Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 22/12/2025 05:00

WiPay's new strategy for services, payments

BitDepth 1542 MARK LYNDERSAY AT WiDay 2025 on December 4, the first WiDay held in TT in this decade, WiPay Group CEO Aldwyn Wayne announced a bolder and more pervasive local presence for the predominantly Trinidadian/Tobagonian fintech company. After the successful introduction of CourtPay in 2018, WiPay faced dramatically diminished interest by the government of the day. The professional snubs ended in 2020 as covid lockdowns became more widespread when Wayne took his systems to Jamaica and Grenada, where they enjoyed a quite different reception. A restless thinker, Wayne kept thinking about the challenges of local digital payment settlement and, as he told his audience at WiDay, "The problem was way bigger (than payments)." "After I make a payment, how do I get that product? Who handles the logistics? Who handles communication? Who handles the backbone of the entire infrastructure of the country, which is the government, also the largest employer, who handles that? It was fragmented." The National Payment and Innovation Company, which replaced the TT International Finance Centre, is, he said, "Powered by WiPay's GovPay solution." WiDay announced the availability of new services from the rebranded WiPay Group, some of them already in use, others appear to be in the process of being rolled out. Tying everything together is the company's payment system, which is tied to the Colour app, a software solution that allows users to accept card payments using their mobile phones. Wayne's strategy will make the Colour app a hub for services that target the next generation of citizens, whose expectations of fluid, digital payments haven't been met by existing systems and solutions. WiTravel (found at witravel.app) is a booking system for travel. How it works isn't clear from the website because you have to join the service to go deeper than the promises of its front page, which claims that its services "move different." It's going to be interesting to see how WiTravel tackles the sophisticated criminality of online travel bookings, which are weighted against customers from the minute they begin to search for a flight online. His payment systems promise to address today's issues with foreign exchange. "US limits? It's tough. We will fix that," Wayne said. "We're going to provide you an option to pay with your links card online to go to that trip to Miami or to go to Amsterdam." Payments are described with evangelical zeal by chief marketing officer Kibwe McGann. "Payments are not just transactions. Payments are connections. Payments are the lifeline of an economy," McGann said. "When a small business finally accepts digital payments, that is dignity. When a public office goes cashless? That is progress." That same enthusiasm to meet new customer needs infuses the pitches for services such as WiLoan, introduced in March. "(Customers of) traditional financial institutions face long lines, outdated systems and very rigid processes," said Lyron Marlow, CEO of WiLoan. "In my opinion, those processes present unnecessary barriers (and) WiLoan is here to change that. WiLoan was created to make credit simple and approvals fast." "In six months, we have over 750 loan applications, more than 400 customers, a growing employer partner network and we boast an average of five working days in turnaround time from loan application to disbursement. Our delinquency ratio is under one per cent. We are now working closely with the government ministries to be on-boarded to their national payroll system." Despite Abraham Sutherland's colourful insistence that the Nimble mobile "Feels like a real Caribbean new culture that is bright, creative, funny, bold and spontaneous," it is also a well-dressed reseller relationship with telecommunications partners. TSTT is WiPay Group's partner for voice and data services in TT, but the company declined to disclose its partner for its international e-SIM travel connectivity services for data. Travel e-SIM plans are local data plans that are usually resold to visitors with set data limits and access times. Nimble's plans are roughly in line with most of its international competition. WiPay's aggressive return to the TT financial space is likely to add some spice to an already lively fintech space and its new pillars of business align with the sprightly, country-hopping character of its leader. But are there enough bread-and-butter customers who need new options for travel, phone service and loan services to make those add-on businesses worth the time of a small, albeit feisty, contender? WiTravel, WiLoan and Nimble are likely to be subject to Wayne's "fail fast" principles, the successful bits going forward, the others eventually falling away. Less sexy are services like NOBIS, the company's e-KYC (Know Your Customer) platform and the Caribbean Settlement Network, still at the stage of navigating regional regulatory approvals, which chart a clearer path forward for Wipay's growth. Mark Lyndersay is the editor of technewstt.com. An expanded version of this column can be found there The post WiPay's new strategy for services, payments appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.