’s model is not adequate to solve inflation induced hurdles that the

population in these countries face. On the streets of most third world countries, people carry

large bags, backpacks and suitcases stuffed with cash money that are used to purchase goods and

food. This is not only inconvenient, but also an unsafe way to transact.

Furthermore, Orange’s mobile payment solution is offered through its sim cards, which

restricts users to a small geographical location where they can use Orange’ services. One cannot

be in the US, for instance, and pay a user who is located in Guinea via mobile money. The other

option is to use Western Union, a direct bank transfer, MoneyGram, or other small companies

with money transfer licenses that operate within the African communities. The problem with

MoneyGram and Western Union is that they charge high fees and calculate the payout amount at

a lower exchange rate.

Solution to the problem and/or issue in technology

KDkash aims at making trouble-free payment that would require no more than typing the

phone number or username of another platform user. As opposed to Orange’s monopolistic

behavior, the KDkash API can be available to developers, and therefore allow them to create a

web shop that uses KDkash as a payment method for example. In addition, KDkash will help the

smaller transfer companies solve their inefficiencies by providing an interface and unique

transaction ids. KDkash will also provide the agents a dedicated account which will be used to

provide cash-in, cash-out, in a similar way that an ATM machine is being used. This will enable

quicker, cheaper and more reliable money transfers over greater distances.

Evidence that the proposed project is needed

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Most of the developing countries expatriates have switched to the smaller companies to

send money to their relatives. These smaller companies charge a much reasonable rate, and most

importantly, the recipient receives the amount in dollars, which is more beneficial. Moreover,

they don’t usually have an application to facilitate transfers for their customers and the transfer

process can be cumbersome. For instance, if someone wants to send money, the person will need

to deposit the money in a given account using either CashApp, Venmo, Zelle, or a bank deposit,

and then he or she will send a message with the name of the recipient to the money transfer

company. Once the deposit is confirmed, a code is generated and sent back to the sender. Finally,

the sender will provide this code to the recipient who will go to one the agent location and collect

the money. Collecting the money is not always simple, as human error is inevitable in this

process. Often, the transfer operators mix up the recipient name with wrong code or forget to

notify the agent network which leads to more delay to retrieve the money.

Project Goals and Objectives

Goals and Objectives

Mission Statement

KDkash is a web based fintech that provides baking and payment services to the unbanked Guinea

area. KDkash would like to be in the ​top 100 visited and used web-based payment platform​ in

Guinea within three years. Our goal is to ​build an intuitive website catered to the local user base​,

be known as the ​most reliable​ and ​cost-effective​ web-based platform.

Goal Goal Goal

Increase brand presence and Localize the platform Build on opensource

awareness
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Objectives Objectives Objectives

Create an effective targeted Create the website in English Leverage cost effective

SEO campaign. and local languages. banking platform.

Begin an efficient email Target local culture and Create a fair and reasonable

newsletter. customs. cost model.

Environmental Scan/Literature Review

FinTech’s all over Africa have launched a number of mobile-first solutions that are

building momentum (Chironga). For example, In Nigeria, Paga’s mobile payments offers a

payment solution similar to KDKash, allowing customers to send money via their phones and

pay for online purchases on merchant websites. Paga account holders can use an internet-enabled

mobile device to process the transactions. The Paga account can be funded by depositing money

with an agent, at a bank, or by using a debit card online. After funds have been deposited and

transferred, the sender and recipient both receive an SMS confirmation, which serves as a receipt

of the transaction. The SMS received by the sender confirms the amount of funds debited from

the account and a withdrawal code required to access the funds which she or he would relay to

the recipient. The recipient uses the withdrawal code at an outlet or a partner bank to withdraw

the money sent. Basically, KDkash has the same long-term goals.

Stakeholders and Community

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Banks and local credit unions have long been the only players on the financial services

market in Africa, but over the last couple of years their dominance has been challenged by the

emergence of alternative financial services providers. The main challengers are the mobile

network operators (MNOs) who have seized the opportunity to create convenient, low-value,

inexpensive payment options in the form of mobile money to cater to the poor community who

do not have access to a traditional bank. Financial inclusion benefits not only the individual, but

the financial services providers and the economies of developing countries as a whole.

Using this solution, money can be transferred almost anywhere, even when there are no

banks nearby. This increases accessibility in rural areas. It enables cashless payments, which

reduces dependency on cash and allows tracking of transaction records. This increases financial

security and reduces inherent risks of cash handling such as loss, theft, or fraud. Mobile money

has lower transaction costs with improved security compared to credit card methods. Customers

need not require middlemen for money transfers anymore. Hence, it increases transparency. It

avoids long travel to send and receive money, or to pay bills by standing in long queues. This

provides great comfort to the customers. Purchasing of online goods and services have become

easier and provides more options based on pricing and feature selection. Mobile money systems

provide services to the people who are geographically inaccessible and/or have very low income.

Mobile money platforms are accessed through most basic mobile phones with low transaction

costs. They are distributed by vast networks of agents which provide person-to-person contact

and training to those who are unfamiliar with the mobile money technology.

