Mobile Money Africa

Patrick Gordon

A bit of 2010 good news for Mobicash in its seemingly endless innovation, is the proudly announcement of our mobile secure online payment which propose a more elegant way to look at electronic security that renders the value of card account information useless to attackers and brings assurance to consumers.

85% of Internet users are concerned about giving personal information such as their credit card over the web, and it is still the #1 barrier to online purchasing. Identity theft continues to be a threat, with e-mail phishing scams on the rise and key logging a growing menace!!!

The seemingly never-ending barrage of fraud and identity theft on the Internet last year has continued to drive consumer fears skyward. However, consumers are still willing to increase the amount of personal business they do online, provided banks and other online services offer them strong authentication.

In addition to the security risks in online card payments, e-commerce’s reliance on the card has resulted in the exclusion of un-banked populations. As the internet continues its expansion into developing countries, a solution allowing un-banked populations to participate in the e-commerce economy is needed. In the past internet has been a developed world luxury, this is changing quickly and online payment mechanisms must adapt to offer the same web-based services to un-banked online shoppers.

Mobicash payment platform was born out of thinking out of the box and taking another approach? What happens when we throw out a lot of today’s assumptions around card payments and e-commerce and assume that the merchant shouldn’t have to store the data at all? What if we never even handed this sensitive information over to the merchant in the first place?

The MobiCash e-commerce system is a secure online payments solution protected by Very Smart Authentication (VSA™), which allows merchant websites to accept payments using MobiCash payment instrument. This solution can be easily integrated into all online commerce systems and websites.

VSA™ is based on Tagattitude’s Near Sound Data Transfer (NSDT™) technology, which transforms any mobile phone into a secure means of making proximity transactions.

With a few clicks (and an NSDT™ “chirp”) customers can now make purchases online conveniently and in complete security. This new function revolutionizes online shopping by introducing a critical security mechanism and opening e-commerce to the billions of un-banked mobile phone owners.

The mobile phone is key to solving both security and accessibility issues faced by e-commerce. Practically 100% of banked online shoppers own a mobile phone. In addition, over 3 billion mobile phones belong to un-banked individuals. Getting a mobile phone is infinitely simpler than opening a bank account and getting a payment card.

Mobile phones are vastly prevalent around the globe: over half the world’s population owns a mobile! Countless studies show that the mobile phone is the object people most commonly have in their possession. People would even rather carry their phone than their wallet.

The mobile is personal, permanent, and benefits from an extremely elevated level of security (the SIM card). These characteristics make it the ideal device for payment and authentication.
Security

Internet fraud has developed into a highly sophisticated science used to power the multi-billion dollar identity theft industry.[1] It is practically impossible to ensure that static information shared over the web stays protected and there is no way of knowing who is actually making an online payment.

The mobile phone resolves this issue by providing an independent (out of band) channel through which to communicate with the person requesting a transaction. MobiCash’s e-commerce solution makes it impossible to complete an online transaction unless the user’s phone is physically present and the correct identifier and pass code have been entered. Users can link their card to MobiCash to avoid entering vulnerable card information online and protect their bank account from hackers.
Accessibility

E-commerce mobile payments open the world of online shopping to billions of un-banked mobile phone owners. The MobiCash mobile payments platform is designed to offer un-banked populations access to basic financial services and electronic transactions. Those individuals receiving salaries, money transfers, pensions, or loans on their mobiles finally have the possibility of spending it online. Customers can also load their MobiCash account with cash at a cyber café or with a MobiCash agent to be able to make a purchase on the web.

Extending MobiCash to the world of online payments brings a whole new dimension to the MobiCash platform; many of our partners are working in markets where e-commerce has not been developed due to lack on online payment mechanisms. Our online payment solution will change this and spur the growth of e-commerce in these underserved regions.

In many countries, even customers who do have payment cards do not have the possibility of using them to make purchases online due to high fraud risks. However, with MobiCash online mobile payments, the risk is eliminated and e-commerce can take place in complete security.

Very Smart Authentication (VSA™)

NSDT™ technology is used to power the VSA™ internet authentication solution. On a website VSA™ authentication is used to verify the presence of a user’s mobile phone. An NSDT™ cryptosound is sent to the web page as soon as the user answers their phone. When the server picks up the sound via the mobile, it proves that the phone is physically present and the authentication is completed.

