Rails · moneyLive
Softserve Payments
The mobile-money and card rails underneath everything else. M-Pesa, EcoCash and bank transfers behind one accept-then-callback API, settling real money in production.
.NETMobile money
// founder · engineer · builder
I build the digital infrastructure African businesses and people depend on.
I'm Joel Makara, working from Maseru. Payments and comms rails built once and shared, white-label platforms that administer a bank, a school, a medical aid and a funeral parlour, and the consumer products standing on top of them. Design system to live system, end to end.
PaymentsCommsBankingHealthEducationMobilityAzure.NETReactFlutter
22
Platforms and products built
14
Live on the public internet
Live
Payments settling real money
1
Builder, end to end
// currently · August 2026
Getting the estate ready for Lesotho's e-invoicing mandate on 30 October 2026, moving the banking platform from a boardroom demonstration toward a licensed first institution, and closing the production-readiness gaps on payments and ticketing.
// selected work
Systems I've built, and the products on top of them.
Everything here shares one payments core and one comms layer, which is why a new product takes weeks. Where there is a public front door, the card links to it.
Rails
Built once, shared by everything else on this page.
Rails · messagingLive
Softserve Comms
Email, SMS and WhatsApp as one multi-tenant service with per-client isolation and FX-aware billing. Email and SMS carry production traffic across the estate; the WhatsApp templates are approved and waiting on a verified sender.
AzureMulti-tenant
Rails · complianceBuilding
Softserve Invoicing
Lesotho made e-invoicing mandatory from 30 October 2026, and the duty attaches to anyone who issues an invoice. It is one accredited service the whole estate calls instead of nine separate implementations: a product emits an invoice event and renders the signature and QR code that come back.
ComplianceMulti-tenant
Platforms
Multi-tenant administration products that run somebody's operation.
Platform · bankingBuilding
Softserve Banking Platform
A white-label, multi-tenant core for African banks and cooperatives, with Fineract as the engine behind the platform's own contracts so it is never exposed directly. First institution is Lengau People's Society, a Lesotho cooperative applying for a Tier 1 licence.
Multi-tenantFineractbank.softserve.co.ls
Platform · educationLive
Softserve School Platform
School administration where one scholar record carries the family, class, register, assessments, reports and fee account, and the parent surface reads the same figures the office does. Six surfaces across dev, sandbox and production.
React.NETschool.softserve.co.ls
Platform · medical aidBuilding
Softserve Health Platform
Medical aid administration on the same white-label pattern, with openIMIS as the engine behind the platform's own contracts. Members, plans, claims, providers and loss ratios, live across three environments.
openIMISMulti-tenanthealth.softserve.co.ls
Platform · long-term coverBuilding
Softserve Cover Platform
Funeral cover administration: policies, covered lives, premiums and arrears, and claim case timelines that run from the first call through to the service delivered. Two differently branded tenants share one codebase, which is how the white-label claim gets checked.
Multi-tenantReactcover.softserve.co.ls
Platform · eventsLive
Softserve Tickets
Event ticketing with a .NET API, Flutter customer and staff apps and an organiser portal, wired through Payments for the money and Comms for the confirmations. In production against a real Lesotho event catalogue.
.NETFlutter
Ventures
Consumer products of my own, on the same foundations.
Venture · mobilityScaling
Leeto
Ride-hailing built for how Lesotho actually navigates, where pins and landmarks do the work street addresses cannot. Rider and driver apps on the Payments and Comms rails.
FlutterMapboxleeto.co.ls
Venture · cross-borderScaling
Lenka
Money movement between Lesotho and South Africa. Marketing site, PWA, portal and app, all live in production on real rails.
FlutterFXlenka.softserve.co.ls
Venture · investingScaling
Tsetela
Retail investing for Basotho, starting from M100. A full design system and four surfaces live across dev, sandbox and production.
ReactCIStsetela.softserve.co.ls
Venture · merchantLive
Mouno
A pocket till for Lesotho traders that keeps the books while they sell. The point of sale is the part a trader wants; the ledger underneath is the part that compounds.
