“In other countries, like in developed countries or in Asia, when I go online and see things that I like, I can buy them online. But here [in Hargeisa], every day I see things that I want online and I have the money to buy it, but I cannot pay because there is no international bank and no MasterCard or Visa.”
The challenge became particularly frustrating when trying to advertise his start-ups on platforms such as Facebook.
“To market on Facebook, to reach maybe 3,000 people you just have to have US$3. And every entrepreneur here has $3 but they cannot use it to pay.”
Part of the problem is Somaliland’s low banking penetration. Mobile money, however, is widely used and relies on US dollars. So Dahir has come up with a solution, called ePocket, that connects mobile money to an international digital card and other online mobile payment systems that can be used to make purchases online.
Dahir’s business partner is a software engineer, and while ePocket is still in the product development phase (and is not yet a proven solution) the idea was selected to participate in the 2016 Innovate Accelerator programme and competition.
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