How it works for Online Payment?

At checkout, the customer is redirected to the MobiCash Online Payment System server using an SSL link. They arrive on the merchant payment page and simply enter their identifier (typically the mobile phone number) and a secret pass code. MobiCash verifies this account and the pass code and launches a VSA™ authentication procedure towards this phone to sign the transaction.

VSA authentication pop-up

The outcome of the VSA™ authentication procedure is communicated to the merchant website for the approval or rejection of the purchase. The following diagram describes the interaction between the various pages during the MobiCash online payment process:

Speed

E-commerce transactions are made 3 times more quickly than with a banking card without compromising security integrity. Even relative to SMS or USSD based mobile authentication solutions, VSA™ is substantially more rapid and convenient. Studies show that 67% of online shoppers abandon the purchase before completing the checkout process.[2] Faster and less tedious transactions will reduce this percentage, thereby contributing to an even more flourishing e-commerce economy.
Simplicity

Unlike online payment systems where shoppers must locate, remember, and enter several pieces of information, when paying with MobiCash all they need to know is their phone number, pass code, and how to answer a phone call. With MobiCash, illiteracy and vision impairment are no longer major obstacles for online payment. The checkout process is transformed from tedious to effortless.
Instant availability

MobiCash online mobile payment solution works instantly on any phone in the world. There is nothing to download on the phone or to modify on the handset. Furthermore, MobiCash is completely independent of the telecom operator. Any phone that can receive a phone call (all phones by definition) can be used to sign e-commerce transactions with MobiCash. This means that there are zero hardware deployment costs no heavy enrollment campaign.

Kaustuv Ghosh.

What is innovation? Is it the process of giving birth to an original idea and therefore an invention in the true sense? Or is it the use of existing ideas in different contexts to produce solutions that can be used for identified purposes? Better still, is innovation an accident of sorts-a chance encounter with a tool, a formula or even a few scribbles that can bring about change?

It is, perhaps, all the above. But I like to consider innovation as a series of events where a process born partly of deliberation and partly of chance, has created value in a way and of a kind largely not possible before. That has been, for instance, the case with mobile money in Africa and The Phillipines. I suppose these case studies have been cited many times over-but we cannot emphasise enough their importance. Their importance lies not only in the business opportunities and the benefits unlocked for so many people. No, I think the larger story is the fact that these innovations were initiated in, driven in and deployed in emerging economies. When we look back at the series of events which lead to these success stories, we may well find a pattern of complex forces working together to present the near-perfect solution for a very relevant problem. But that is for another time. For now, let us understand that emerging economies have stepped out of the shadows of legacy to show the whole world a new way of doing business and making a difference to peoples lives. Where do we go from here, then?

The network economy has a number of key drivers, in my opinion- one, the ferment of ideas that arises due to the connectivity between traditional idea powerhouses and traditional developing nations; two, the development of a wired and aware middle class in large parts of the world; three, new and large markets with new sets of needs and challenges; four, migration. These drivers feed the need to create new products, services and business plans- such needs arising from the demands of global enterprises and globally aware consumers. This sets in motion a complicated series of engagements between localised consumers, glocalised transnationals and local companies. This gives rise, in turn, to centres of intellectual churn which become the hubs of new product development. Today, the Silicon Valley is perhaps the only place which has consistently held such a distinction for itself. That, by itself , is a topic for scholarly work; but if the early successes of mobile money are to be followed by more, Africa needs its own Silicon Valley.

What kind of a place would that be?The geographic location of a such a concept is not important. Indeed, it may not even need to be located in one place. It may be a number of centres of thought linked together by the strands of free enterprise and collective good. Typically, such places are centred around an university campus or two. Often, these hubs are the gathering points of gifted migrants who seek the right kind of atmosphere to let their talents run wild. I like to reach back into history for examples and it is Africa which can provide some of those to the rest of the world-ancient Alexandria and the still living city of Timbuktu, for instance. But my interest, in this specific context, lies not in the built environment but in the soft power of the African people. We hear about African footballers, writers and musicians, but what about African scientists, managers, sociologists and designers? What are the programmes of training and scholarship that are sending them to Europe and United States to learn and experience more? Is there or can there be an African Harvard and at the same time, an African Berkeley? For this is not just about building another mobile money network-far from it. We need to look forward to fundamental ways in which technology can work with new forms of inquiry to create new kinds of enterprises, new ways of distribution and new forms of communication. That essentially will brin g about significant crossovers between different kinds of media-between content and transmission, between television and internet and between mobile phones and newspapers. Fashion designers and architects will be able to have a say in the end user interfaces and urban planners will want to integrate these new networks with public transport ideas. And last but not the least, it is absolutely important that we can hear more about African entrepreneur-technocrats. There are a few names now familiar to the rest of the world. But we need to see an African Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg.

