MediPay is utilizing FinTech to provide health insurance for Rural Women. #40Days40FinTechs Zambia and Malawi edition, Day 38
In Zambia and Malawi, many people use out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for their health expenditure because they lack appropriate and affordable health insurance products.
This burden often leads to delayed or foregone medical care, exacerbating health disparities and increasing vulnerability to financial hardship.
Without intervention, these financial barriers are likely to perpetuate cycles of poor health and poverty among women, with broader implications for community well-being.
It is this challenge that Team MediPay set out to address when they participated in the 2025 COMESA Women in FinTech Hackathon for Zambia and Malawi organised by HiPipo and COMESA Business Council (CBC).
“There are over 21 million women in Zambia and Malawi, more than half of those women do not have healthcare insurance or healthcare services. MediPay is here to change that narrative,” noted Foster Mulenga, a co-founder at MediPay.
According to team members, they developed this cross-border digital health financing and payment platform to help women have access to, save for, and pay for healthcare services.
“MediPay is a cross-border digital health financing and payment platform designed to help underprivileged women who do not have access to healthcare services by providing them with loans and insurance services,” explained Chansa Kashell Mwenya from MediPay.
Women in FinTech participation
During the Hackathon, the team developed this InsurTech platform and engaged with facilitators and mentors to further finetune their proposition.
“We intend to partner with loan [financial service providers] and insurance providers. They will be the ones to sponsor the loans and the insurance. On their side, they will have an expanded customer base through MediPay,” noted Faith Chulu from MediPay.
They described the Hackathon experience as very demanding, but ultimately rewarding.
“The experience of the Hackathon has been worth it. The networking, we have learnt new things. As software developers, we don’t normally know much about business management but we have been trained in those aspects,” added Mwenya.
The team was especially excited to be introduced to Mojaloop; an open-source software that supports real-time payment systems.
“As a subscriber on our platform, if you request for a loan on the platform, we will give you an instant payment, irrespective of whether you are in Zambia or Malawi,” she added.
MediPay featured on Day 38 of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative; Zambia and Malawi edition. The roll-out of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative in Zambia and Malawi followed its success in East Africa. Over the past 5 years, the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative has featured over 200 FinTech stories from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. This initiative has also engaged hundreds of end-users and shared their stories with millions worldwide.
The primary objective of this initiative is to support and showcase innovative FinTech giants and start-ups from across Africa, with a focus on promoting financial inclusion and economic growth, in addition to giving start-ups access to the resources they need to develop new and innovative financial solutions that can benefit underserved populations. Such resources include but are not limited to Level One Project guidelines, Mojaloop Open Source Software and Inclusive Finance systems, etc.
