How to grow your payments app with shea butter and palm oil processors
By SendPay Business · · 2 min read
Shea butter and palm oil are made by many small processors, often women's groups and cooperatives. They buy shea nuts or palm fruit from collectors and farmers, process them by hand or with small machines, and sell butter and oil to local traders, soap and cosmetics makers, shops and sometimes exporters. Payments to collectors are small and frequent, and bigger buyers pay in bulk. A payments app that lets processors pay collectors from a phone, share takings fairly within a group and take payment links for bulk orders can win these groups, and every collector and buyer sees your app.
Talk to processors
Ask local shea butter and palm oil processors:
- How do you pay the people who bring you nuts or fruit?
- Who buys your butter or oil, and how do they pay?
- If you work as a group, how do you share out the money?
- Do bigger buyers pay a deposit or pay after delivery?
Pay collectors by phone
Paying collectors by phone when they bring nuts or fruit means no cash box to guard and a record of what each person brought.
Make group payments fair and clear
When takings come into one account and are shared out through the app, every member can see what came in and what they received.
Grow through collectors and buyers
One processing group deals with many collectors and several buyers. When the group pays and gets paid through your app, all of them see it working.
Build it
Create your own financial platform.
Pick a template, name it, brand it, preview every page before you pay. Your brand, your users, your fees.
Build my platform →Questions people ask
What about crop buyers?
The crop buyers and produce aggregators guide covers buying maize, beans, coffee, cocoa and other crops from many small farmers and selling them on in bulk.
Crop buyers and produce aggregators →What about cassava processors?
The cassava and garri processors guide covers buying roots from many farmers and selling garri, fufu and flour to traders and markets, mostly in cash.
Cassava and garri processors →Can I call it a bank?
In most countries "bank" is a protected word you can only use with a banking licence. Call it an account, a wallet, an app or a platform. The accounts and payments behind a SendPay Business platform are powered by licensed partners.
Is there a step-by-step plan I can follow?
Yes. The free launch checklist takes you from picking your people and naming your app to setting fees, going live and winning your first ten customers.
Digital bank app launch checklist →How do I start?
Pick a template, name it and preview every page before you pay. Your platform can be live on your own domain within 24 hours of confirmation.
Build my platform →Read next
This guide is general information, not legal or financial advice. SendPay Business is a technology company, not a bank, and does not take deposits; regulated services on the platforms are provided by licensed partners. PayPal, Patreon and Substack are named as reference points only and are not affiliated with SendPay Business.