PayPal in Kenya

At long last, PayPal is now officially available  in Kenya for usage without the worry of getting deactivated . Paypal, which has 137 million users, in 193 countries, has been in Africa for three years in a partnership with FNB (SA), and Kenya’s Equity Bank becomes their second partner in Africa. The service is already active in Kenya for local merchants such as freelance contractors and tourism sites to use on their websites to accept secure global payments.

At the launch, the Equity Bank CEO said that there were possibly 100,000 users in Kenya with PayPal accounts, but who could not withdraw their money, until now. One needs to have a debit or credit card that allows online transactions to use and to withdraw cash from PayPal which will be done through a customer’s account at Equity Bank - and this may take a few days, and attracts a 1.5% fee on top of PayPal’s charges. For now, one can’t move money from a bank account to PayPal, but only use cards to send money.  

Reactivating Nation Hela

The last few days have been spent trying to reconnect a Nation Hela card, that has been not much used since the launch just over a year ago.  The card was active, but the registration documents were never uploaded, rendering it inactive after a short period of usage. 

The issuance of cards, back office, registration, and payments are handled by Diamond Trust bank and their branches are the easiest way to obtain the cards, as well as load cash onto the prepaid card. For some reason, top ups with M-pesa don't reflect for a few days.

The menu is also on one's phone and can be accessed by checking *348#  and each use of the card is confirmed by an SMS to one's phone. 

Somalia's Remittance Lifeline

This week in Nairobi on September 11, there was a discussion forum on the importance of remittances from the Somali diaspora to the people in Somalia and it was attended by representatives of the Rift Valley Institute, ADESO, Oxfam and Dahabshil. 

It was held just a few weeks ahead of a September 30 deadline which Barclays Bank in the UK have set as the date that they will cut off remittances to four companies including Dahabshil and the forum was on the reasons behind that decision and the impact it will have on Somalia.  The country receives about $1.5 billion a year in remittances (with about $150M coming from the UK) – which is more than foreign aid or private investments, and these funds support 40% of the population and amount to a third of the country’s GDP.  Somalia was said to have the largest number of asylum seekers in the world in relation to their population, and they are first generation immigrants with strong links to their home country - hence a higher level of remittances to reduce hardship and insecurity back home. 

The participants at the forum emphasized that the cutoff of vital remittances to Somalia was not triggered by any transgression, but rather it was a knee0jerk reaction to repeated bad news about Somalia and misunderstandinga that remittances support money laundering, piracy or terrorism. Dahabshil and other Hawala-like companies have complied with all requirements set by the UK and US, and conduct due diligence in handling the remittances (which at an average of $300 to individuals are relatively small), in a country without a banking system, commercial courts and no formal identification card systems - using agents, village and clans to triangulate and ensure that money goes to the intended recipients - all without bringing in dollars to the country.  Dahabshil, which the New York Times reported to have 286 locations around Somalia (compared to one for Western Union),  also  know that there are gaps in the system meant to weed out suspicious transactions, that they can work with the UK to fix and improve without facing the threat of closure.

Barclays are the last large UK bank facilitating these transfers to Somalia, and there was some discussion about coming to some accommodation with them such as asking them to delay the cutoff by another 12 months to allow for partner institutions to develop alternatives, as well as the possibility of partner institutions setting up a trust fund to cushion Barclays in the event that the UK authorities levy a fine for continuing to facilitate remittances to Somalia. The finality of all the Barclays decision may be resolved at a  Ministerial meeting on Monday next week in the UK or a later EU meeting in Brussels.

Mobile & Card Payments across East Africa

A new unsecured card solution was launched by afb last week that will allows customers to instantly spread the cost of their purchase at participating shops into affordable 6 month repayments. afb have signed up 52 merchants like Baus Optical, Cambridge Opticians, Fabguru Shoes, Kitengela Glass, and local supermarkets (Tumaini, Home Depot, Homemade) and are also signing up other merchant shops where consumers will be able to apply for cards and get them approved & issued in the stores ahead of making a purchase.  afb settles the transaction amounts directly into the retailers bank account, and the the customer makes repayments via M-Pesa. afb next hope to venture into loans and insurance in Kenya.

