🎉 New: We Just Launched A Faster Widget

The new Okra widget—which processes information at 20x its former average speed—is the fastest way to connect with your customers' financial information in Nigeria and build exciting experiences!

What this article contains:

1. Why we built a new widget
2. 💫 New USSD access point
3. 💫 NEW: Selfie verification
4. 💫 NEW: Returning User Experience (RUX)
5. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

In 2020, the Okra widget ushered faster means to allow customers to share their financial information with their favourite fintech products. This gateway has helped companies build amazing products offer amazing services with the accessed information.

Today, multiple companies have cut down the timeframe for processes like verification to credit risk analyses, from days to seconds—all with the help of the Okra widget.

Why we built a new widget?

Scaling financial services required banks and other financial institutions to open up more physical branches and manually manage processes. That mode of expansion comes with high costs and slowed growth rates.

However, with the Okra API, that has changed forever. For example, Umba is building a fully digital bank in Africa that offers credit with a structure built on Okra's Transactions API. This API provides information on spending patterns useful for building a credit analysis model.

The channel customers use to make such financial information available to digital banks and fintechs is the Okra widget. Since we live in a fast-paced world where there's a consistent demand to access financial services as fast as it takes to make a tweet, we built a new and faster widget.

First, we made improvements to the customer experience. In turn, we expect this to drive up revenue for businesses connected to Okra, as a smooth customer experience makes it easier to complete more transactions.

Secondly, we did major work on compatibility and added new features that broadened the widget's accessibility. This is particularly important to help Okra clients grow their market share in Africa.

The widget speed

The new widget isn’t just 20x faster, meaning a processing time as low as ~3 seconds, and it works fast across all reception levels. From 5G to 2G, the widget is built to adapt and maintain a high speed. Call it fast finance for Africa!

It works on any device!

Whatever device a customer uses, the Okra widget will adapt accordingly. We also built a USSD flow to serve customers with feature phones.

What else?

At Okra, we design our products to satisfy both customer experience and security standards. We encrypt all information we process and restrict access to only authorised parties.

Using encryption systems means prioritising building new functionality and security in parallel without handling bank credentials, Personal Identifiable Information (PII), and payment information in plaintext.

Highlighting some of the new functionality, the new widget comes with:

1. Selfie verification
2. Returning user experience (RUX)

Selfie verification

In 2020, over $56 billion was lost to identity theft. Selfie verification provides an extra layer of verification to enhance security and reduce fraud. With this feature, companies capture real-time selfies to validate a customer's identification document.

Returning User Experience (RUX)

Returning users are great for any business, so it’s important to do everything possible to keep them coming back. One way is to make it simpler for them to carry out repeat actions with fewer steps.

With RUX, returning customers get to enjoy quicker logins across apps. If they authenticate their details with one company, they do not need to repeat the same step with another company.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the Okra widget, and what is it used for?
The Okra widget is the component that your customers interact with to link their financial accounts. It serves as the bridge between your product and your customers' financial accounts.

What makes the new Okra widget special?
The new Okra widget—which processes information at 20x its former average speed—is the fastest way to connect with your customers' financial information in Nigeria and build exciting experiences! The new widget boasts faster load times even with slow internet, improved compatibility across devices, and added smarter experiences for returning users, verification and payments.

If I'm an existing client, how do I set up the new Okra widget?
No setup or technical updates are needed on your end! All Okra traffic will be gradually diverted to the new widget over the next week. Get ready for a better experience for all of your customers!

If I'm new to Okra, how do I build my own Okra widget?

1. Visit here and signup.
2. After verification, log in.
3. Tap "Go to App Builder"
4. Build the widget to your taste, with tons of customizations and add-ons like webhooks!

>> Learn More: Build your widget with zero code