Challenge

• With d.light’s growing customer base, the existing payment solution became cumbersome and a bottleneck to enabling simple payment for our nationwide customers as they desired.

Solutions

• In response to customer feedback via the call centre, we introduced a simple, account-based payment option called eBillsPay.
  eBillsPay is a payment solution from NiBSS (Nigeria Inter-bank Settlement System). It has three (3) payment channels:
  i. Bank Branch (nationwide)
  ii. Internet Banking and
  iii. USSD
  After reviewing the benefits and agreeing that this solution met our desire to provide a simpler payment option for our customers, we decided to integrate with NiBSS.
• Project Name: eBillsPay+d.light API Integration
• Project Team:
  1. Olabode Oladipo (co-project Manager with Anthony Kinyua – PM)
  2. d.light’s Backend team – platform/cloud Infrastructure and Dev. Team
  3. NiBSS team – platform Infrastructure and Dev. team
• Project Lifecycle:
  a. d.light fills eBillsPay application form via d.light’s Bank (for bank account validation purposes)
  b. RESTful API documents are released/exchanged – between d.light and NiBSS
  b. Secure endpoints connectivity – whitelisting of IP addresses
  c. Implement Request/Response API call per RESTful API documents exchanged in (a)
  d. Do UAT (User Acceptance Test)
  e. Go Live!
  

Results

1. Unbanked Customers now walk into any bank nationwide to make their loan repayments without the need to have a bank account or bank with the bank.
2. Banked Customers can now pay via their Banks’ Internet Banking and some select banks’ mobile app directly from their bank accounts
3. Banked Customers without Internet access or an Internet-enabled phone can pay via USSD
4. More than two thousand successful transactions worth more than 10 million naira have been processed on the eBillsPay/d.light integrated payment channel between Go-Live! date (September 2019) to December 2019 (when I left the d.light).