Another could ask you the question: Is this the new beginning of MyC4?
And you, listening to this, could discuss, which way do you think we should go?
Should it be the end or should it be a new beginning?
When we look from the institution from it, we just have to say one thing first.
We, in the middle are fighting a war against KEEF, where they are owing a lot
of money to about 10,000 investors from the whole world.
So our main focus is to do the best possible job we can to collect as many of
those funds and bring them back to the investors, that's our main focus.
Now it's obviously that we hope we can be successful with it,
we hope we will be able to achieve that.
When we have a situation of clarity on that,
we will sit down and we will reevaluate our business model.
Is there fraud in the model, in the value chain we have? Question.
The technology works if we should take the good part of it.
When we started MyC4, in 5, 6 years ago, we had 30 people running the platform.
Now the platform is run by less than four people.
So the technology is able to deal with thousands of investors from the whole
world, the cash flow, transferring that cash flow to Africa.
Remitting it back to the investors again, reconciling the data on this platform and
doing that all in a cloud online.
So the technology is there, that's not the imperfect part of MyC4.
It obviously lies in the value chain and the question you could be is,
is it because MyC4 is depending on the microfinance institutions and
should lend directly to the borrowers?
Is it because the institutions are too weak?
Or is it because MyC4 has not looked
at making a value chain combining everybody?
What do I mean with that?
Yes, MyC4 is still depending on that it is the West,
which is lending capital out to borrowers in South.
Should it be South - South?
Should MyC4's technology be used to, that the Kenyans are borrowing money out to other
Kenyan people?
What would change?
Like on Facebook, where people know each other, would it change if the borrower and
the lender actually were connected?
If we just wind the clock back, we started ten years ago.
It took us considerable time,
I'll say up until four years ago to build the business model.
Now when you think about what we have done and what you can see it is,
do you have some good advice for us?
It would be interesting to learn.
If we look at MyC4, then the investors' return has been
heavily reduced because of several things.
One thing is the risk and the default on the partners we're dealing with, but
also there's a technicality in this that when the money from the investors is being
lent out to an African borrower, there's a currency transaction.
So it starts with Euro and it ends with shillings in Kenya, Tanzania or Uganda and
this swap of the currencies falls, every month, costs on an annual basis about 6%.
So MyC4 has been thinking: if we could reduce that cost of 6%, the loans could be cheaper or
the investors could earn more or they could split the part of what does it.
And we have found solutions to do that,
which we started to do about a year ago in Tanzania and Uganda.
So we actually do our own cash management in those two countries.
And going forward, we thought that that would be the model to do in Kenya.
And the reason why then, we wanted to focus on one country, so that we, by dealing
with the cash ourselves could allow the investors not to change the money.
So when the repayment was coming from an entrepreneur in Kenya,
they could decide to keep the balance on the account not in Euros and
pay a cost for having the currencies, but having an open position in shillings.
This in a way, opens up further doors for Kenyan investors to use MyC4,
because then you're multi-currency on the lending, the investing side and
the borrowers could be multi-currency in that sense as well.
So when this interview started here today, we had a debate and
some of the words you can use when you do ventures and
you are an entrepreneur, is it bad if MyC4 and
we speculate now, if MyC4 fails and it doesn't get to work.
Now my point of this is I think it's a learning.
I think, of course, I would like to build something,
which is sustainable and will go on in principle forever.
It's like getting a child.
You want to pass away before your children,
not the children to pass away before you.
So it's obviously, if MyC4 doesn't exist in one year from now,
I would feel a bit of sadness in that.
But I think it's done a lot of good and
I've tried to focus on what was the learning we have done.
Today, we have funded 25 million Euros from 20,000
investors in 120 countries to 20,000 entrepreneurs and
their employees and their families in Africa.
I don't think that a bad thing, I think that's a good thing.
So the technology's there.
We believe we can white label it, we believe that the people who have worked in and
around MyC4 have learned things.
We believe that the added value,
which is coming from this venture is going to be used in other ventures and
they are going to be used in other existing businesses.
So when we discuss things from being bad and good, I think we should try and
remove that and say, there will be ventures, which don't continue forever.
There will be ventures who pass away before the parents who invented it,
that's a fact of life.
Now how we deal with it and what we do with it is something,
which I think we should learn about.
What do I mean with white label?
MyC4 is a technology,
it's actually hosted on Amazon in the cloud and it can be replicated.
So we can take a copy of MyC4 and we could call it UC and tomorrow,
somebody else could start a crowdfunding site.
So we could white label it, put C4 in a box and we could actually invest
that as a venture capital in a new company or existing companies.
It could be that some of the partners we have dealt with in Africa and
we have had contacts about this would use it as a solo funding for
their microfinance institution.
So in this way,
they have to be 100% sure of what they're putting up is the right thing as well.
The governance in it.
So we need a bigger institution than the starting institutions to do that,
but they could use our technology to crowd fund their borrowers in
a transparent and good way.
So we believe there's new business models, which will come out of the MyC4 venture.
For my side, I, sitting in this chair, I'm not a banker,
I'm not a financial educated specialist into this.
And the reason why we engaged in MyC4 with the microfinance industry was a necessity.
And the necessity was that we wanted to provide a service to a needing
business person, who had an opportunity to grow his or her business and
needed some capital and probably also some advice and assistance to do that.
And the only way we could get in contact with them was through the microfinance
institutions.
Now when I look at them and the experience we have had with them,
I actually don't think that there has changed a lot.
I think there has come a discussion about regulatory framework and
licensing, but in principle, you still have somebody who starts up, and
that's good, because we never get the next big one, if nobody starts up
the little small one tomorrow and there will be some of those who fails.
It's part of, in any industry.
If you have a lot of farmers who start up, not everybody gets a big farm.
If you have a lot of people selling beer, not everybody gets a big shop where they sell beer from.
It's the nature of business that the industry will have flaws in it.
Why we talk a lot, I think, about microfinance in my personal perspective is
that Muhammad Yunus, who set a lot of focus when he got the Nobel Prize about
microfinance, gave the impression that everybody would repay.
That there were zero defaults.
There is nothing called zero defaults.
There is always somebody who is not able to do it.
There's always some business who will fail.
That's the nature.
The nature is not that everything is perfect.