How large is the card market? A Central Bank of Kenya reports showed that there were 9 million debit cards and 140, 000 credit cards in use in Kenya in 2012.

In terms of mobile money, CBK data showed that 21 million Kenyans moved Kshs. 141 billion ($1.65 billion) via 53 million mobile money transactions during February 2013.

CBK has also come up with new mobile money rules that target money laundering. They require that operators link different accounts opened by a user with a single ID card, flag accounts that move more than Kshs. 100,000 (~$1,175) per day or 300,000 (~$3,530) per week, have audit trails, institute systems to handle customer complaints and retain transaction data for 7 years. 

KCB and Western Union who have an account-based money transfer service (ABMT) in Kenya will extend it across East Africa this week, enabling KCB customers to receive money from Western Union directly into their accounts.

Kenya Airways has a 1.5% fee on all credit card transactions (owing to high processing bank charges).

Following a spate of fraud incidents last December, the Kenya Bankers Association (KBA) has launched an ATM safety campaign dubbed “Be Alert” or “Kaa Chonjo” which include tips such as cover the PIN with hand, and sharing PIN number with anyone (including spouses) 

KBA also  announced the shift by Kenyan banks to the new Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) technology to ensure better security of cards.

90% of KenyaPower pre-paid electricity tokens are now purchased using #Mpesa - according to an Safaricom Business ad.

Diners can now pay restaurant bills via M-Pesa under a new partnership between Kopo Kopo, Eat Out and Safaricom. Restaurants accept payments at 1.5% per transaction.

 

MasterCard and Equity Bank introduced PayPass enabled debit cards in 5 African markets which will enable merchants to receive payments via low cost add-ons linked to applications on their mobile devices (such as a smart phone or tablet) 

Mastercard and I&M Bank launched a multi-currency (Dollars, Pounds, Euros) prepaid card which enables users to load up  to $10,000 and make foreign currency purchases without incurring exchange rate or other charges.

MasterCard also released a study called the MasterCard African Cities Growth Index that showed that Accra, Lusaka and Luanda offer the highest growth potential in Sub-Saharan Africa. Other ranked cities included Dar es Salaam (4), Addis Ababa (5), Nairobi (6), Kampala (7), Johannesburg  (8), Cape Town (11), Mombasa (12), Lagos (13),  and Khartoum (19).

Credit reference bureaus like CRB Africa and Metropol are expanding across East Africa.

The inaugural Mobile Money Africa Awards will be held in Johannesburg next month, to award the best mobile money app, mobile banking service, and mobile money platform for Africa, among others.  

Nation Hela launched last year has 8,000 active cards in use.

With PesaPal, Kenyans in the Diaspora can send school fees payment directly to 12,000 schools in Kenya using their credit cards (no need for money transfer service). 

Shell Kenya have a visa card promotion to encourage motorists to swipe their cards and pay for fuel The platform is powered by Equity Bank POS at all Shell stations, and station owners are not charged commissions for card sales (Shell pays all commissions).

Tangaza321 is said to be the second largest mover of mobile money behind M-Pesa. The Tangaza system uses biometric data (fingerprints) as many customers don't possess national ID cards and allows them to send money across all networks, even to people who don’t have mobile phones.

A team with the University of Nairobi’s University Students Community Organization (Uniscoo)  has developed a prepaid card for university students. Uniscoo which has 25,000 students seeks to encourage good money management among students through the use of the prepaid card powered by MasterCard.

Blogging in 2012

Top blog posts in 2012

5. Nation Hela to revolutionize revolutionize debit cards & diaspora remittances.

4. A review of the autobiography of Duncan Ndegwa, first governor of independent Kenya's Central Bank.  

3. Discover who created Safaricom's M-pesa.

2. A re-cap of Kenya's top banks in (year) 2011. 

1. The most read blog post (by a large margin) in 2012 was on Safaricom & CBA's launch of M-Shwari. 

Special thanks to @AngieNicoleOD for helping the blog move to a local domain address this year (after a long period of procrastination)

Nation Hela to revolutionize remittances & debit cards in Kenya?

