County Revenue Collection and Management Solution Qorus Banking Innovation Awards 2016

Concept&Objectives: Following the establishment of devolved governments in Kenya, county governments were expected to collect their own revenue to plug in the gap between allocation of revenue from the National Government and their own budget. To achieve this, they had to replace the traditional systems with new technology-based systems. ABC Bank designed and implemented the automated an end to end Revenue collection & Management solution for Kirinyaga County. The new solution was expected to address the following: • Inefficiency- inadequate revenue collection staff to cover large geographical areas, limited access to certain areas, while business people became apathetic due to too much time spent at local authorities’ offices. • Revenue loss through corrupt practices • Shortfalls in collection targets • Lack of proper revenue management framework • The rise of ghost workers • High costs incurred in manual tasks. Reasons: In order to plug the gap in revenue allocation by the central government, counties needed a foolproof revenue collection system that addresses the challenges of the previous system while enhancing efficiency and convenience for both the county administration and residents. Automation of revenue collection processes and structures is instrumental in improving and simplifying administration of taxation through utilizing modern technologies. With a modern system of revenue collection, a county government is able to mobilize additional revenue by increasing collection efficiency, convenience to the taxpayer as well as by expanding its revenue base (identify and accommodation additional revenue sources). State of competition: Kenya has 47 counties. Majority of them have launched automated revenue collection systems in partnership with financial institutions. ABC Bank has developed an innovative county governments strategy anchored on strong relationships and unique value proposition on a partnership model. This is what has set the bank apart from the competition as the bank is looking at the model from a partnership perspective and not just as a banking partner. The bank has developed and deployed the end to end solution for the County government free of CAPEX and is offering on a hosted model, thereby saving the county on the infrastructure cost and allowing the County to concentrate on their core mandate which is Revenue collection and Service delivery to its citizen. The solution is unique in the sense that is real-time integrated to several revenue collection touch-points such as Agency, POS application, Mobile app, web-portal, mobile money payment channels from the Mobile Network Operators, Online payment gateway and to the National Governments financial system (IFMIS). Source of inspiration: The old system used by local authorities for revenue collection was manual. It entailed collection personnel physically visiting business premises and markets to collect fees. Traders/ business people would also visit local authorities’ offices to pay for business licenses, land rates and other fees. ABC Bank wanted to develop and provide a revolutionary solution that will help county governments attain their revenue collection targets and therefore transform lives of residents through quality service delivery in health care, infrastructure, education, trade and enterprise development, job and wealth creation, etc.)