Above all, the African experience must inform the rest of the world about the possibilities of change. In the world of free enterprise, change is constant and is manifested through innovation. There is, today, a real chance that Africa may lead the way. And the frameworks it puts to use, may be emulated by the rest of the world tomorrow.

Note: The views expressed by the author are his own entirely and this article has been written in his personal capacity. The author acknowledges his debt to Dr Manuel Castells(who propounded the term “network society”), Prof James Carey and Prof Harold Innis, among others.

The Economic Times

An Afghan police officer gets his salary in a text message on his mobile phone. A Kenyan worker dials a few numbers to send money to his family.

The rise of banking transactions through mobile phones is giving a whole new meaning to pocket money in parts of the developing world that lack banks or cash machines.

Mobile money applications are emerging as potent financial tools in rural and remote areas of the globe, allowing people with no bank accounts to get paid, send remittances or settle their bills.

“One billion consumers in the world have a mobile phone but no access to a bank account,” said Gavin Krugel, the director of mobile banking strategy at GSM Association, an industry group of 800 wireless operators.

“We see it as very big opportunity,” he said this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, the industry’s annual four-day event that ended on Thursday.

Mobile banking began to emerge six years ago in the Philippines and South Africa, where 8.5 million and 4.5 million people, respectively, use such services.

Today, 40 million people worldwide use mobile money, and the industry is growing, according to the GSMA.

“Africa and Asia are the most active regions right now,” Krugel said. “We expect Latin America pick up this year.”

There are 18,000 new mobile banking users per day in Uganda, 15,000 in Tanzania and 11,000 in Kenya, he said.

Mobile phones can offer a wide range of banking solutions, from sending transfers to a relative to buying goods in a store or putting money aside for a rainy day — all by dialing a few numbers on one’s handset.

Mobile banking can also make life easier for people in parts of Africa where paying a simple bill can be time-consuming, said Reg Swart, regional executive of Fundamo, a company that makes banking applications.

“It takes one day to pay one bill. You have to physically go to the bank, then you must queue, a long queue,” he said.

In Afghanistan, the national police has been testing a service from mobile operator Roshan to pay its officers — a system that helps to limit corruption, the company said.

“We are currently moving from a trial to a full launch in paying the Afghan national police,” said Roshan’s head of mobile commerce, Zahir Jhoja.

Every month, police officers receive a text message in the language they prefer informing them they have received their salaries, Jhoja said.

A voice message is also left on the phone “because a lot of them are illiterate and cannot read,” he said.

The officer can then go get his money from an authorised Roshan agent.

“The benefit is that police and police officers don’t have to carry cash anymore: from their post they are able to send their money home, buy items, and take whatever cash they want from an agent, or to store for future,” he said.

The system has helped officers who were not receiving their full salaries due to “corruption and skimming.

“The police officers who received the money electronically were very surprised to learn that they earn so much money. When they were getting cash they were receiving 25 to 30 percent less,” Johja said.

