M-PESA was launched by Vodafone affiliate Safaricom in Kenya in 2007 and now claims over eight million users in that country. A recent study suggests that more than 10% of Kenya's GDP now pass through the mobile banking service.
M-PESA has since been introduced in Tanzania and Afghanistan and now Vodacom South Africa has teamed with an unnamed local financial institution to target the 26 million people in that country without bank accounts. Vodafone says only 60% of South African adults have bank accounts but mobile penetration is over 94%.
Cenk Serdar, director, mobile payments, Vodafone, says: "Mobile technology in Africa has already improved the lives of millions simply by allowing them to communicate far beyond their immediate surroundings. It is now set to transform the way we send and receive cash. The successful take-up of M-PESA in Kenya has clearly demonstrated the demand for easily accessible, secure payment services particularly in emerging markets."
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Paying for parking with your mobile phone
Mobile payment systems are beginning to proliferate pretty rapidly now. There are some very impressive commercial systems out there already. This short video illustrates on such system to pay for parking. This particular system has been developed by Margento, a Dutch based technology company.
Monday, 15 February 2010
Remittances, Africa and the effects of the Financial Crisis
In a recently published Working Paper “The Global Financial Crisis and Workers’ Remittances to Africa: What’s the Damage?” Adolfo Barajas, Ralph Chami, Connel Fullenkamp, and Anjali Garg estimate the impact of the global economic crisis on African GDP via the remittance channel during 2009-2010. The data and it’s interpretation forecasts remittance declines into African countries of between 3 and 14 percentage points, with migrants to Europe hardest hit while migrants within Africa relatively unaffected by the crisis. The estimated impact on GDP for relatively remittance-dependent countries is 2 percent for 2009, but will likely be short-lived, as host country income is projected to rise in 2010.
The paper is available for download at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2010/wp1024.pdf
The paper is available for download at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2010/wp1024.pdf
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Mobile Payments - How "Square" works
A facinating look at how "Square" operates. Is this the future of mobile payments?
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Credit Card payments on a Mobile Phone - Is this the future?
"Square" is a new add-on for a mobile phone that enables anyone (whether they own a business or not) to accept credit card payments with their iPhone or iPod touch.
Take a peek. Is this the future of payments?
Take a peek. Is this the future of payments?
Friday, 12 February 2010
European Union Parliament kills SWIFT deal
The European Parliament has voted to scrap a controversial agreement to allow US authorities access to EU banking data transmitted over the international SWIFT network.
In November 2009 European Union ministers agreed an temporary nine-month deal to continue letting US anti-terror investigators access details of bank transfers conducted over SWIFT.
The decision to overturn the agreement follows intense US lobbying ahead of Thursday's vote.
Last weekend in an interview with the German magazine Spiegel, Adam Szubin, the US treasury department official in charge of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, said that US tapping of SWIFT banking data had helped to identify and break-up a number of potentially deadly terrorist cells operating in Europe. He warned of serious diplomatic consequences, as well as security gaps, if Parliament were to veto the program.
But EU Parliamentarians were unconvinced by the appeals, expressing concerns that the deal failed to protect the privacy of EU citizens.
In the final vote, political leaders in Strasbourg voted 378-196 against the deal, with 31 abstentions.
The European Commission said it will need to explore with the US treasury department the extent to which there is scope to negotiate a long term EU-US TFTP agreement.
Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström states: "I remain convinced that the program enhances the security of our citizens: it would be the role of the Commission to make sure that all the relevant safeguards for EU citizens' privacy and data protection are duly included in any possible future agreement. In spite of this set back, I hope we will be able to agree a text in the near future that will give us greater security, more data protection and a useful cooperation tool with US authorities.
"Following today's vote in the European Parliament, we will have now to reflect together with our US partners on the possible negotiation of a new agreement".
In November 2009 European Union ministers agreed an temporary nine-month deal to continue letting US anti-terror investigators access details of bank transfers conducted over SWIFT.
The decision to overturn the agreement follows intense US lobbying ahead of Thursday's vote.