On August 15, 2012, Kenya’s Nation Media Group (NMG) launched NationHela in partnership with Diamond Trust Bank and Craft Silicon. NationHela had been first unveiled the previous week, when NMG announced 14% revenue growth to Kshs 5.8 billion and a 23% rise in profits of Kshs 1.37 billion and an interim dividend of Kshs 2.50 per share  for the first half of 2012.

Why NationHela? For NMG that has millions of online newspaper readers every month, a good fraction of who are in the diaspora, and who also send remittances to Kenya, the platform is a chance for them to send money without leaving their computer (or logging off the newspaper site)  – by entering debit or credit card numbers to send to a Kenyan phone number. 

At the launch, a Central Bank of Kenya a figure was cited of remittances of $590 million in the year  to June (up from $409 million the previous year) through formal money transfer channels.

Senders also get value as NationHela can be 30% cheaper overall (charging $12.5 to send $200 compared to $15 for other services), while for  the recipient it knocks out the necessity of taking a matatu (vehicle) to town or finding a Western Union agent to withdraw cash. 

 Diamond Trust who are the 7th largest bank, and the largest agents of Western Union in Kenya, handled the banking regulatory and approvals, and will also do the back office processing of money movement, agents, currency exchanges, float etc., while Craft Silicon provided the mobile interface (familiar to anyone who’s used their Elma) through which users will access Hela by USSD on a mobile phone to get notifications, send or receive money through mpesa to other card users, pay some utility bills, block a lost/stolen card, see a mini statement /balance among other features.

Some cited uses of the card include:

- Make online purchase as a visa debit card

- Move money to or from mpesa

- Withdraw cash at any ATM via visa

-  Use the debit card in a supermarket to make payments

Other future or potential uses include:

-    Pay dividends straight on to cards (maybe starting with Diamond Trust and NMG shareholder)  

-     Kenyans with paypal can move their online money on to the card and cash out payments

- Senders will also be able to too how card recipients use the money they have sent (perhaps answering along standing issue about misuse of remittances 

-  Take NationHela to Tanzania and Uganda where both the Nation and Diamond Trust are

-   Pay staff travel  allowances and imprest at companies (said to happen at NMG)

 

Outlook Some concerns have been expressed, that NationHela may not work out, or that it's going to distract NMG  from it's core media business. Also the web interface needs some tweaks to make the card easier to work.

While the awareness and usage of debit and credit cards in Kenya has been low, for NationaHela there  are plans for online education & marketing campaigns targeted at the diaspora, combined with road shows and town hall meetings around Kenya to register users, convert agents, and show how to use it on a day to day basis - and we’ll see where they are in a year. 

Online Share Trading in Kenya

Tonight CFC Stanbic Financial Services launched online share trading which they say is the first online share trading platform in the country. The actual ceremony was conducted by Information Permanent Secretary Bitange Ndemo (a Mumias shareholder through CSFS) who noted that while Diaspora Kenyans remitted $2 billion per year, they hand no true seamless mechanism to buy shares – until now.

It’s a light-weight system accessible to CSFS customers to make trade orders – buy, sell, cancel, monitor volumes, settlements, & trade live at the Nairobi Stock Exchange in real time as well as get statements & portfolio valuations.

Disclaimer: I’ve been a long-term investor through CSFS primarily through e-mailing trades, and this has been quite satisfactory. Enabling online share trading is a service which several brokers have promoted, but delivery has been spotty. The CSFS system is available even on Smartphones,and while SMS and mobile money are not highlighted, these will be features to push for and the service is one to try out and see.