Syeda Amtul

Finding the smartest mode of overseas money transfer is a concern especially for many expatriates, most of whom send money to their families back home. Speed, economy and security are the main features they look for in remittance instruments, such as, online and mobile phone transactions.
“A popular remittance choice for expats is the draft system. For decades, I have seen foreign workers queue outside banks the first week of every month. They are the only breadwinners of their families back home, who anxiously await the money transfer,” said Syed Saleem Quadri, a banking professional. He said that another mode – the telex transfer – is faster than the draft system, although costs involved in the latter are relatively high.
“Unfortunately, there are many expats who send money through the illegal transfer system of hawala (also known as hundi),” said Quadri.
Hawala transfers are illegal and informal. They are not effectively regulated by the government. However, Quadri listed three reasons why hawala is favored by some expats.
According to the World Bank’s website, the exchange rate margin for remitting money from Saudi Arabia to Bangladesh is 0.13 percent which is 2.84 percent of the total cost, to Egypt 2.13 percent of exchange rate margin and 5.40 percent of total cost, to India 0.45 percent of exchange rate margin and 3.08 percent of total cost, to Jordan 2.18 percent of exchange rate margin and 5.84 percent of total cost, to Pakistan 0.28 percent of exchange rate margin which is 2.50 percent of total cost, to the Philippines 1.61 percent of exchange rate margin which is 5.07 percent of total cost and to Yemen 0.03 percent of exchange rate margin which is 2.70 percent of total cost. These figures are for the collection period of the third quarter of 2009.
Quadri said remittance schemes offered by some banks are also popular due to “a good exchange rate and speed”.
According to him, all major banks offer online money transfer ranging from a few days to immediate transfer to the accounts of the beneficiaries. Additionally, some agencies “send money in minutes and offer rates higher than the usual bank rate,” he said.
“In the credit card system, an individual sends money to his account, which can be withdrawn with his credit card by his family from an ATM anywhere in the world,” he explained. “However, illegal workers in the Kingdom send money through hundi or hawala because those are the only options available to them.
“I chose to transfer money through an illegal channel because I thought it was convenient and guaranteed delivery of money at the doorstep. However, this caused many problems for my family in India,” said an Indian expat (requesting anonymity) in Jeddah, who remitted a few years back a “large amount of savings that I accumulated over months”. The amount was SR45,000, all of which he said he “lost in the transaction”.
“When the amount is large (typically amounts above SR20,000), questions are raised.
You must obtain a printout of your bank statement attested by the bank along with a mini statement from the ATM machine of your bank. As per the rules of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), these documents are verified by all banks and exchanges as a measure of safety against money laundering.
However, in an effort to save time and energy pursuing these formalities, many expats like me end up loosing a lot of money due to the hawala system,” the Indian expat said.
Quadri said the transactions are lost when the dealers involved in this illegal business are raided by the authorities.
“This mode (hawala) was used by people living in Asian countries who accumulated a lot of wealth through illegal ways,” said Quadri.
According to reports, remittances from Saudi Arabia’s estimated nine million mostly Asian foreign workers are soaring as the Kingdom recruits more expats for its massive development projects.
“Expatriates from South Asia have been working in Saudi Arabia for more than three decades. The increase in their remittances is due to the rise in their numbers and a hike in salaries,” said Quadri. – SG

Nathan Wythe
Editor – Nextbillion.com

Even before I fully knew what mobile money was, I could tell it was going to be huge. One look at the size of immigrant remittance flows that have become the largest source of funds flowing into many developing economies (and are more stable than FDI), and you can tell that innovative ways to move money with lower transaction costs would quickly find scale.

Add to this the cumulative economic turnover at the base of the pyramid – 4 billion people without bank accounts and often any non-cash monetary instruments – and innovative ways to store money and make payments loom even larger.

Estimates for the size of the mobile money market range from $27 to $202 billion within 4 years. So I’m not the only one who thinks this will be big but doesn’t know how big.

To get a handle on all this buzz and walk through what mobile payments really look like, I sat down for a tutorial with Ben Lyon of FrontlineSMS Credit while he was in the Bay Area to speak at Google. As someone accustomed to debit cards and PayPal and the like, I had to take a step back to get a feel for what the ability to send and receive money through a mobile phone – or really, a SIM card – means for someone with no other easy way to move money or convert cash into electronic form.

Ben is one year out of college and I wish I had been smart enough to do what he’s doing, when I saw how big remittance flows were in my own senior year. FrontlineSMS Credit is building a back-end interconnection tool to allow microfinance institutions to interface their own databases with the mobile payment systems run by mobile networks. When mobile payments are received from MFI customers, the SMS message that conveys the payment will update the MFIs records, while the payment will stay on SIM cards the MFI holds, to be stored and loaned out again via mobile payment, or paid out into the MFIs bank accounts.

