The video interview below was conducted with John, a Nairobi taxi driver and regular user of M-PESA. Seema Desai and I quizzed him about why he uses M-PESA, what he would improve, and whether he has ever had difficulties sending or withdrawing money via an agent. We recognize that John is just one customer, so to provide some context we have overlaid his comments with key findings from a survey conducted by FSD Kenya of 3,000 M-PESA customers.
In many ways, John is a ‘typical’ customer: He uses the service to provide regular support to his parents who live 400km away from Nairobi. Before M-PESA, he would send money using friends or bus drivers. Like 70% of current M-PESA customers, he also has a bank account. He considers M-PESA to be cheaper and easier than his previous alternatives and is highly satisfied with the service
In the coming weeks and months, the GSMA will provide additional insight into early adopters of mobile money. This stream of work is designed to help existing deployments accurately understand their customers so that they can adjust where needed to drive adoption – particularly in the unbanked segment. Additionally, operators in other markets who have yet to launch can use the findings to ensure offerings are designed with unbanked customer needs in mind.
Immediate next steps in this work stream include a presentation from Caroline Pulver, FSD Kenya, at the MMU working group in Barcelona to provide the full survey results. Additionally, I will present the findings of a CGAP-GSMA survey conducted in the Philippines, which provides an in-depth analysis of Filipino mobile money customers. Analysis and findings of both surveys will be presented in the 2009 MMU Annual Report, to be released 24 June, 2009.
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Note: headphones are suggested, as the audio quality is somewhat low.
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Let us know what you think. How does John compare to mobile money customers in other countries? 2 million unbanked customers already use M-PESA – will this segment be a growth driver going forward? Beyond environmental factors, what elements of M-PESA’s service design have contributed to its adoption rate? Will Zap adoption chart a similar course in Kenya? Comments are open below.
Are you sure 70% of current M-PESA customers have a bank account?
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Caroline Pulver Reply:
June 17th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Because this was a household survey the figures look higher than an individual survey. FinAccess 2009 which was just published showed 39.9% of all adults use M-PESA.
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Hi this is interetsing reading. Couple of quick questions & stats woul really help. Bcos we have been really getting a lot of action reports on Mepsa & Zap as also Gcash in Phillipines. But I think More is coming in form Africa. So here we go :
1) What is the volume of such transactions as we find reports of the cobbler in Kireba sending money six times in a month although some of it stays with the Pesa account.So overall what is the percentage growth & the relative market share vis a vis the conventional channel.
2) One another issue of query & research is the transaction cost. I know it will be volume driven.But looking the non availability of conventional banks what is the typical transaction cost for transferring say Us 20\-.
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Jacs Lemmer Reply:
June 24th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Below you can find two links to the fee structures for Safaricom (Kenia) and Vodacom (Tanzania): The Kenian currency is about 1/100th of the dollar. Not sure about the Tanzanian currency.
http://www.safaricom.co.ke/index.php?id=748 (open the pdf)
and
http://www.vodacom.co.tz/docs/docredir.asp?docid=3507
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Hi, I agree with Santanu that this posting (and video) is very interesting and encouraging to those who are contemplating of replicating the same MPB approach and experience of MPesa. Same as the predicament of John (the driver), GCash and Smart Money mobile phone banking users in the Philippines cannot send money transfer across the 2 MNOs.
Question for you Paul please, you mentioned that Ms. Carolina Pulver’s presentation to the MMU in Barcelona includes the findings a survey conducted by CGAP-GSMA of an in-depth analysis of Filipino mobile money users. When was this conducted and, as MPB practitioner based in the Philippines, are we privy to these document.
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Paul Leishman Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Hi Anthony,
Our study of Filipino mobile money users and non-users was conducted in March 2009. The findings will be published in our annual report that is to be released this week. Some preliminary findings have also already been published in blog posts. Check http://www.gsmworld.com/mmu.
Feel free to contact me with any questions.
Cheers,
Paul
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Hi there,is it possible to get hand to marketing strategies developed and used by these players?
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Hi, M-PESA at the moment is the way to go. Currently, paying of electricity has been made easy like counting of numerals 1,2,3 etc. With M-Pesa you can comfortably pay your elec bills even while in our usual traffic jam. In addition,time that was being wasted while paying bills like water bills, electicity and event house rent is now being utilized in other areas. On My case since inception of paying elec bills via M-Pesa, I cant remember the last time I went to the hall to make such payments. I also do pay my house rent via the same service. Kudos to Safaricom Kenya
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[...] the video below, John, a Nairobi taxi driver and an M-PESA customer talks to Paul Lieshman and Seema Desai about his use of the service and what impact it has had on his [...]
[...] the video below, John, a Nairobi taxi driver and an M-PESA customer talks to Paul Lieshman and Seema Desai about his use of the service and what impact it has had on his [...]
A similar service is launched in Pakistan under the banner of “Easy paisa” which is going to help the unbanked to pay utility bills and transfer money across the country… Its fee structure and details can be accessed here
http://www.easypaisa.com.pk
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Having worked with M-PESA, it is clear that the success of any MM service is largely dependent on having an optimum number of agents & quality agents; the growth of transactions & customers has been proportional to agent growth
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Nice reading. We had a similar discussion on the customer psychology during the bloggers meet-up here in Pakistan for the launch of easypaisa mobile accounts. The response to easypaisa’s earlier products bill payments and money transfer were startling.
In just a span of four months; 500,000 was the number of total transactions that easypaisa has processed, 420,000 was the number of bill payments since its launch and 120,000 was the number of money transfer transactions processed during the period. Also, the figures I have for the amount of bill payments in over a month from its launch exceeds Rs. 58.8 million.
On discussion with Business Manager easypaisa it was found that these figures are all above their expectation and easypaisa is getting a very good response from the market.
Now with mobile accounts lets see how well it penetrates in the unbanked population of Pakistan.
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There is a new Mobile ~Money out there. It’s called Splash Mobile Money and it can be found in Sierra Leone, West Africa. GSMA have you ever heard about them if so, what is your opinion about them?
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