LAUNCH | Mozambique’s Empowa Pay Integrates Hedera Hashgraph to Enable Fiat Payments by Tenants Across Africa

Empowa Pay, a Web3 mobile application for tracking, recording, and validating rent-to-own housing payments on the Empowa rental housing platform, is adopting a multichain approach with the integration of the Hedera Decentralised Ledger.

“This dual strategy heralds a new era of efficiency and innovation as we continue our mission to revolutionize the way tenant payments are recorded in developing markets,” Empowa said.

Empowa Pay is used to record and digitize both tenant and service partner payments in real-time. The startup lets people earning low-income amounts to buy homes on lease from partner property developer companies with the capital provided by accredited individual and institutional investors.

According to Empowa, Hedera will be a game changer in seamlessly integrating with traditional payment on-ramps, a useful addition since ‘tenants in developing markets are not likely to make rental payments in cryptocurrencies anytime soon.’

“Our integration with Hedera will significantly enhance our capability to record payments made in pivotal markets across the African continent on the blockchain. This means that we can track and record these transactions in a secure and transparent manner while retaining the familiarity of traditional payment methods for tenants,” Empowa said.

Hedera is an attractive solution due to its strategic partnerships with financial institutions. These include Standard Bank (Stanbic), Africa’s largest bank, which is a prominent member of Hedera’s governance council.

Empowa is a financial technology company utilizing on-chain payments and NFTs to enable funding for affordable housing through a lease-to-own model. The start-up aims to allow global access to investments in Africa’s emerging affordable housing market.

The company raised $300,000 at launch in 2021 through the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the funds were used to provide housing for 30 families in Beira, Mozambique. This achievement helped the company increase the home loan market in Mozambique by 5%, according to the founder.