Money Transfer in Kenya Evolves

Part 5

Since the last look at mpesa developments in mobile money, there have been another raft of new deployments as Kenya’s two main mobile companies – Safaricom and Zain who have been signing up partners for their respective MPesa and Zap money transfer platforms. Here’s a recap

Banks using M-pesa: Commercial banks have been long whispered to have a lot to fear from m-pesa but I disagree. Yes bank are going to have to step up and use the mobile phone to reach their customers better, and they are in a better position to do this than mobile companies. Mobile money itself is not the sole reason for the loss of relevance of some banking products since fraud, insecurity, transport costs and transaction costs have also contributed e.g. banker’s cheques have been plagued by fraud which means that banks now subject them to the usual 4-day clearing cycle, while landlords and schools now ask clients to deposit funds in their (own) payee accounts and furnish deposit slips as proof of payment.
Banks have gone the option of launching their own mobile applications for their customers including include Barclay’s m-money and these include Barclays, Equity, Family Bank, ABC and others. A few others have gone on to collaborate with mobile companies. Two notable ones are:
1. Consolidated Bank whose customers can transfer money from their bank accounts to m-pesa
2. CFCStanbic whose customers can pay their suppliers by mpesa from their bank accounts: more here

Investor Relations: Pay Dividend payment by mobile phone - last week, Safaricom shareholders approved the payment of dividends from the company to their fellow 830,000 shareholders via m-pesa. This will happen in November 2009.

More corporate partners a glance at Safaricom mpesa list of partners now includes airlines (jetlink, safarilink, east African safari air), micro-finance institutions (Kadet, Kenya women finance trust), media houses (Nation Media Groups to pay for classifieds), KBC, Family TV, , banks (ABC, CFC, Family, Postbank), government agencies (youth enterprise development fund, national hospital insurance fund, higher education loans board) , and several insurance companies and SACCO’s (savings & credit societies)

Airlines last is the airline, because it shows again, the difference between zap and mpesa. Monday’s Nairobi Star had an advert from Jetlink showing that their passengers could now pay for airline tickets by M-pesa– up to the maximum m-pesa limits of Kshs. 35,000 ~$500.

That should have been the end of the airline section, but I was reading the latest issue of African Business magazine which had an interview with Tito Alai where he mentioned that Zain had signed up Coca Cola, and – Kenya Airways (KQ) saying “a passenger can book a KQ ticket online, pay by zap, and check in at airport with his mobile phone” great right? But Kenya Airways have not launched this program – and their customer care told me to only pay by cash or credit card. Kencell/celtel/zap have a history in Kenya of coming up with innovative products, but Safaricom market/apply theirs better. Is this another case with KQ? That the company is up for sale (again) is not a positive sign for development of new partnerships & products. Then on the news of August 24, it was reported that Zain Kenya had launched 3 Zap applications - zap distro (web tool to manage dealerships), zap transact (collect cash from numerous sources direct into bank accounts), zap master pay (ease cash administration - so a company pay up into up to 1,000 zap accounts at a time). Maybe now KQ and Coca Cola will reveal their plans for Zap

User innovations:
But as many innovations as the large corporates come up with for mobile money, the users are the ones who will come up with the innovative, creative ways of adapting them to their lives. Here are a few examples

24 hour M-Pesa had a lunch at a joint that had a rather rude manager, after he spotted me taking a picture. Anyway, many mpesa dealerships tend to close at 5PM, while others like Uchumi (supermarket) can do transactions up to about 8 PM. But now bars, who are open for many more hours e.g. Taidy’s (Nairobi west), are offering 24 hour mpesa banking.


Overcoming challenges Also, while the country is ongoing a power rationing for the next few month, M-Pesa is largely unaffected, as it is not dependent on electricity which the banks are. But M-pesa down time & system outages, agent, and lack of float for several hours a day may compromise its integrity in the eyes of consumers, who may see Zain’s Zap as a reliable back up channel

Money transfer across networks: since their introduction, the mobile companies have been walled in I.e. M-Pesa can only be sent to Safaricom customers, while Zap money to zain users. There have been calls for cross-network transfers to be allowed, with appeals to the regulators (CCK, CBK) to force this to happen. But in this market regulation trails innovation, and this wall has been broken down,- as explained by @Gishungwa “from zain you can send money to Safaricom, it costs the sender 10 shillings, but the recipient pays 30 shilling to withdraw cash and it works well”