Approach/Methodology
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For this project, we will use the prototype and agile method of development, that is, we

will create an app that will be later refined based on the clients need, therefore, the application

will only have a limited number of features. The development will be divided into small

iterations, which will give our clients a clear understanding and complete feel of the functionality

of the software. We believe that this method significantly reduces the risk of failure, as potential

risks can be identified in early stages and moderation steps can be taken quickly, but most

importantly we will be creating a software tailored to the clients' needs as well as a decoupled

architecture. This development method has been successfully implemented by many companies

for the same reason we take this approach. For example “Spotify has several employees who are

organized into squads. Each squad is responsible for building and maintaining a specific function

of the Spotify app. By taking this approach, Spotify is able to assign each squad their respective

tasks without running into the fear that one bad commitment will break the entire

platform”(Ajmal).

We have confidence that the communication between our development team and the

client will make a very good and conducive environment during our project, because it helps in

requirement gathering and requirement analysis when there is lack of requirement documents. In

addition, we are going to model our application on existing platforms. Therefore, we will

leverage existing research documentations and experience of other FinTech’s in this space. This

will help us steer our platform in the future when we decide to extend the functionalities of the

application.
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Part 2 of Final Proposal

Ethical Considerations:

The major ethical issues our Money transfer application faces are self-interest, cyber

security, and data privacy. Historically, banks and financial institutions have only been interested

in short-term returns and have paid no attention to whether their products were suitable for

customers, as leadership loses sight of the goals and only chases future growth and bonuses at

the expense of their clients. The top goal of our application is to provide a benefit to our end

users. We must make sure that our application does not fall into the same unethical cycle of big

financial corporations.

Furthermore, our application lives in a digital environment, which offers great

opportunities, but also many challenges. Cyber security is one of the most important challenges.

With an exposed presence on the public internet, any financial organization is a target. With

valuable private information cyber criminals can always attempt to breach our security fences.

Implementing the standard and best practices in cyber security will fortify our web application

against any attacks. We will accumulate an impressive amount of data, an important and ethical

issue we will encounter is the safeguard of all our client’s personal data. Customer private data

must be treated with great care and responsibility. In a total digital environment, an existential

threat are bad actors. There are nefarious organizations on a constant search for values data for

personal profit. We must take these challenges and make them our top priorities.

Most of our users will not have much understanding of how to securely browse the

internet and since KDkash is a web application which is only accessible to connected
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individuals. We are responsible for making sure that our users are aware of the danger of

disclosing account information for instance. A good majority of our users will not know how to

read, so we will require the agent network to educate our users on how to secure their accounts

and mobile devices. On our end, we will make tools available to the user to conceal their identity

and how to identify other users on the platform.

Legal Consideration

Even though KDkash is a web application, it must take preventive measures against the

risk of money laundering or the financing of terrorism. Therefore, KDkash application must

adhere to the anti-money-laundering or AML regulations. According to GIABA, an

inter-governmental action group against money laundering in West Africa, financial institutions

must follow a set of laws, regulations, and procedures intended to prevent criminals from

masking illegally obtained funds as legitimate income (GIABA). Since the KDkash platform will

be used by small businesses as a platform to handle cash transfers, we must ensure that we are

not aiding criminals in money laundering activities. Especially when operating in countries that

are prone to the development of serious criminal activities in general, and the risk and threats of

money laundering or financing of terrorism in particular.

KDkash will need to ensure that platform users are properly identified before they can

perform any transaction. In addition, limiting the number of daily transactions and the amount

each user of the platform can send will discourage any individual who wants to abuse the

platform. Finally, the agent network will also require proper training to detect and prevent money

laundering and terrorist financing when handling cash in and cash out for the platform users.
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Furthermore, KDkash will need to comply with the privacy rules and data security

guidelines issued under GLBA (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act) apply to financial institutions, which

include depository institutions as well as nonbanks engaged in financial activities. By law,

KDkash is required to provide consumers with certain notices regarding the privacy of nonpublic

personal information and allow them to opt out or in of certain types of information sharing. For

example, the users should be able to hide their profile information such as email or phone

ensuring that our solutions satisfy requirements to safeguard customer information.

Part 3 of Final Proposal

Project Timeline

Steps Timeline Review Dates

1. Create repo, set up environment, and draw up task Week 1 April 29 - May 5
requirements

2. Implement system login/registration functionality. Week 2 May 6 - May 12

3. Implement system search functionality. Week 3 May 13 - May 19

4. Implement system payment/transfer functionality. Week 4 May 20 - May 26

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5. Implement admin cash in/out functionality. Week 5 May 27 - June 2

6. Implement web UI/account information. Week 6 June 3 - June 9

7. System functionality final testing. Week 7 June 10 - June 16

Resources Needed

Our main hosted environment will contain the Cyclos server. This environment will

provide the API and the REST endpoints that KDkash will be using to perform its various

activities. In case of an outage we will also create a secondary backup environment. With two

Cyclos servers we will provide the REST endpoint availability redundancy. One will be hosted

in AWS and the other on a VMware server located in my home lab. The project source control

will be hosted in a GitHub repository. The main development environment will consist of

Microsoft Visual Code, Node.js, Express.js, MySQL database, and a JavaScript Testing

Framework.

