..And the Mobile Money Winner is ….

Kenya to set world record $27bn mobile money transfers in 2015

From RT -

“Kenya’s mobile money transactions hit $23 billion in the 10-months to October which is $4 billion more than in the same period last year, according to data from the country’s Central Bank.

The East African country leads the world in mobile money use, and could make a new record this year. Kenya’s 10-month transactions equal the country’s entire transfers for 2014.”

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How using mobile money to pay for public services could help South Africa tackle corruption

From htxt.africa –

“If South Africa is to progress towards a more streamlined, simple and less corrupt system for citizens to pay for public services, government needs to seriously consider going digital with mobile money, mobile experts say.

In an interview with htxt.africa, Imdad Aslam, interim CEO of Pakistani small business finance organisation Karandaaz said any country, like South Africa, with a large number of its population living just below the poverty line, cannot afford to ignore the topic of digitised payments for all citizens.”

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Apple isn't the greatest innovator in mobile payments

From betanews –

“Every week the technology world holds its breath with anticipation as the latest tech giants make new strides into the mobile payments sector. After years of low consumer take-up of services like Google Wallet and Square, the launch of Apple Pay last year was hailed as a pivotal moment, signaling the time when mobile payments would finally go mainstream.

With mega players like Facebook and Microsoft now joining the peer-to-peer money sending and digital payments fray, even sceptics are wondering if 2015 might truly be "The Year of Mobile Payments". Yet what many don’t realize is that these services are already lagging 10 years behind. The rest of the world is paying attention to a different mobile payments phenomenon - one that’s been taking place thousands of miles away. Last month, global telecoms body GSMA revealed that the number of active users of Mobile Money -- a service which enables users to send and receive money from basic mobile phones without requiring a bank account or payment card -- had doubled from 2013 to reach 103 million globally.”

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