Other Uses
- harambee (fundraisers) where more money is sometimes raised by m-pesa than from cash collections at the event. This is also safer and money goes direct to the intended recipients
- Televangelists: every Sunday morning religious show on TV will have a prominent display of mpesa and zap numbers for viewers to send in cash for prayers
- Others are dowry payments, bar bill payments, petrol payments at fuel stations

Mobile phones lower the cost of business

Money Transfer Within Kenya Part 3

A comment from @alykhansatchu on Money transfer lead to an update of the first post about money transfer from about 3 ½ years ago before the advent of mobile money transfers.

At that time, the cost of sending 10,000 shillings (then about $136) within Kenya was Kshs. 1,700 ($23) with Western Union and 1,850 ($25) with Moneygram - working out to a remittance cost of about 17% - 19% for an instant money transfer. This was mostly done at a few commercial bank branches, some foreign exchange bureaus, and at post offices around the country within banking hours.

90% savings: A lot has happened in the last few years mainly in the form of the arrival of money transfers via mobile phones by MPesa from Safaricom and more recently Zap from Zain.

A recent post last week noted that Western Union in Kenya have just lowered transfer costs to flat rates of 2% i.e. almost 88% cheaper than what they were at the time.

In the last few years, millions of Kenyans have moved on to mobile phones for money transfer and I can’t recall anyone who uses banks for these transactions. Mobile phone have maximums of about $430 (35,000 shillings) for money transfers, but this is more than enough to cater for most remittances, including the emergencies that necessitate instant transfers.

And mobiles are still cheaper; the 2% western union charge to transfer 10,000 shillings works out to about 200 shillings. A transfer of the same amount by Zap costs 75 shillings (0.75%) and 105 shillings (1.05%) by M-Pesa (after combining sender and receiver fees)

International remittance to get cheaper?: Zain hope to link Zap to allow transfers to customers of Zain in different African countries. And Safaricom are setting up a link for transfers from the United Kingdom to Kenya. When these are established, we should also see the cost of internal remittances, whose sometime high cost is a cause for complaint for many Africans in the Diaspora, also drop significantly.

Kutwa Tuesday

West to East: Following Bank of Africa (2004) and Ecobank (taking over EABS), West Africa's leading bank, United Bank of Africa (UBA) is making an entry to East Africa starting with Uganda and has also applied for a license to bank in Kenya. 

Venture Capital Fund: From the East African Development Bank (EADB) is now operational, with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in East Africa are eligible for funding. 

Uchumi’s turnaround : Uchumi have finally published their financial results of the receivership period from 2006 to 2008. The turnaround has been remarkable and in the half-year ending December 2007, they surpassed full-year sales from 2006 (year of collapse). Still, the current ratio is still poor (less than 1), but that’s about three times better than it was when the company sunk. 

The company lost 751 million in June 06, which improved the first year of receivership to a loss of 257m in 07 – and are on track to make a profit in 2008 – while operating fewer stores. It’s probably too soon to be re-listed (there would only be sellers, no buyers) and a dividend would not be likely for 5 years as the company still has an accumulated loss (negative reserves) of about 1 billion shillings ($15 million)

peeves two things irritate me though at Uchumi (i) their cashiers never have any shilling coins and insist on giving out sweets in lieu of change (ii) Cashiers’ who take advantage of my not having a u-card to top up their accounts with points I pay for. 

Insurer collapses: Invesco Assurance finaly goes under. The company which insured many matatu’s is now under statutory management and can’t make any policy payments or sign up new business. And when the history of the company is written, one paragraph must address why almost every insurance company (including Invesco) decided to put up an expensive office building in the Upper Hill area of Nairobi, far away from their core clientele.

Kenya Re profits: How much did Kenya Re earn in 2007? An interesting discussion at stockskenya. 

Diaspora dollars: How much do Kenyans abroad remit to the country (through official channels)? CBK reports $54 million in January 2008 and the country is on track for an increase from the $573 million sent in 2007. 

