Revolutionizing FinTech: A Cloud Modernization Success Story

Ethiopia's financial sector is rapidly embracing fintech innovation, and leading the charge is Chapa, a dynamic company poised to capture this growing market. Chapa is diligently building robust payment APIs and tools, while actively researching and developing localized solutions for customers, financial institutions, and partners across the country. And in their journey, CC Tech Digital has been a pivotal partner, showcasing the power of expert AWS implementation.

What is Chapa?

Chapa is a cutting-edge payment gateway solution for merchants and entrepreneurs. They've successfully piloted two crucial crowdfunding platforms, developed their core product offering, and established a dedicated R&D department. Throughout this impressive growth, CC Tech Digital's collaboration and their strategic use of AWS have been instrumental in delivering an exceptional customer experience for Chapa.

Our Journey Together: Building for Impact

In early 2021, Chapa was presented with a unique opportunity: to build two crucial crowdsourcing platforms for the Ethiopian government – MyGerd.com and EyezonEthiopia.com. While Chapa was already deep into developing their core payment platform, this was a chance to support their nation.

MyGerd.com was designed to raise funds from the Ethiopian diaspora for the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Simultaneously, EyezonEthiopia.com aimed to collect funds to assist internally displaced families within Ethiopia.

With a tight deadline of just three months, the Chapa team, supported by CC Tech Digital's expertise, immediately got to work. "At the beginning of the project, I had to dive into AWS to write the specs and get what we needed," says Israel Goytom, Co-founder and CTO of Chapa.

"In our journey, we were fortunate to engage with CC Tech Digital," Israel emphasizes. "They have AWS-certified engineers who have built complex systems in AWS, and we worked with them closely to ensure our applications were well-architected. Working with the CC Tech team has been wonderful. They identified our gap areas ahead of time and provided advice and guidance to our team on how to successfully navigate those. It's always good to have support from someone who has done this before." This firsthand account highlights the invaluable role CC Tech Digital played in guiding Chapa through complex AWS implementations.

How We Built It: CC Tech Digital's Expertise in Action with AWS

To power their web applications, Chapa, guided by CC Tech Digital's recommendations, relied on AWS Elastic Beanstalk. This service automatically scales applications up and down based on specific needs, using easily adjustable Auto Scaling settings, showcasing a key benefit of well-architected AWS solutions.

For their database, they chose Amazon RDS, freeing Chapa from managing any underlying infrastructure – a testament to the efficiency gained through managed services. Given their global user base, Amazon CloudFront was implemented as their Content Delivery Network (CDN), optimizing performance worldwide.

Security was paramount. CC Tech Digital advised and implemented robust solutions like AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF) and AWS GuardDuty to protect the platforms. Furthermore, data encryption at rest using AWS Key Management Service (KMS) and data in transit with SSL/TLS were meticulously put in place.

The Results: Scaling for Success, Powered by Partnership

Both platforms performed exceptionally, cumulatively raising over USD 6.4 million. They experienced zero downtime, and all systems scaled effortlessly. At peak, they had 5,000 users logged in simultaneously on a single platform. AWS, expertly configured and managed with CC Tech Digital's support, was instrumental in maintaining consistent performance.

Following the successful completion of these initial fundraising efforts, Chapa has since partnered with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Ministry of Education (MoE), becoming their preferred fundraising partner – a clear indicator of the trust built through reliable, high-performing systems.

Why AWS? A Foundation of Security and Efficiency, Backed by CC Tech Digital

The financial industry is highly regulated and demands rigorous compliance. Building a local infrastructure with a similar security posture would have been beyond Chapa's budget and timeline. This is where CC Tech Digital's expertise in AWS became critical.

1. Security: Chapa leveraged various AWS services like AWS WAF and AWS GuardDuty to ensure their platform remained secure. For monitoring, Amazon CloudWatch and CloudTrail track resource performance, and AWS Trusted Advisor offers optimization insights. This comprehensive security posture was meticulously designed and implemented with CC Tech Digital's guidance."At the beginning of the project, we did not have enough human resources; therefore, I needed to spend as little time as possible managing infrastructure," says Israel.
2. Managed Services: To ease the burden on Chapa's team without compromising service availability, CC Tech Digital advocated for and implemented as many managed services as possible. Chapa utilizes AWS resources such as AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Amazon RDS, and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to provide industry-standard data fortification and instant, consistent service delivery to their customers. This strategic approach, driven by CC Tech Digital's cloud proficiency, allowed Chapa to focus on their core business.

What's Next for Chapa? Growing with Strategic Cloud Partnership

Chapa's ambitious vision is to empower 100,000 merchants by 2025. Through AWS, and with the foundational support of CC Tech Digital, Chapa can provide secure and timely access to financial services for Ethiopian merchants. "We have the advantage of being first, fast, and agile, and this is an advantage that Chapa intends to maintain, thanks to AWS and the expert support we receive," Israel affirms. Chapa's team is currently working on exciting new projects, continuing to leverage the full power of AWS with CC Tech Digital's ongoing partnership.

About Chapa

Chapa Financial Technologies is an African fintech company that provides an online payment gateway to Ethiopian merchants and entrepreneurs through secure API integrations and online checkouts, enabling them to accept online transactions seamlessly.

About CC Tech Digital

As one of the 1st AWS partners in Ethiopia, CC Tech Digital offers expert guidance, implementation support, and services to help organizations accelerate their journey to the cloud. Our certified AWS professionals have extensive experience in CloudOps, DevSecOps, Penetration Testing, Serverless Software Development, and Blockchain. We operate out of Ethiopia and the USA but work with clients globally.

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