Last weekend in an interview with the German magazine Spiegel, Adam Szubin, the US treasury department official in charge of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, said that US tapping of SWIFT banking data had helped to identify and break-up a number of potentially deadly terrorist cells operating in Europe. He warned of serious diplomatic consequences, as well as security gaps, if Parliament were to veto the program.
But EU Parliamentarians were unconvinced by the appeals, expressing concerns that the deal failed to protect the privacy of EU citizens.
In the final vote, political leaders in Strasbourg voted 378-196 against the deal, with 31 abstentions.
The European Commission said it will need to explore with the US treasury department the extent to which there is scope to negotiate a long term EU-US TFTP agreement.
Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström states: "I remain convinced that the program enhances the security of our citizens: it would be the role of the Commission to make sure that all the relevant safeguards for EU citizens' privacy and data protection are duly included in any possible future agreement. In spite of this set back, I hope we will be able to agree a text in the near future that will give us greater security, more data protection and a useful cooperation tool with US authorities.
"Following today's vote in the European Parliament, we will have now to reflect together with our US partners on the possible negotiation of a new agreement".
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Remittances – Regulator query leads to PayPal suspending payments to and from India
PayPal said a ban on personal transactions to and from India will continue for "at least a few months" while the online payment service tries to resolve a problem with local regulators.
"We temporarily suspended these services to respond to enquiries from the Indian regulators, specifically questions on whether personal payments constitute remittances into India," PayPal said.
The company is working with regulators and bank processing companies to resolve the problem as soon as possible, it said. But "personal payments to and from India will be suspended for at least a few months until we fully resolve the questions from the Indian regulators."
"We realize that this is causing considerable inconvenience to our customers and I want to reassure you that this is a top priority for the leadership at PayPal," the company said.
PayPal notified users on Saturday that personal payments to and from India had been suspended, as well as transfers to local banks. Customers can still make commercial payments to India, but merchants can't withdraw funds in rupees to local banks, the company said.
On Tuesday it said customers should be able to withdraw funds to a local bank within a few days. But for now it can do nothing to facilitate personal transactions.
The problems may have been triggered by a marketing push that promotes PayPal as a way to send money abroad. The campaign - which reads "As low as $1.50 to send $300 to countries like India" - may have caught the attention of Indian regulators, the source said.
Some Indians use PayPal to receive payments for services in the country such as software development. The suspension of payments appeared to catch many by surprise and has generated more than 150 pages of comments in an online discussion thread.
Some expressed frustration that PayPal had apparently suspended payments without warning, and said they learned only from buyers that payments from overseas had been returned.
PayPal processed more than US$4 billion of payments in the Asia Pacific region in 2008, a PayPal spokesman said. Its largest market in that region was Australia. The company processed $60 billion in payments worldwide in 2008.
"We temporarily suspended these services to respond to enquiries from the Indian regulators, specifically questions on whether personal payments constitute remittances into India," PayPal said.
The company is working with regulators and bank processing companies to resolve the problem as soon as possible, it said. But "personal payments to and from India will be suspended for at least a few months until we fully resolve the questions from the Indian regulators."
"We realize that this is causing considerable inconvenience to our customers and I want to reassure you that this is a top priority for the leadership at PayPal," the company said.
PayPal notified users on Saturday that personal payments to and from India had been suspended, as well as transfers to local banks. Customers can still make commercial payments to India, but merchants can't withdraw funds in rupees to local banks, the company said.
On Tuesday it said customers should be able to withdraw funds to a local bank within a few days. But for now it can do nothing to facilitate personal transactions.
The problems may have been triggered by a marketing push that promotes PayPal as a way to send money abroad. The campaign - which reads "As low as $1.50 to send $300 to countries like India" - may have caught the attention of Indian regulators, the source said.
Some Indians use PayPal to receive payments for services in the country such as software development. The suspension of payments appeared to catch many by surprise and has generated more than 150 pages of comments in an online discussion thread.
Some expressed frustration that PayPal had apparently suspended payments without warning, and said they learned only from buyers that payments from overseas had been returned.
PayPal processed more than US$4 billion of payments in the Asia Pacific region in 2008, a PayPal spokesman said. Its largest market in that region was Australia. The company processed $60 billion in payments worldwide in 2008.
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