Dollar launderer: A Nation report cites US concern about money laundering in Kenya which has weak laws regarding the crime. The State Department report notes the difficulty as Kenya is a hub that mixes regional trade with exports to East & Central Africa, donor aid & NGO’s (managing over U.S. $1 billion annually), remittances from expatriate Kenyans estimated at $680-780 million annually, and Eastleigh Estate which handles unofficial remittances by the Somalia Diaspora. Also, though banks maintain records of transactions over U.S. $100,000 and international transfers over U.S. $50,000 (and report them to the CBK) they fear customer reactions to such release of information – and this was hammered home by a November 2007 court award that ordered Barclays Bank to pay a customer 400,000 shillings ($5,700) for providing customer details to the British High Commission.

New boards 

- The Kenya College of Communication and Technology (KCCT) board now has Michael Joseph, Nick Nesbitt, Naushad Merali and Paul Kukubo to guide some relevance in communications training. 

- The Resettlement fund (for election victims) has retired Archbishop Ndingi, former minister Akaranga, and retired athlete Kipchoge Keino on board.

Mama Mikes & the World Bank

Money, food, transport have been in short supply in many rural areas affected by the violence. Equally crippling has been the lack of communication capability where there has been no electricity (poles brought down/lines cut) or shops (closed/looted/overpriced) selling mobile phone airtime.

People in urban areas have been sending airtime up-country by the thousands to stranded friends and relatives, while others from overseas (and even within Kenya) have turned to Mamamikes – who apologize for some logistcial delays and problems that may have been experienced in the transfer process.

DC opportunity
World Bank Summer Internship Program; apply online before January 31.

Diaspora impacting the Shilling

Another group trooped to the Governor of the Central Bank, lamenting about the strength of the Kenya shilling against the dollar, and its negative impact on exports - asking for intervention, or exchange rate controls to weaken the shilling.

But is it possible and how? According to economist Dr. David Ndii, the Central Bank is largely unable to control currency and inflation rates. Inflation because a large part of the economy is informal (and unbanked), and the shilling because of remittances.

Remittances grew from ¼ to almost 1/3 of export earnings and grew by 43% compared to exports which grew by 13% from 2005 to 2006.

So unless authorities crack down on money transfers, or asks Kenyans in the diaspora to channel their funds through more productive avenues and investments, this is likely to continue. And with Equity bank and Safaricom poised to enter the international money transfer business, the reach of the diaspora to rural Kenya is about to take another leap forward.

Ultimately we all hope the strong shilling can lead to a lower fuel bill for the country ad petroleum prices impact so many aspects of the economy including the cost of production for exporters.

Opportunities
most from the daily papers this week

Executive secretary at the Africa capacity building foundation based in Zimbabwe. D/l is 31/8

Dozens of executive positions at the new Africa financial corporation to be headquartered in Lagos. . Details at KPMG site and d/l is 15/7

Baker tilley merali CPA: audit manager, senior audit professionals. Apply to reception@meraliscpa.com

Senior advisor Kenya at Danida. Apply online

Governance advisor Kenya, at DFID - the British government department for international development. Apply to dfidgov@adeptsystems.co.ke by 23/7

Elizabeth Glaser pediatric aids foundation: finance/HR manager, finance/admin assistant. Apply to mkihoro@pedaids.org by 23/7

Non executive board chairman at the Emerging Africa infrastructure fund. D/L is 31/7

Express advertising: account director, PR & events manager, media manager. Apply to Monty@expressad.co.ke by 19/7

First Community Bank - Kenya's first Islamic bank. Vacancies include head of risk management, head of corporate banking, head of retail banking, head of operations, head of treasury. Apply to fcb-vacancies@ahmedabdi.com by 20/7

Industrial promotion services aka IPS: business process re-engineering managers /officers and
food sector business development officers. Apply to HR@ipskenya.com by 30/7

Kenya airways has finally embraced the online application process. Current vacancies include IS officer, automations service manager, licensed engineer, technicians as well as pilots and cabin crew.

