Building Financial Collaboration for a Global Community
Moja is a people-focused technology company on a mission to make group-based financial collaboration accessible and easy for everyone, everywhere. Using stablecoin technologies, Moja's mobile and web platforms help families, friends and communities manage money together, simply, securely, and transparently, wherever they are in the world. Think of family members saving together for a 'rainy day' or for education expenses.
The company focuses on group savings, a practice that brings people together to pool money, support one another, and achieve shared financial goals. Today, over 770 million people participate in group savings worldwide, managing an estimated US$500 billion in value annually. Moja's initial markets include Kenya and Sudan, along with regional diaspora communities across Africa, Europe, North America and the Gulf countries.
Since launching its stablecoin-based platform in April 2025, Moja has achieved significant traction with 300 users onboarded within the first few weeks of release, and 900 by end-September. This early success demonstrates the platform's ability to address real pain points in cross-border financial collaboration.
The Challenge: Building Trust in Digital Financial Collaboration
Moja's founding team brings deep experience working with group savings communities, giving them first-hand insight into the challenges these groups face. Traditional financial systems create real barriers for global communities, particularly families saving or sending money across borders. Fiat-backed solutions often fall short; they struggle with cross-border friction, high fees, and the delays inherent in conventional banking infrastructure.
Stablecoins offer a compelling alternative. They enable fast, low-cost international transfers without the volatility of speculative cryptocurrencies. Unlike conventional cross-border payments that can take days and incur significant fees, stablecoin transactions settle within seconds at a fraction of the cost.
"The vision of the stablecoin version of the Moja group savings app has always been to help people do more together than they can on their own, and to create opportunities for themselves, their families and communities," explains Gerry Mc Hugh, Moja Founder and Chief Executive Officer. "We have always seen Moja as a full global, cross-border value proposition. This is because we have seen how group financial collaboration can help people transform their own lives."
The challenge was significant. Group savings is far from simple because different communities have developed sophisticated saving behaviours, with their own rules around contributions, in-group lending, payouts, and collective decision-making. Moja needed to build a platform that could accommodate this complexity, while also handling the technical intricacies of stablecoin infrastructure, all without overwhelming users with that underlying sophistication.
The experience had to feel effortless, even when the mechanics beneath it were anything but. And critically, the platform needed to be stable enough to earn the trust of users managing their hard-earned savings, while remaining cost-effective enough to serve as a solid foundation for Moja's ambitious roadmap.
Why MakerX: Outcome-Focused Partnership Approach
When Moja decided to build their stablecoin-based platform, they knew they needed a technology partner who could provide expertise they didn't have in-house. After evaluating potential partners, MakerX stood out for several key reasons.
"We chose MakerX over other potential partners because they came strongly recommended and had proven expertise in blockchain and Web3 product development," recalls Gerry. "MakerX had a relatively unique approach of identifying business outcomes as part of the scope of work deliverables — not solely technology outputs. We were very impressed with MakerX in terms of their thoughtful inputs as we were discussing a potential collaboration."
MakerX's existing intellectual property, AI guided development process and partnerships with blockchain networks and implementation partners also provided valuable leverage for the project.
Delivering Reliability Through Technical Excellence
MakerX brought comprehensive expertise to the partnership, spanning strong design and user interface capabilities, app development and wallet configurations, system architecture, modular software design, API-based integrations, and meticulous analysis of implementation options.
Wilson Waters, MakerX Principal Engineer, explains: "Working with Gerry and the Moja team was a pleasure. Having constant feedback and product direction from Gerry and the Moja team meant we could focus our delivery to produce a well engineered, easy to use base that drives business success for Moja now and in the future."
The greatest challenge during development was architecting a stablecoin and blockchain network combination that would deliver the best product in terms of Moja's mission and desired business outcomes and user experience. Moja and MakerX overcame this through detailed assessment and analysis of technical alternatives, using a comprehensive decision-making framework to choose the right solution. Even after selection, detailed testing was performed to confirm critical aspects like disaster recovery would work as intended.
Rob Moore, MakerX Chief Technology Officer, notes: "The Moja partnership exemplifies how we approach Web3 projects, focusing on real-world business outcomes with an ethical, pragmatic lens. By carefully designing a solution that met Moja's specific business goals, we have delivered a stable, user-friendly platform that enables genuine financial collaboration across borders using stable coins. This foundation positions Moja perfectly for their ambitious global expansion."
The partnership has delivered impressive results across Moja's key success metrics, with Gerry particularly impressed by both the outcome and the approach: "One aspect of the delivery which stands out most to me is that MakerX developed a highly reliable product of the highest quality. The team had great working attitudes and excellence, always willing to go the extra mile to ensure the product would be as good as we could make it in this first build". Importantly, the product reliability has helped Moja to rapidly build trust among early users.
Future Vision: Scaling Global Financial Collaboration
The successful launch of Moja's stablecoin platform represents a crucial step toward the company's broader vision. With a reliable, user-friendly product now in market in East Africa and the Middle East, Moja is positioned to scale rapidly and develop new features that take full advantage of evolving stablecoin technologies.
"The launch of Moja means that we have a reliable and user-friendly product in the market; this is enabling us to onboard our first cohort of 1,000 customers," explains Gerry. From there the sky is the limit; we will develop new features to take full advantage of evolving stablecoin ecosystems. In the future we will have people asking and saying: 'are you with Moja?'; 'let me Moja you.'
The platform's stable foundation positions Moja to expand into a fully global market. Most importantly, the reliable technology enables Moja to focus on their mission: help families, friends and communities manage money together, simply, securely, transparently - wherever they are in the world.
Join Moja now and see it for yourself - https://withmoja.com/