If this all makes perfect sense to you, you can skip the next paragraphs. But I wanted to get an intuitive feeling for what this looks like for a customer, so Ben drew me some flow charts and walked me through the situation in Kenya (he’s now in Sierra Leone scoping out operations there), where mobile payments have taken off the most with M-PESA, a partnership between the mobile network Safaricom and Vodafone.

Imagine you have no ability to convert cash into anything else, and no bank to put it in. If you want to save it, you’ve got to keep it hidden somewhere. If you’re a seasonal migrant laborer in a city, you might live in a communal space with many others – if you have private space at all. If you are employed, the closest you have to a bank is your employer witholding a portion of your wages until you ask for them (good luck collecting on that if business goes bad).

Starting recently, prepaid cell phone minutes have become a new liquid and electronic form of value. It’s always in demand by the vendors that sell mobile phone use, and there’s probably a vendor like this near your home. So you can purchase Safaricom airtime at the corner store in Mombasa, call the mobile phone vendor near your home, and have the airtime deposited with their SIM. The vendor can then pay out cash (minus a commission) to your mother.

It only takes a few leaps on the part of Safaricom to realize that it’s got a new form of currency on its hands – limited only by the amount of cash that it can be converted into in rural areas for payout. So instead of denominating this currency only in minutes, they’ve made a jump to being a nonbank financial institution by now doing so in Kenyan shillings as well. Mobile payments are done using the same SMS system as text messages, conveying information to Safaricom agents about money that has been transferred from another agents account to theirs, and can therefore be paid out to its intended recipient. But a recipient could just as easily be a store or a company or an MFI. (The actual story of M-PESA’s creation is told here).

Ben suggests that a the emergence of virtual SIM cards that authenticate users and query accounts based on activation codes or passwords would bring mobile financial services to those who cannot afford a handset or SIM card. This means that virtually everyone, except those so remote that cell phones are not within reasonable traveling distance, will have access to electronic money.

So think of every time you would rather have money in a secure place and in electronic form rather than cash – and what percentage of your payments and savings you keep in electronic form. An indication emerges of how momentous the arrival of mobile payments and then branchless banking, following on the heels of the mobile communications revolution, will be for the unbanked world.

What will it look like? The World Bank’s Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) has done an initial research brief on M-PESA. The findings are that more frequent remittances – rather than visits home to deliver money by migrants – have increased income by 5-30%. More than $1.7 billion had been transferred by 7 million members in average transfers of $20 as of August 2009.

In Kenya, mobile payment systems are currently segmented by mobile carrier – as Ben explained to me, they are being used to build up commerce within networks. Meanwhile, banks are focused on mobile services only for their existing customers.

Coming back to the ground level, this is where FrontlineSMS Credit comes in. An MFI would want to easily accept loan repayments via mobile phone but would not want to only accept loan repayments through a single network – so their system interfaces with all four major networks and allows an MFI to accept and pay out money through all of them. These transactions to flow right into the MFIs records, eliminating costly and error-prone data transcription by hand.

But the same payment system could be used by any product company that wants to provide consumer credit on a product but doesn’t want to set up an entire MFI community infrastructure to collect payments.

Or for a power utility to allow customers to pay via phone rather than handing cash to bill collectors that customers distrust as being corrupt.

The possibilities created by electronic money are fairly endless.

And the application will be global. In this slide deck by Menekse Gencer of MPay Connect, the new payment systems popping up around the world are mapped. In its company presentations the start-up payment company Amaana in Pakistan notes that in that country, 50+% of the population has a mobile phone, but fewer than 5% have bank accounts.

And as Ben points out, a new wave of services will “disintermediate mobile networks by allowing third parties to create value-added mobile payment services without the permission of networks” – citing services like PesaPal in Kenya, Splash Cash in Sierra Leone, and txtnpay in Ghana. And as they do so, the data locked up in mobile networks will begin to filter out, becoming possible to integrate into information management systems widely the way that FrontlineSMS is doing diligently for MFIs.

Mobile payments are already an incredible story of innovation – which is being carried out and deployed led by Africa, long before those of us in the U.S. and Europe are using our phones to move money in quite this way. Get ready for this to blow up as quickly as mobile phones and as expansively. Nokia is rolling out its own Nokia Money service expects to reach 300 million customers in 2011.