Milestones

Task Status Comments Estimated Core

Completion Deliverable,
Dependency

Phase 1: Brainstorming Session

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Brainstorming Discussed use Week 1 Brainstorming

session and cases, limitation meeting and
planing and time calls
constraint, create
a repo, setup
environment

Compile design Design Week 1 Brainstorming

documents document meeting and
addressing calls
functionalities,
use case and
deliverable

MILESTONE​: Phase 1 Completion Design Document Deliverable.

Phase 2: Building Test Environment

Build Test Acquire all Week 1 Cyclos license

Environment software Windows server
components for where to install
building Cyclos and
test/backup MYSQL.Cyclos
environments. server is a
Cyclos, critical
MYSQL, component to
Node.js, the entire project
Express.js,
Testing
Framework

MILESTONE​: Phase 2, Completion of two (2) VMs comprising of Cyclos and MySQL
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Phase 3: KDkash Web App Development

Registration Implement Week 2 Development

Functionality Registration environment,
mechanism phase 1 and
phase 2

Login Implement Week 2 Member account

Functionality Login system registration
process

Search Implement Week 3 Data to search,

Functionality Search functions member account

Payment/Transfer Implement Week 4 Registration and

functionality Payment and search functions
Transfer features

Admin Implement Week 5 Data to report

Functionality Admin reports on, member
account,
transaction
information

MILESTONE:​ Phase 3, KDkash Barebones Functionality Completion

Phase 4: Web UI / Account Information Completion

Web UI Implement Week 6 phase 1, 2 and 3

Member and
Admin UI

Profile Implement Week 6 phase 1, 2 and 3

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Member and
Admin profile

MILESTONE​: Phase 3, KDkash UI, Profile Completion

Phase 4: KDkash Web App Regression Test

Test Cases Implement test Week 7 phase 1, 2, 3 and

cases and 4
perform testing

MILESTONE​: KDkash Web App Testing Completion

Final Deliverables

The final project deliverables comprise of the different milestones required to move the

web application design process. This includes the project brief, a skeleton of the web application

with a final navigation, the web application design mockups that show how the final application

will look and the final prototype. The final deliverable is a usable and functioning web

application which will allow a user to register an account on the platform. This user can use the

newly created member account to login on the platform. The user profile will display the current

account balance and an option to search and pay another user.

Usability Testing/Environment
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Usability Testing Plan:

PROJECT KDkash
VERSION Version 1.0
Operating System Microsoft Windows and macOS
Browser Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox

SCENARIO TEST CASE ID PRECONDITION TEST CASE NAME

Member Registration MR_001 1. Member should be Registration_Member

on the registration
page

Member Login ML_001 1. Member should Member_Login

have a valid
account
2. Member should be
on the login page

Member Search MS_001 1. Member should be Member_Search

in the member
profile
2. Member should
have a valid
account
3. Member should be
on the search form

Member Payment MP_001 1. Member should Member_Payment

have a valid
account
2. Member should
have a valid long
3. Member should be
on the payment
form

Profile Information PI_001 1. Member should Profile_information

have a valid login
2. Member should
have a valid
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account

TEST CASE DOCUMENT

Description Test Steps Test Data

Payment to member 1. Enter Login Name 1. Login name = Test

and Amount as 2. Amount =20.00
mentioned in test data
2. Click on Submit
button
3. Confirm the payment

Login 1. Enter login as 1. Login name - Test

provided in the test 2. Password- 11111
data
2. Click Login button

Registration 1. Enter account 1. Username - TestReg

information as 2. Name display -
provided in the test TestReg
data 3. Email-
2. Click on Register TestReg@test.com
button 4. Password- 11111

Search 1. Enter valid login 1. Logon name- TestSer

name
2. Click on Search
button

Team Members

● Aboubacar Diawara

● Victor Ramirez

● Cristian Palomo-Ramirez
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References

Chironga, Mutsa. “Mobile Financial Services in Africa: Winning the Battle for the Customer.”

McKinsey & Company​,

www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/mobile-financial-services-in-africa

-winning-the-battle-for-the-customer​.

GIABA. (2012). Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism [PDF File].

Retrieved from ​https://www.giaba.org/media/f/501_ENG-REM%20Guinea.pdf

Cornish, L. (2018, April 20). Insights from the World Bank's 2017 Global Findex database.

Retrieved from

https://www.devex.com/news/insights-from-the-world-bank-s-2017-global-findex-database-9258

Ajmal, S. (2020, March 16). How Agile Scrum Training Transformed These 5 Companies.

Retrieved from

https://www.quickstart.com/blog/how-agile-scrum-training-transformed-these-5-companies/