General manager at Kisii bottlers limited. Apply to jobs@afr.ko.com by 18/7

Managing editor - quality & product development at KTN. d/l is 12/7

International jobs can be viewed at the Kenya Ministry of Foreign Affairs website

Nation media group. Writers, also Internet sub editor.

TNT international: sales account manager, sales administrator, IS administrator. Apply to
hr@tntkenya.com by 20/7

Senior malaria advisor at USAID. check online and d/l is 20/7

World Bank young professionals program d/l is 15/7

Money Transfer within Kenya - Part II

Part I has come to pass with Safaricom’s new M-Pesa service enabling money transfer via cell phone.

Mzansi Kenya: The new technology does not pose a threat to banks as it operates outside banking circles. What banks should look out for is a populist attempt introduce mzansi style banking as they continue to report super profits year after year which are unfairly attributed to excessive fees they levy on their customers.

Visa, watch out: The next group to watch out for what's happening at Safaricom should be Visa and other credit card manufactures in Africa. Cell phone airtime is virtual money - which is what debit and credit cards are - enabling customers and merchants to exchange virtual payments settled days later - at a substantial fee to both parties.

With cell phones this is already happening but it's just not formalized. The Option - Safaricom's free magazine publication has a letter to the editor this month from Joe Nickson of Kerugoya (central Kenya) who paid his fare in a matatu (bus) by transferring 50 shillings airtime to the conductor's phone and he received 30 shillings actual cash as change.

Airtime offers many more possibilities - 7 million cell phone (including more post-paid cell phone customers) vs. 100, 000 credit card users in Africa. Alongside his credit card terminal, a merchant can have a terminal with a dedicated cell phone line to receive virtual payments of airtime from safaricom users making small purchases. At the end of the day, he'll be able to check his virtual balance - and either re-sell the airtime to customers or use it to purchase other goods.

Another advantage of cell phone payments is they require no background checks or credit history.

Could Safaricom go to a higher level and enable online payments to enable their subscribers to buy over the web and pay by transfering payments to a website like Mamamikes or is that already happening?

Money Transfer within Kenya

I had a situation over the weekend, where I was faced with a choice of having someone send money instantly to me while I was in Eldoret - and this led to a discussion of the cash remittance business in Kenya

Past
Surprisingly, Western Union and Moneygram, which have been recording growing volumes and signing up new banks (like KCB) every month, already represent the past in money remittance. The reason for this is the cost of the transfer, which now puts off savvy consumers. E.g. to send 10,000 shillings to Eldoret, the cost was 1,700 (14.5%) via Western Union and 1,850 (15.6%) via Moneygram.
Transaction time: a few seconds
Cost: about 15% of amount transferred
Convenience: All major towns, available at over 10 bank and dozens of forex bureaus which have extended hours.

Present
With recent investments and advances in IT, banks like Barclays and Standard Chartered are now fully networked, with transactions made instantly reflected in accounts. For cash remittance, I’ll give a friend my Barclays account number, and he’d go to his local Barclays branch, e.g. in Mombasa, or Kisumu, and deposit the money into my account – and I’d be able to withdraw it almost instantly in Eldoret.
Transaction time: a few minutes
Cost: 0 – 500 shillings (depends on withdrawal fees at the bank for over the counter transactions since cash it not always reflected at the ATM)
Convenience: One must have an account with a bank which is networked e.g. Barclays, Standard Chartered, NBK, ABC and the bank should have a branch. But banks have very short working hours usually 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. KCB which has the country's largest branch system has not networked all its branches yet.

Future
The future will be for money transfer via cellphone, as is already taking place in the Philippines and South Africa. Like MTN, Safaricom and Celtel will one day launch cellphone banking systems to capitalize on the millions of cell phone users, who don’t operate bank accounts, especially in rural areas, where banks have been closing unprofitable branches.
Transaction: a few seconds
Cost: transaction fee to be determined
Convenience: Safaricom and Celtel combined have over 5 million subscribers. Also one can expect market leaders like Western Union and Barclays to capitalise on cell phone banking.