All of the tools for innovation on this front are distributed in the hands of millions of people (literally) – people just like the innovators who started by using airtime as currency for money transfers. The future of banking will not be created on Wall Street – it will be written by coders in places like Nairobi’s new tech incubator, iHub, and by the companies noted above that are springing up across Africa.

Emmanuel Okoegwale

The Nigerian Financial Regulator, Central Bank of Nigeria had since last year released the regulatory framework to guide the operations of potential mobile money operators in Nigeria. The policy guidelines though with some flaws but like all regulatory positions, prevailing situations always shape and influence review on a consistent Basis or on a need arise Basis.

The poison pill
CBN has clearly stated that the Banks are favored ahead of MNO’s in the countries Mobile Money space. MNO’s will have to work with a licensed financial institution, therefore commercial Banks, micro finance and discount houses. MNO’s in Nigeria are not known, not to be in the drivers seat for their own deployments but the regulators stand on this may not be final but it holds for now.Though the Banks do not understand ‘low value’ and ‘High volume’ Business platform required to run MMT platforms but capacity can be sourced elsewhere and quickly.

The Alliances
Globacom, one of Nigeria’s most innovative MNO and second National carrier with operations in a couple of West African countries may join forces with ETBank which has a close ownership structure with Globacom.This relationship may be excellent for internal operations but may not deliver expected benefits for end users if the technology to be used is a combo of mobile,card and ATM. ETBank has a limited ATM and Branch Network in Nigeria.

MTN, Africa’s largest MNO with over 100 million subscribers in Africa and Middle East,is said to be working with GTBank.The Bank has proven to be a credible and trusted partner for Mobile Money providers in West Africa with impressive records with Txtpay in Ghana and Splash Mobile Money in Sierra Leone.The experiences in both market may count in local operations in Nigeria.

Zain is actively zapping through Africa with recent addition of sierra Leone,Malawi and Niger on the Zain zap Map.Zap has working relationship with CITI Bank in some parts of Africa but it may face significant challenges in Nigeria where the Bank is relatively unknown in retail Banking with limited Branch network and non existent ATM network.May face hindrance where ATM technology is required as cash out options.

Regional corridor
West Africa has strong cultural and economic ties with millions of migrant labor crossing into countries all across the region,all year round.Benin Republic alone accounts for more than 65% of Nigerian used car imports and also a well developed transportation hub between Lagos – Accra in Ghana.
Despite the huge potentials in the regional economy, most of the Businesses are still informal and like wise the remittances. Opportunities abound for MMT regional Hub to take advantage and explore the opportunities.

Game Changers
UBA Bank, a leading financial services provider in Nigeria with very ambitious African growth and a formidable regional Hub operations in West Africa is a strong contender in the MMT space with more than 7 million customers in Nigeria alone, close to 2,000 ATM across Nigeria, no other financial institution in West Africa is better positioned to champion the Bank led MMT provider in West Africa.

First Bank,Nigeria’s largest Bank by capitalization and a very strong retail sector, the Bank’s solid knowledge of mass market and spread of Branch network positions the Bank as a formidable competition in the MMT space.

Not to be left behind is FinBank’s Flashmecash, Nigeria’s first Mobile Money service, very secure and reliable but hampered by the market strategy which tied down the service in the Banking hall instead of developing agent network to promote it and developing transaction channels on the MMT platform. If the Bank can overcome these two key challenges, Flashmecash may end up occupying a space on the big league table of MMT providers in Nigeria.

Sign up for upcoming MMT training in Lagos -West Africa region by March:http://mobilemoneyafrica.com/trainings

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) announced Friday that it would launch next week a comprehensive study on mobile banking in Africa.

The launch will take place at the United Nations Conference Centre in Addis Ababa as a side-event to the African Union Summit which is being organized this year under the theme, “Information and Communication Technologies in Africa: Challenges and Prospects for Development.”

The new study called “M-Banking, an African Financial Revolution” assesses the status and potential for growth of mobile electronic commerce in Senegal, Kenya and South Africa.

“It examines the wireless technologies deployed as well as their advantages and disadvantages, the growth potential for the mobile telephony sector and rollout plans in the countries surveyed,” according to ECA.

