On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 6:26 PM, Eugen Leitl <[email protected]> wrote: > > http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/04/the-invisible-bank-how-kenya-has-beaten-the-world-in-mobile-money/ > > The Invisible Bank: How Kenya Has Beaten the World in Mobile Money > > Posted by Ken Banks of National Geographic Emerging Explorer on July 4, 2012 > > Click a few keys, exchange a few numbers, and it’s done. With just a mobile > phone and a registration with Safaricom, Kenya’s mobile service giant, you > can pay for anything in seconds – no cash, no long journeys to towns to reach > a bank, and no long lines when you get there. This is m-Pesa, the > revolutionary approach to banking which is changing economies across Africa. > The service allows customers and businesses to pay for anything without > needing cash, a bank account, or even a permanent address. In today’s Digital > Diversity, in honour of its recent fifth birthday, we present a beginner’s > guide to m-Pesa and examine its implications for financial access in > developing economies.
The article doesnt mention a couple of critical factors for the service's success. Yes, there was a need - but there is a need for many things not just cheap money transfer - but many other things don't succeed. One important factor was - the mobile provider who promoted m-pesa was partially owned by the government - and a significant chunk of the company was (and is ) owned by a clique of political power brokers within the country. All this meant they could setup and grow this service outside of the purview of banking and similar regulations (which would have prevented the rapid growth of the service) - in fact when the banks got together to demand stricter regulation of the sector they didnt really succeed since the political interests involved in the mobile provider were much stronger. You can look at the other mobile providers in the country who also have similar services and started at much the same time (but without the same political backing ) and you of course havent heard anything about them ... because they havent succeeded.
