Everyone has had the experience of jumping across multiple banking apps or worst still visiting physical vendors to pay bills like Electricity and DSTv. There is also the pain of trying to transfer money and realising that your token is not with you. In other instances, the frustration is driven by confusing USSD code formats. Y Combinator-backed Kudi, aims to help solve these problems by making payments as easy as chatting.
Kudi is an Artificial Intelligence based lady that allows Nigerians make payments by chatting with her. She currently speaks english and understands a little bit of pidgin English. Users can currently send money, buy airtime, pay Electricity bills and pay DSTv & GOTv subscription bills all by chatting with Kudi.
Kudi allows Nigerians buy airtime with expressions as simple as “buy me 3k credit” or “send 5k airtime to mum”.
Kudi can also be used to send money. It is the easiest way to send money available as it is able to save beneficiaries and doesn’t require you to use a token, USSD codes that are difficult to remember or OTPs that are sometimes not delivered on time.
Kudi currently supports card payments which is linked only once after which subsequent payments can be completed by authorizing with a Kudi PIN. Some screenshots of a transaction involving funds transfer can be seen below.
To date, the startup has raised $13 million in venture funding. After Kudi finishes participating in Y Combinator, it intends to raise money for expansion into Kenya and Ghana.
Kudi is currently available on FB Messenger at: https://m.me/kudidotai?ref=inv and it will be available on telegram, skype and slack by March. A whatsapp integration is also in the pipeline.
To learn more about Kudi visit the website https://kudi.ai and its FAQ page: https://kudi.ai/faq.html