The study analyzes the mobile market with a focus on how the innovation taking place in creating mobile-commerce opportunities opens up new revenue streams especially in rural and remote areas.

One key observation is that reduction of poverty can be enhanced if communication services, including mobile banking, access the rural areas and are affordable to the urban poor.

ECA said that the study responds to concerns regarding the kind of policy requirements needed to sustain efforts in developing the mobile-banking sector and make it a tool for promoting economic development in Africa.

“M-Banking-An African Financial Revolution’’ is published on behalf of the ICT, Science and Technology Division of ECA, the Centre for African Studies-Copenhagen University, in collaboration with International Books.

Expanding International Airtime Top-up Service Helps Mobile Operators & MVNO’s Target Consumers With
Close Connections Abroad

Leading mobile money provider Mi-Pay is increasing its strategic partnerships with operators and MVNOs in key remittance corridors in order to support an anticipated rise in demand for international airtime top-ups and transfers in 2010. The company sees easy access to pre-pay airtime – for family and friends abroad – as crucial in driving new revenue streams and boosting customer loyalty for operators targeting multi-cultural traditionally Western ‘sending’ countries or developing ‘recipient’ countries.
With operator partners already in place to support its International Airtime Top-up services in Europe, Africa, India and Latin America, Mi-Pay has secured major new agreements that will potentially double its reach in a matter of months. By the end of 2010, it anticipates that its ‘sending and receiving’ channels will cover 65% of the global population.

Mi-Pay’s International Airtime Top-up is a white labelled and highly “sticky” service that will appeal to those operators looking for a quick-to-market, risk-free way of enabling consumers to top-up their own phones internationally; or those of family and friends overseas, remotely.
Providing new marketing and revenue opportunities, it can help to reduce churn, drive ARPU and boost international brand recognition in both core and expanding markets. It also provides operators and MVNO’s with direct access to the rapidly growing and profitable airtime transfer market that exists within the world’s key remittance corridors.

Norman Frankel CEO of Mi-Pay comments, “New figures from World Bank show that, despite global recession, in 2009 the international remittance market to developing countries is set to come in at around $317 billion dollars. This reflects the huge desire for individuals to continue to aid family and friends living abroad even in the face of current financial pressures.”

“We believe that informal remittance channels such as International Airtime Top-up – where users can buy mobile phone airtime for contacts living in another country – may well help to boost remittance values to regions where mobile phone access is vital. By offering the ability to provide regular low value financial assistance – it creates new opportunities for those wishing to send support to their loved ones abroad and innovative new campaign and marketing platforms for the operators involved.”

Mi-Pay handles all aspect of service delivery, transaction handling and process support. Its International Airtime Top-up interface can be fully client branded offering a seamless look and feel to the operators/MVNOs other services. The service can be accessed via Web, SMS, or via a network of point of sale terminals in a retail environment. Consumers can choose to either make single top-ups or create regular top-ups; to keep one or more remote handsets recharged each week, month or quarter. The system supports payments by cash, card or bank in the sender’s local currency.

Mobile operators and MVNOs interested in introducing an International Airtime Top-up sending service or creating a recipient channel with M-Pay should call +44(0) 207 11 22 121 or email: info@mi-pay.com with their contact details.

About Mi-Pay
Mi-Pay the leading mobile money company, provides an innovative range of multi-channel ‘white label’ and outsourced, international and domestic airtime top-up and mobile remittance services. Enabling consumers to perform secure financial transactions via their mobile phones and online portals, Mi-Pay helps mobile operators, MVNOs and financial service providers to drive new revenue streams and boost ARPU. Based in the UK, Mi-Pay also has offices in Dubai, Romania, India and Pakistan, bringing a truly international perspective to its partners. Mi-Pay has vast expertise and service offerings that span pre-pay top-ups, mobile initiated payments, mobile banking, mobile money transfer, handset based authentication and consultancy. In November 2009, Mi-Pay received the Award for the “Most Innovative Company in Money Transfers” from the International Association of Money Transfers (IAMTN). For more information visit: www.mi-pay.com

Citizens of the world,woke up on the 12th of January to find the country of Haiti under the ruins, due to the effects of devastating earthquake.Thousands of people were reported killed and many still unaccounted for and millions are without food,water,medicines and shelter.

