[Kictanet] Fw: Final Reminder: Invitation to BusinessXchange Forum - Tuesday 31st October 2006.

Mon Nov 6 07:42:07 EAT 2006

Mkubua,
M-pesa or Mteja pesa is Safaricom.

Regards

Ndemo.

> Thanks Bw PS. This sounds very innovative and perhaps the kind of services
> that would suit many Kenyans. Certainly m-pesa also needs to be
> congratulated for their innovation. Does anyone know their contacts?
>
> Kind Regards
> Waudo Siganga
> Chairman
> The Computer Society of Kenya
>
>
>
> On Sun, November 5, 2006 5:47 am, bitange at jambo.co.ke wrote:
>> Dear All,
>> Do you see opportunities in the Economist article below:
>>
>> Ndemo.
>>
>>
>> Phoney finance - Mobile telephony and banking
>>
>> 875 words
>>
>> 28 October 2006
>>
>> The Economist
>>
>> ECN
>>
>> 381
>>
>> English
>>
>> (c) The Economist Newspaper Limited, London 2006. All rights reserved
>>
>> Banking the unbanked, by mobile phone
>>
>> Most South Africans do not have bank accounts. But most do have mobile
>> phones
>>
>> LIFE is now easier for Andile Mbatha, who owns a hair salon in Soweto.
>> Gone are his days of trekking to his bank, which could take two hours by
>> minibus, to send money to relatives. Nor does he keep piles of cash in
>> his
>> salon any more. Last year, he opened a bank account with Wizzit, an
>> innovative provider of financial services. He now sends money to his
>> sister in Cape Town whenever he wants, from wherever he wants, using a
>> simple menu on his mobile phone. Half his customers no longer pay cash
>> for
>> their haircuts. They use their phones to move money from their accounts
>> to
>> his, in a few seconds. “This has taken out a lot of stress,” says Mr
>> Mbatha.
>>
>> About half a million South Africans now use their mobile phones as a
>> bank.
>> Besides sending money to relatives and paying for goods, they can check
>> balances, buy mobile airtime and settle utility bills. Traditional banks
>> offer mobile banking as an added service to existing customers, most of
>> whom are quite well off. But Wizzit, and to some extent First National
>> Bank (FNB) and MTN Banking (a joint venture between Standard Bank and a
>> mobile-phone network), are chasing another market: the 16m South
>> Africans,
>> over half of the adult population, with no bank account. Significantly,
>> 30% of these people do have mobile phones. Wizzit hired and trained over
>> 2,000 unemployed people, known as Wizzkids, to drum up business. It
>> worked: eight out of ten Wizzit customers previously had no bank account
>> and had never used an ATM.
>>
>> Mobile banking is just one example of a wider phenomenon in South
>> Africa.
>> With its odd mix of advanced capitalism and developing-world economics,
>> the country is successfully luring people who hitherto dealt only in
>> cash
>> or barter to the world of formal finance. A simplified kind of account
>> called Mzansi was launched in 2004 to reach the unbanked, and portable
>> banks and ATMs have been rolled out in townships and in the countryside.
>> To this fast-changing scene, mobile-phone banking looks to be a
>> promising
>> addition. Millions of South Africans send money to their relatives in
>> other parts of the country. And most of these sums, which add up to
>> about
>> 12 billion rand ($1.5 billion) each year, still move informally.
>>
>> South Africa is not the first place to use mobile-phone banking:
>> countries
>> such as Japan, South Korea and the Philippines have had it for a while.
>> But the potential is probably bigger in the developing world, and in
>> countries in which migrants remit money to their families in relatively
>> poor homelands. In Greece, a European Union member that is now awash
>> with
>> migrant labour, Albanians or Bulgarians often send money home by putting
>> crumpled banknotes in the hands of a trusted compatriot, who takes a
>> cut.
>> If they could do it all by pressing buttons, they would.
>>
>> In most of Africa, meanwhile, only a fraction of people have bank
>> accounts—but there is huge demand for cheap and convenient ways to send
>> money and buy prepaid services such as airtime. Many Africans, having
>> skipped landlines and jumped to mobiles, already use prepaid airtime as
>> a
>> way of transferring money.
>>
>> They could now leap from a world of cash to cellular banking. In Kenya,
>> a
>> pilot scheme called M-Pesa is being used to disburse and pay micro-loans
>> by phone. Meanwhile Celpay, which FNB bought last year from Celtel, a
>> mobile-phone company, is offering platforms for banks and phone
>> companies
>> in Zambia and Congo. In countries like Somalia, with chaotic conditions
>> at
>> home and a huge diaspora, cash transfers by phone would be a boon.
>>
>> For banks, persuading people not to use branches for simple transactions
>> such as balance enquiries or transfers should reduce operating costs. So
>> far, they charge the same for mobile as for traditional banking, though
>> Wizzit says its services are at least a third cheaper than those of a
>> traditional bank.
>>
>> But drawing the unbanked into the joys of cell-finance isn't always
>> easy.
>> Many think banking too expensive and complicated, and helping new
>> customers become financially literate takes time. The technology remains
>> clunky in some cases, with downloads requiring dozens of text messages.
>> Several rival platforms are still in the fight, but so far those that
>> emphasise simplicity and ease-of-use over state-of-the-art technology
>> and
>> security have made the greatest strides. A lot also hangs on putting in
>> place the right laws and regulations. They need to be tight enough to
>> protect vulnerable users and discourage money laundering, but open
>> enough
>> to allow innovative mobile banking to grow.
>>
>> If the transfer of money by mobile phone—between countries as well as
>> within them—takes off, it could have implications far beyond the salons
>> of
>> Soweto. In 2005, according to the United Nations, global migrants
>> remitted
>> $232 billion, of which up to 20% was lost on the way, mostly in bank
>> charges or fraud. If cellular transfers could slash that figure, mobile
>> banking would prove to be a good call.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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