expressPay announced today that it is a Grand Challenges Explorations winner, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. expressPay will pursue an innovative mobile money acceptance solution, titled TAP (Tap and Pay).

Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) funds individuals worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges. expressPay’s project is one of more than 50 Grand Challenges Explorations Round 15 grants announced on November 12 2015 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

To receive funding, Grand Challenges Explorations winners demonstrated in a two-page online application a bold idea in one of five critical global heath and development topic areas. The foundation will be accepting applications for the next GCE round in March 2016.

The expressPay team will develop a simple and intuitive solution that facilitates the acceptance and processing of mobile money transactions. The product is a low cost contactless solution that simplifies the process of transacting for both merchants and consumers.

The solution leverages existing mobile financial service infrastructure and utilizes a novel approach in providing low cost contactless payments. The solution will also provide ancillary benefits to merchants to encourage adoption.

expressPay believes the simplicity of the product will make it easier for merchants and consumers alike to embrace mobile money thereby increase penetration of the unbanked and underbanked.

About Grand Challenges Explorations

Grand Challenges Explorations is a US$100 million initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Launched in 2008, over 1160 projects in more than 60 countries have received Grand Challenges Explorations grants.

The grant program is open to anyone from any discipline and from any organization. The initiative uses an agile, accelerated grant-making process with short two-page online applications and no preliminary data required.

Initial grants of US$100,000 are awarded two times a year. Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a follow-on grant of up to US$1 million.

About expressPay

expressPay is the leading payments technology company in Ghana and facilitates fast and secure payments for a host of services.

Consumers access the platform through its smartphone app, web channels or agent distribution network and pay for services including Surfline, Vodafone, MTN, DStv, Airtel, school fees, etc. expressPay supports payments from all major international card networks - Visa, MasterCard, American Express, GHLink and mobile money networks.

expressPay is a one stop shop for the payment needs of merchants and is an official Visa Payment Technology Provider. expressPay’s platform is PCI DSS certified and meets international security standards.