Matching action with words,President Obama made pledges and millions of dollars donations flowed in from all around the world. From the Big corporate donors to the very ubiquitous Mobile Phones,they all proved that the world is now a connected place,where commerce can take place,anytime and anywhere.As at the last count, donations from Mobile phones alone already exceeded 24million USD with more than 2.5million people texting $10 for the Haiti relief efforts which is added to the monthly bill.Small donations are making big impacts in Haiti.

I spoke with many Africans,Living in Africa if they made any donations towards the Relief efforts of our Brothers and Sisters in Haiti,the answer was negative with only a few positives from Kenya and South Africa(This is withing the circle of personal influence / friends and not postulating a general trend for Africans). Safaricom,MPESA’s parent company had set up a donation account for Kenyans to make donations via Mobile Money platform,MPESA.

The Main reason for not contributing to the donation is that they have ability to donate between 1 – 10 USD (willingness) but they do not have the means ( access ) to make such small value transaction,cheaply without having to travel to a Bank, stay on queue, leave their Jobs for hours, travel to next town to visit the Bank but they all have a Mobile Phone,actually conducted this short interview via mobile phone telconference and SMS,talking to 35 people in seven countries.

When Final donation statistics are taken,Africa will most likely record least contributions to a country that is more connected to them,racially and Historically than any other Nation on the face of earth.This is our score card,not because we lack capacity for kindness and Love but we lack the ability to share Love using simple technologies like mobile payment.

If you are living in countries where these services work, kindly make your donations to the Haiti Relief efforts by sending your donations to the following organizations Via your Mobile Phone:

• Kenya Red Cross Society via MPESA – Business Number 508000
• ACLJ – Text ACLJ to 90999 to give $10
• Compassion International – Text DISASTER to 90999 to give $10
• Family Health International – Text FHI to 90999 to give $5
• FAMU – Text RELIEF to 50555 to give $5
• Florida Hospital – Text MISSION to 90999 to give $5
• Friends of the World Food Program – Text FRIENDS to 90999 to give $5
• Leon H. Sullivan Foundation – Text SUMMIT to 90999 to give $%
• Rotary Foundation – Text ROTARY to 90999 to give $5
• United Nations Foundation – Text CERF to 90999 to give $5
• United Way – Text HAITI to 864833 to give $5

You may also visit http://haiti.ushahidi.com,powered by Clickatell to Donate, Volunteer, Submit a Report, Track Information, Register Missing Persons, and Receive SMS alerts

Kindly send New Links to Mobile Phone / SMS donations initiatives to the Editor for publication.Thank you

Emmanuel Okoegwale
emmanuel@mobilemoneyafrica.com
+234 8030818868

XIPWIRE announced today a new feature of its mobile payment platform to help the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. This features enables individuals to pledge up to $500 by sending a simple text message to 56624. In addition it allows the donor to direct the funds to any of the following charitable organizations:
• American Red Cross
• Beyond Borders
• Catholic Relief Services
• Doctors Without Borders
• Habitat for Humanity
• Oxfam International
• Salvation Army
• UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF)
• UNICEF

XIPWIRE is waiving all fees associated with mobile pledges to Haiti, allowing 100% of the donations to reach the relief organizations. Besides allowing significantly larger donations than other text pledging systems, contributions made through XIPWIRE will reach the charities in a matter of days instead of weeks or even months. Also, unlike other text pledging systems, XIPWIRE’s secure platform protects individuals from potentially fraudulent donations being made on their behalf.

“Our mobile payment technology is the fastest way for donations to reach the victims of Haiti. It’s a true testament to the American Spirit that so many people have responded to this crisis and are giving for the first time through text messages. After hearing reports that it could take up to 3 months for these donations to reach the relief organizations we knew we had to act.” said Sharif Alexandre, founder. “XIPWIRE’s mobile pledging platform reduces the wait time for valuable resources from months to days which we hope ultimately benefits the people of Haiti.”

About XIPWIRE:
Founded in 2009, XIPWIRE is a mobile payment service that enables people to securely send and receive money using a simple text message. The company develops technologies that allow people to leave their cash behind and pay for goods and services in a secure and trusted environment using just their mobile phone. Signing up for a XIPWIRE account is fast and free. www.xipwire.com