44 questions people actually ask

Bantaba is a Gambian app that does four things: a marketplace for buying from Gambian shops, a business tool for selling and keeping stock, a place to rent rooms and property, and a digital susu for saving. One account reaches all four, and you can use only the part you came for.

No. The market, the shops and the rent listings are open to anybody, and you can fill a cart without logging in. You only need an account when there is something in the cart and a seller who needs to know where to send it.

A name and a phone number. An email address is optional and only used if you give us one. There is nothing to pay and no documents to upload unless you later join a Business Rotating susu.

Bantaba runs in your phone browser and can be added to your home screen from the browser menu, where it opens like an app. There is nothing to download from a store.

The pages are built to be light and the images are shrunk and re-encoded before they are ever served. If you have added Bantaba to your home screen, the outer shell of the app is cached so it opens even while the network is struggling, though your balances and listings still need a connection to load.

Search at the top of any page for a product, a shop or a category, or open the Browse drawer and work down the categories. On a shop page you can filter by price, by how it is delivered and by where the seller is.

Not through checkout. Money coming in is closed until the Wave integration is live, so checkout is hidden rather than left there to fail. What works today is the cart and the WhatsApp button: agree the deal with the seller directly and settle it between you.

Every product page carries a button that opens WhatsApp with a message about that exact product already written for you. It is the quickest way to ask whether something is still in stock before you travel for it.

It means either an administrator has flagged that shop as verified, or the person who owns it has already had their identity documents approved. Every shop on the market has been read by a person before it appears at all.

Your payment will be held rather than handed straight to the seller. The seller accepts the order and marks it delivered, you confirm the goods arrived, and only then is the money released. If you say nothing, it releases itself after a few days.

You can raise a dispute at any point before the money is released, which stops the clock. An administrator then either pays the seller or refunds you. A refund puts the money back in your available balance and cancels the sale on the seller's side, which puts the stock back on their shelf.

No. There is no charge to browse, to hold a cart or to place an order, and the commission taken on a marketplace sale is currently zero.

A till that works on a phone, stock held per branch, purchase orders that add stock when you receive them, customers and what they owe you, suppliers, expenses, a cash-up when you close the till, and reports with exports. Listing in the marketplace is a separate choice on top of that.

No. You can register purely as a business user, which skips the susu onboarding entirely. Shop money and susu money are kept completely separate even when one person has both.

Nothing. No registration fee, no monthly fee, and no commission on a marketplace sale at present. Free while we grow.

Stock is held per branch and can never go negative. Every change writes a movement with a reason, and the movements always add up to the count you are looking at, so a figure that seems wrong can be traced back through every hand it passed.

No. The cost is copied onto the sale line at the moment of sale, so an old sale keeps the margin it actually had. Changing a price today never rewrites yesterday's profit.

Yes. Every marketplace order also writes an ordinary sale marked as coming from the marketplace, so it counts in your stock, your top products and your profit and loss without you having to enter it twice.

Rooms, apartments, whole compounds and shop space. Each listing shows the rent, the deposit and where the place actually is, so you know what it costs to move in before you go and look at it.

No. It is free to look and free to list, and we take no commission on a let. What is agreed between a landlord and a tenant is entirely between them.

Somebody here reads every listing before it goes up. That is not a guarantee about the building, and it is not a substitute for going to see a place and meeting the landlord before you part with any money.

Each listing carries a way to reach the landlord directly, including WhatsApp where they have given a number. Bantaba does not hold your rent or your deposit at any point.

The same rotating or locked savings group people already run, with the notebook replaced by a ledger. You contribute on a schedule, your contributions are written down with dates, and what you are owed is calculated from those lines rather than from anybody's memory.

Individual, where you deposit any amount at any time, pick a term and cannot withdraw until it matures. Business Fixed, a fixed contribution over a fixed cycle. Business Rotating, a higher fixed contribution where one member wins the pot each month from the second month onwards.

Every member holds their own ledger. A rotating pot is funded only from contributions that have actually been confirmed, and one member falling behind never reduces anybody else's balance.

By the organiser, who runs every draw and may pick the winner at random or choose who wins. The susu’s rules say so before anybody joins, and joining means accepting them. Only members who are up to date and have not won can win, and a member who has already won cannot win again.

In a Business Rotating susu the first month of contributions is held as collateral until the susu ends. It is what makes it safe for the person who wins in month two to be paid before they have finished paying in. It is released to you at the end.

When you win, part of your payout is held back as a buffer. If you miss a contribution afterwards, the buffer pays it for you instead of a penalty landing on your balance. Whatever is left of it is released when the susu completes.

On the business products a missed instalment attracts a penalty, worked out as a percentage of the contribution amount and taken from your balance. If you have already won and still hold a buffer, the buffer covers the day instead. The penalty is income for whoever runs the susu, and it never comes out of the pot.

Individual savings are locked until the term you chose matures. A Business Fixed balance opens at the end of the cycle. In a rotating susu, collateral and whatever is left of your buffer are released when the susu completes.

You ask for the money and choose how you want it: Wave, a bank transfer or cash in person. Whoever owns the susu approves or rejects the request and then marks it paid, and you are notified at every step, including the reason if it is rejected.

Only for Business Rotating, which needs an identity document or passport and a business registration. The other two products need nothing beyond accepting the agreement.

Yes. Register as an organiser and you can create susus, invite members with your own link, review their documents, and see contributions, penalties and withdrawals for every group you run. Creating a susu costs nothing.

Nothing, today. Every platform fee is set to zero: no registration fee, no monthly fee, nothing to create a susu, no commission on a let, and no commission on a marketplace sale. Free while we grow.

Probably not forever. If a charge is introduced it will be published as a new version of the terms and you will be asked to accept it before it applies to you. No fee is ever taken under a version of the terms you have not accepted.

Money coming in is closed until the Wave integration is finished and tested. Rather than show a payment button that fails, deposits, contributions and marketplace checkout are hidden until they genuinely work.

Through the Wave number registered on your account for a Wave payout, or by bank transfer or cash in person if you choose one of those when you make the request. Bank and cash are marked paid by hand with a note recording how.

Gambian dalasi, written as D followed by the amount.

Your name and phone number, an email address if you gave one, what you have done on Bantaba, any photographs you uploaded, and identity documents only where a Business Rotating susu required them. The privacy notice sets all of it out in full.

You, and whoever organises the susu you are in, because they have to be able to tell you where you stand. An administrator sees what they need in order to approve something. No other member sees your balance.

Identity documents are kept private and served only to the people entitled to review them. Photographs you upload are re-encoded on the way in, which strips out the location your phone writes into the file.

Yes. Write to us and you can ask for a copy of what is held about you, ask for something wrong to be corrected, or ask for your account to be deleted. Some records connected to money already moved have to be kept for as long as the law requires.

Yes. One account can shop, sell, let a place and save. You can add a role from your account settings without creating another account.

Use the "forgot password" link on the login page and a reset link is sent to the email address on your account. If there is no email on your account, write to us and we will sort it out.