Business
Empower App Launches Super Pay Solution that Automatically Supervises Spending For Dependents
Kenyan start-up Empower Smart Limited has launched a new, innovative and automated Digital Escrow Supervised Payments Solution for Dependents dubbed “Super Pay” in a bid to give more dignified living to dependents and stress-free living to parents and guardians.
Empower Smart CEO Peter Muraya noted the new solution will help donors keep track and even control how much recipients can spend. “Super Pay solution will greatly improve the quality of life for dependants since guardians can now send them sufficient money as a lump sum and allowing the sender to select how much of that money is to be released daily or monthly by the app and reducing if not eliminating the probability of abuse or impulse spending.”
This comes hot on heels after the start-up launched the first fully automated digital escrow service in the region dubbed Escrow Pay which allows buyers to make advanced locked payments and unlock the funds remotely once a seller delivers a satisfactory product.
A Supervised Payment is a Digital Escrow Payment sent by a guardian to a dependant with the sender setting the parameters of funds usage and the app supervising the actual use of the funds by the dependent. In the case of Super Pay, a parent can send Ksh 9,000 to his son in university and set a daily quota at say at Ksh 300 and set which date the daily quota begins. The student will receive the total Ksh 9,000 locked and the app releases the Ksh 300 daily quota beginning the set date every midnight until the funds are exhausted.
For monthly releases, the funds get automatically released after every 30 days from the set starting date. A guardian can also set on the app the specific tills or accounts the dependant can pay the released amount to. An individual can also supervise for himself a daily quota which the app automatically releases for them ensuring adults can better manage their spending predictably over a set period of time.
‘’For too long dependants especially living away from home in universities and colleges have had to suffer many hungry nights after the lump sum money sent to them was impulsively spent on clothes or fun. This has led dependants to live undignified lives in campuses while stressing their guardians who have to sometimes resort to borrowing to send them more funds,” Muraya notes. The Chief Executive goes ahead to give an account of his own tough experience in campus going several days with one meal despite having a Higher Educations Loans Board (HELB) loan. “I would receive my HELB in a lump sum and though the money was supposed to last me four months, I would consume it in just two weeks by buying clothes and partying it all on the first weekends.”
Sometimes guardians are forced to send small amounts to their dependents in essence transferring the burden of not impulse spending the money themselves. Super Pay is freedom at the tap of a button not only as far as children are concerned but also for household spending. “In my home, there is a daily budget which my wife created and to avoid the allocated funds being used for unallocated spending, I send the entire budget to her on Super Pay and set the agreed daily quota. This means only the daily released amount is available for spending and there is no scenario where I can be ambushed with a claim that funds are over before the month is over,” affirms Mr. Muraya.
The young start-up emerged the Gold Winner at the recently concluded 4th e-commerce Awards at Banquet Center, Westlands. This is a testament that the entire e-commerce industry is recognizing the potential of digital escrow to streamline the industry and ensure growth in online transactions. The era of pay on delivery is coming to a much-needed end.
