What does it take to be a sponsoring partner.We provide card based solutions that works with mobiles (GSM) and we are looking at expanding into the African markets in coming months.

Thank you.

Many Thanks for your insights.Point one and two will feature at the data gathering stage and we are particular about the end user demographics and End user Mobile management.

I hope your organization,Device management will provide professional inputs and directions for the Mobile end user management segment of the survey.

Many Thanks.

Emmanuel Okoegwale

1) Banking for women
Women make up half the population. Increasingly, women are gaining financial independence. If banks do not offer women banking services in developing economies particularly where gender segregation is a factor, the niche in the market will be an opportunity for someone else – as shown in the case in Tanzania. I would suggest that the survey take this into consideration – what proportion of prospective customer base is female and would they prefer to have separate banking facilities? Financial, like medical matters, tend to be sensitive. Women might feel more trusting and/or open when dealing with other women.

2) Method of mobile banking
It is important, when offering a mobile banking service, to know what will work for the customer. The proportion of feature phones versus smartphones is crucial. There is also the issue of data reach – at this point, the rural areas are still underserved with respect to mobile internet capabilities. So it would be prudent to go for an SMS solution. However, it would also be useful to find out when prospective customers, especially in the urban areas, intend to migrate to handsets capable of data use. So questions on current handsets and plans for future handsets would be very pertinent to the survey. That would also give service providers some idea on security and device management requirements in conjunction with how to roll out the service.

3) Infrastructure
While this isn’t appropriate to the survey, it is an important consideration on the evolution of the service. If you have contacts within the operator sector, I would suggest getting some idea of the timeframes for rolling out mobile data services. If they intend to use WiMAX, it might be sooner rather than later.

I think it’s great you are doing this at this time. In my opinion, one of the advantages such a survey would offer service providers is the ability to better anticipate market trends, thereby saving them time and money. Let me illustrate a little: you would recall that one of speakers at the mobile banking conference (May 2009) told us about the experience of a bank that had invested in and promoted mobile access to their services. They had envisioned that a particular kind of technology (WAP) would be more popular among their customers, only to see their customers adopt something else. They also found out that a disproportionately large number of the support calls/requests by customers were by those customers trying to access their services via WAP, which meant they were spending so much supporting a small amount of users. In that particular case, the bank and the market had different ideas about what the product or service should be.

It’s also going to be nice if the survey could help service providers get an idea of the average amounts the transactions would be in. This could be very helpful in designing products for this market and general planning. We know the per capital income is low ($2,134, according to the IMF) and as a result, Nigeria is a “sachet economy”, just like the case in the Philippines which is better documented. It is expected that a vast majority of the transactions would be in small amounts. But the questions is, how small or how big? What can we expect?

From Efina’s survey, we know that 52% of the Nigerian adult population (74% of whom, by the way, have never had a bank account)has the perception that they would be charged a service charge if they operate a bank account. It would be nice to know if they think the same for mobile money or mobile payments.

I would also advise that national spread of the survey should take into account the economic patterns we see in the country. For example, I think the survey should pay particular attention to Lagos which generates a relatively large percentage of the economic activities in Nigeria. I also know that the state also accounts for about 40% of the subscriber base of one of the mobile networks (I would expect the same pattern on some of the other networks). We same the same trend in terms of number of bank accounts owners and many other things.

Femi Alla

Many Thanks for the Kind comments,interest and contributions.

I am familiar with Mr Rensburg of Fundamo but an introduction to Mr Obi will be fine.

Many Thanks.

Emmanuel Okoegwale

Your summary of the issues for African banking is spot-on. Having spent some time developing financial services solutions for this region I agree that the mobile platform remains the primary channel with which we must attempt to reach the ‘masses’ as it were, since the vast majority of Africa’s population are mobile capable.
Your study must include two mobile banking solutions, different from one another, but both successful in their own right and birthed right here on the African continent:
1. eTranzact – Valentine Obi, eTranzact MD, is one of the most innovative thinkers I have met, and the solution he and his team have rolled out across 6 countries and 3.5 million users is robust and easy to use across almost any phone on the market. I can introduce you to Val if you need such an intro.
2. Fundamo – a South African solution that must have been one of the very first mobile banking solutions worldwide when it first launched. This is an excellent company, well funded and very well managed, with a very powerful and secure set of mobile solutions for banking on the mobile phone. Though I can introduce you to the management team they are in fact very well represented on LinkedIn.com so you may wish to simply ask them directly using that medium.

I refer them both to you because it is often the facilitators of services such as them that offer you the best perspective of the issues faced in Africa. I certainly have found them experts in this field and I believe you will find them so also.

The very best of luck for your project and resulting report.

Best regards,

Johan de Lange