Earlier this week I spoke with Richard Mwami, Head of MTN Mobile Money in Uganda. Richard described the model that MTN has taken to market in the country, the agent network that has been built, and the growth they have experienced to date.
Archive
Archive for Africa: East
Learnings from M-PESA in Kenya and Tanzania
By: Paul Leishman: September 10th, 2009The mobile money community has watched (and compared) the adoption of M-PESA in Kenya and Tanzania with great interest. We’re pleased this month to offer an article from Gunnar Camner and Emil Sjoblom from Valuable Bits, and Caroline Pulver from FSD Kenya, which provides a full comparison of the factors which have impacted adoption rates in the two countries. The in-field observations and market research that their paper draws on provides an excellent summary of the contributing factors in each country - from market level to service design.
Serving the Unbanked… By Serving the Banked. Lessons from Safaricom, SMART, Globe and Zain.
By: Paul Leishman: September 4th, 2009In mobile money, we spend a lot of time talking about innovative ways to deliver financial services to the unbanked poor in spite of their income, geographic and trust barriers to banking. But what about serving the banked? This post explores three ways that leading mobile money deployments use technology to serve the banked and/or those who are key sources of funds, including:
- Automating the cash-in step (video of SMART auto-reloader)
- Integrating with bank accounts
- Offering ATM access
Adoption Driver #3 - Registered and ready to use in 5 minutes or less
By: Paul Leishman: June 19th, 2009This is the final post in our series on customer adoption leading up to the Mobile Money Summit in Barcelona. The previous posts mapped to the first two steps in the adoption framework that will be released in the Mobile Money for the Unbanked Annual Report: driving awareness and driving demand. The final post relates to the third step - optimizing trial. Specifically, this post addresses the importance of designing an efficient and effective registration process.
Adoption Driver #1 - Driving Awareness… and Understanding
By: Paul Leishman: June 17th, 2009Leading up to the Mobile Money Summit in Barcelona next week, I will be writing a series of posts on ‘adoption drivers’ that have emerged from the CGAP-GSMA Mobile Money Market Sizing Study. These drivers are part of an adoption framework that will be expanded on during my presentation at the MMU working group, and in the 2009 Mobile Money for the Unbanked Annual Report. The first post in this series examines two metrics that can be considered as basic enablers of mobile money adoption – service awareness and understanding.
Understanding the Mobile Money Customer: an Interview with John the Taxi Driver
By: Paul Leishman: June 8th, 2009The 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.
Mobilising Money Through Enabling Regulation
By: Marina Solin: March 30th, 2009David Porteous introduces the key dimensions of a regulatory environment - openness and certainty - and illustrates the concept by plotting four countries that are active in mobile banking. As regulators and mobile money providers review the article, consider the following question: what is the right balance between openness and certainty and how can regulators find it?
Interview with CEO of Celpay
By: Paul Leishman: March 30th, 2009The Mobile Money for the Unbanked 2009 Annual Report will include a detailed case study on the Zambian mobile money market, including analysis of the marketing, agent distribution and technology approaches used by Celpay and new entrant, Mobile Transactions. The report also includes an overview of the Zambian regulatory environment based on a series of conversations with Payment Systems regulators. In anticipation of this case study, an interview with Lazarus Muchenje, CEO of Celpay, has been provided. The interview was first published in the Q1 2009 Quarterly Update.
Mobile Money Launch Learnings: Zain Zap
By: Paul Leishman: March 30th, 2009The following interview with George Held, Group Marketing Director of Zain’s One Network, was originally published in the Q1 2009 MMU Quarterly Update. In the interview, George details his projections for customer adoption, the key elements of the launch strategy for Zap, and the importance of working with regulators. Since the February launch, 3,000 Zap outlets have been created across Kenya and 200,000 customers have registered for the service, which represents about 8% of Zain’s subscriber base in the country.
News Tracker
- 1. Nokia Money Launches Commercial Pilot in India
- 2. Zain Wins GSMA Mobile Money for the Unbanked Award
- 3. Belgacom ICS and Globe Sign Agreement for International Remittances
- 4. Easypaisa ‘mobile account’ launched in Pakistan
- 5. Western Union Certifies mChek and Fundamo for Mobile Vendor Programme
- 5. Zain expands ‘Zap’ Mobile Commerce service to Malawi, Niger and Sierra Leone
- 6. 2010 Mobile Money Summit Announced for 24-27 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- 7. WING Set to Cover all of Cambodia
- 8. Maroc Telecom Launches Mobile Money Offering
- 9. IFC Paper Released on Accelerating Development of Mobile Money Ecosystems
Copyright © 2009 GSM Association. GSM and the GSM Logo are registered and owned by the GSM Association | Disclaimer
