The 2018 Digital Chikwama Awards winners

The 2018 Digital Chikwama awards were nothing short of short and sweet this year, as they seek to celebrate companies and individuals they consider digital financial services (DFS) champions, who have made advances and innovation in the Zambian DFS market:

“UNCDF is focused on helping Zambians address their needs, wants, and aspirations and has found that reward and recognition can help accelerate strong performance in the market. These awards, combined with the DFS State of the Industry report, have contributed to strengthening the interest of financial service providers to serving more Zambians in new, affordable and exciting ways.

The objective of the Digital Chikwama Awards is to recognize the increased growth of digital financial inclusion and the efforts of those individuals and organizations that have contributed significantly to improving digital financial inclusion for Zambians.” – UNCDF

There were 6 categories this year:

• Most Innovative DFS Provider Award – This Award was presented to the DFS provider who was judged to have exhibited creativity and innovation in the design and implementation of their products and services. The focus was on rewarding innovation in 2nd generation DFS products that have achieved the highest number of active customers. These products will also be evaluated in terms of uniqueness and relevance to the Zambian market as well as the design approach adopted e.g. a human-centric design approach.
• Emerging Fintech Award – This Award was presented to a non-DFS Provider, less than 2 years old in the Zambian market, who had exhibited creativity and innovation in the design and implementation of their products and services which have contributed to increasing the uptake and usage of digital financial services as well as addressing the needs, wants and aspirations of the Zambian market.
• Most Outstanding Performance Award for DFS customer growth and retention – nominees in this category demonstrated the highest active customer growth rate in the market during 2017. It takes significant efforts in terms of innovation, marketing, customer education to attract and retain active DFS customers. This award recognizes the providers whose efforts have been the most effective.
• Agent Value Chain Development Award – This Award was presented to the DFS provider who was judged to have dedicated significant amount of resources to the training and development of their agent networks and fostering agent value chain growth. The performance of the provider’s agent network was assessed in terms of: active agent growth rate, average number of transactions conducted by agents per month and monthly commissions earned by agents.
• DFS Private Sector Champion Award – This Award was presented to a DFS professional from the private sector that contributed significantly to moving DFS forward within their organization and within the DFS Ecosystem. This nomination was made by each the DFS providers for one individual that contributed significantly to the organization by achieving their KPIs in the last year, which included but was not limited to: 

  · Leading innovative methods to increase customer awareness, registration and usage

  · Leading the expansion of and support to improve agent networks

  · Leading product development and promotion of new products that use human-centric design approaches.

  · Demonstrated leadership in creating and implementing a partnership with another Zambian DFS Ecosystem stakeholder

• DFS Reporter of the Year Award – This Award was presented to a media representative that has contributed significantly to moving DFS forward by producing high-quality journalistic pieces that address challenges in advancing digital financial inclusion. These challenges include: lack of awareness (customers do not know what DFS products are available or what the available DFS service offerings mean), lack of meaningful awareness (customers do not know the relevance of available DFS products to their lives), lack of trust in DFS products (customers are hesitant to use DFS products because of limiting beliefs around security, affordability etc.).

The nominees and winners for each category were:

Award	Nominees	Winner
Most Innovative DFS Provider Award	FNB Zambia, MTN Zambia, UBA Zambia	MTN Zambia
Emerging Fintech Award	Cellulant, Fenix International, JUMO World, World Food Programme ( WFP Zambia)	World Food Programme (WFP Zambia)
Most Outstanding Performance Award for DFS customer growth and retention	MTN Zambia, Zoona Zambia,	Zoona
Agent Value Chain Development Award	543 Konse Konse, Kazang, MTN Zambia	MTN Zambia
DFS Private Sector Champion Award	Janice Matwi, Jinga Kapiya, Kristen Waeber	Janice Matwi
DFS Reporter of the Year	Brian Mwale (ZNBC), Jubiel Zulu (Kwithu FM),Patrick Soko (5FM)	Brian Mwale

Check out the latest tweet under the hashtag #DigitalChikwamaAwards for more images and videos from the event.