FlutterPOSmouno.softserve.co.ls
Venture · eventsBuilding
Occasio
Invitation microsites on multi-tenant rails, with a Next.js front of house, .NET and Azure SQL behind it, an organiser portal and themed RSVP email. My own fortieth was the first tenant.
Next.jsMulti-tenantoccasio.co.za
Built for clients
Work delivered for another business, under their brand.
Client · brand and webLive
Electrotech
Brand assets, website and a working surveillance demonstration portal for a Maseru electrical and security contractor, built alongside their bid for a commercial bank's CCTV estate.
BrandWebelectrotech.co.ls
Client · lendingBuilding
DigiLoans
A lending platform for a Lesotho microfinance business, onboarded onto Softserve Payments for disbursement and collection and onto Comms for borrower messaging.
Lending.NETdigiloans.co.ls
Client · BNPLBuilding
DigiFin
Buy-now-pay-later for Lesotho retail, running in development and sandbox on the shared payments rails.
BNPLPaymentsbnpl.softserve.co.ls
Also built
- Softserve Commerce, white-label storefronts for merchants locked out of global gateways
- Softserve Manufacturing, a shop-floor execution platform configured first for Kwikspace
- Doorstep, on-demand delivery for Maseru
- Softie AI, a record-grounded assistant answering only from what a platform actually holds
- The Softserve estate console and the Pulse readiness dashboard behind it
- Valego, scholar transport for South Africa
// in depth
One decision, written up properly.
The cards above are one line each, which shows range and very little else. This is the other thing: a single architectural decision on the payments rails, with the alternative I turned down and the weakness I have not fixed.
Payments · durability
Read itAccept, then call back
Why the initiate endpoint stopped waiting on a USSD prompt, the durability hole that opened when the work moved off the request thread, and why a claim, a lease and a thirty-second sweep beat adding a broker.
// how I work
A repeatable way to take an idea all the way to production.
01
Design system first
Every build starts with tokens, type and components. Get the system right and the screens design themselves, staying consistent across surfaces.
02
Site, then platform
Ship the front of house, then the engine behind it. Marketing, app, portal and API move together, so what reaches production is a whole product.
03
Rails over rewrites
Payments and comms are built once and reused. New ventures borrow the rails instead of rebuilding them, so speed compounds.
04
GitOps to live
Feature to develop to main, environments by branch. No manual deploys, so dev, sandbox and prod stay honest and reproducible.
// about
An engineer with a founder's hands.
I started Softserve to build the financial and digital infrastructure Lesotho was missing, and to get it into production where people could actually use it. Today that means a payments platform settling real money, a comms layer carrying the notifications, administration platforms for banking, schools, medical aid and funeral cover, and a shelf of consumer products standing on the same foundations.
I work the full stack of a company: the design system and the database schema, the Flutter screen and the Azure pipeline, the brand and the bank integration. I like the part where an idea becomes something you can actually log into.
A good deal of it is delivered for someone else. A lending platform for a Lesotho microfinance business, brand and web for an electrical contractor bidding on a bank's CCTV estate, a manufacturing platform configured for a modular building firm. The shared rails are what make that quick, because a client engagement starts from something that already runs.
Some of this work is regulated, which changes how it has to be built. Lesotho's e-invoicing rules put a legal duty on almost every product that issues an invoice, and the banking platform is being built to hold up under a Tier 1 licence application.
Rooted in Maseru, building for the continent, and unembarrassed about doing it from here.
I work across
- Product and brand: design systems, UX, identity
- Frontend: Next.js, React, Flutter
- Backend: .NET, APIs, multi-tenant platforms
- Cloud: Azure, Static Web Apps, GitOps
- Fintech: payments rails, mobile money, CIAM
- Regulated: e-invoicing, banking, medical aid
“Build it once, build it as a system, and let the next thing borrow the rails.”
// get in touch
Building something that needs real infrastructure underneath it?
I take on a small number of ventures and partnerships where I can build the whole thing properly. If that's you, let's talk.
Maseru, Lesotho · available for select work