Mobile banking changing the world - Ecobank
By Gift Chanda
Fri 14 Sep. 2012, 10:28 CAT
ECOBANK sees mobile banking is a tool for boosting access levels to basic banking services in the country, a senior official said yesterday.
Lauzi Mwamba, Ecobank Zambia head of mobile banking, said the increased rate of mobile phone penetration together with the bank's focus on mobile banking is expected to drive the growth in the country's financial sector.
Zambia's mobile user penetration has been on an increase with an estimated 8.2 million subscribers on the mobile phone grid.
Mwamba told delegates at the ongoing Celpay Zambia fourth annual conference in Lusaka yesterday of the importance of focusing on mobile banking to augment efforts aimed at getting more people to access financial services in the country.
She said because the use of mobile banking allows customers at the bottom end of the pyramid to have access to basic banking services through the mobile phone, more local people are expected to have access to basic financial services.
Mwamba observed that mobile penetration has far exceeded banking penetration and therefore the introduction of mobile banking allows more people to have access to basic banking.
"The mobile revolution is here and is changing the world," she said.
"It is up to us to embrace it and explore its many offerings to create the growth we are all looking for."
Mwamba said for Ecobank, mobile banking is clearly seen as the most efficient model for driving banking transactions and scaling them to millions of customers rapidly.
"The unbanked customers are seen as the key demand driver for Ecobank Mobile," added Mwamba.
"...because mobile banking is an affordable and reliable means of providing access to financial services to the unbanked in the urban as well as the rural areas of Zambia."
Earlier, Celpay international group chief executive officer Lazarous Muchenje said mobile banking has propelled significant changes in the financial sector globally.
He said at least 600 mobile payment platforms have sprawled over the last decade but only 10 per cent of those have been successful, especially in developing countries.
Celpay, which had been operating locally as Celpay Zambia Limited for the past 10 years, had handled close to US$2 billion worth of transactions.
The firm with other operations in Zimbabwe, Uganda, the UK and the Democratic Republic of Congo plans to invest US$10 million over the next five years to expand its operations in southern Africa.
Labels: ECOBANK, ICT, MOBILE PHONES
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Bharti aims to entrench green culture
By Gift Chanda
Wed 28 Mar. 2012, 12:59 CAT
BHARTI Airtel has announced significant milestones in its endeavour to build a ‘green' environment friendly mobile network and reduce its carbon footprint in Africa.
The company stated that over the last one year, as part of its commitment to the environment, the company has reduced the number of telecom sites running solely on diesel by more than 50 per cent by overcoming the challenge of lack of grid connectivity through use of innovative models such as Hybrid Battery Bank.
"By 2013, Bharti Airtel aims to completely eradicate the constant use of diesel to power its network. This means no telecom site of the company will rely solely on diesel power 24 hours a day," the statement released by the company read in part.
Hybrid Battery Banks collect the excess energy produced by the diesel powered generator in a battery that powers the site once the generator is switched off.
"This has helped reduce the use of diesel by up to 14 hours a day," it stated.
The telecommunication giant said close to 60 per cent of its telecom sites in Africa are now powered using the Hybrid model resulting in major reduction in emissions and also operating costs for the company.
"This milestone is the result of significant steps by Airtel taken to ensure that we reduce our fuel consumption and that we play our part in conserving the environment. We will continue to do so as the year progresses," chief technical officer Eben Albertyn said.
"Our first priority is to reduce the number of sites that are completely reliant on diesel generators. We are doing this by connecting these sites to grid electricity in areas where this option is feasible. Where it is not, we are exploring alternative forms of power supply, which include Hybrid Battery Banks and solar or wind power."
The company is targeting over 70 per cent of all its sites to be powered by the hybrid model by end of 2013.
Airtel added that it is also working on the use of solar and wind power to run its telecom sites.
Labels: BHARTI AIRTEL, ENVIRONMENT, MOBILE PHONES
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Why mobile money is popular in Africa, but not in the US
banking mining resource curse cost benefit ground rent
Mining costs Ghanians more than it benefits them
African consumers have leapfrogged traditional banking systems by using mobile phones while their academics speak up for making mining benefit everyone. We trim, blend, and append two 2012 articles from (1) Christian Science Monitor, Jan 13, on mobile cash by C. Hopkins; and (2) Joy On Line, Jan 17, on mining.
by Curt Hopkins and by Joy On Line
Why mobile money is popular in Africa, but not in the US
How cool would it be if we could pay for our meals with our phones? For several years now, Western technology commentators and analysts have proclaimed the imminent rise of mobile cash -- the ability of users to conduct financial transactions using an application on their phone. And for several years now, Western technology users have remained uninterested.
But in Kenya, the futuristic world of mobile money is accepted by most Kenyans as the norm; that country’s mobile applications industry is booming. There are, at last count, 17 mobile cash companies in Kenya alone. Why is mobile money more acceptable in Africa than in America?
The slow growth of mobile cash in the US comes down to Americans’ trusting relationship to banking institutions, despite recent protests. The banking system is very much accessible to Americans, unlike in many African countries. In most parts of Africa, where mobile cash is extremely popular, it is often the only way, excepting paper money, to buy a fridge.
In Africa, Internet penetration and use of e-banking and e-commerce is low, so mobile money fits the bill; it has been going gangbusters for years. Mobile money offers a way for the unbanked to bank their money. Even among those who use a traditional banking institution, most banked people in urban Kenya prefer mobile money for its convenience and speed.
Mobile money has leapfrogged the payment card industry, which requires expensive ATM and Point of Sale (POS) networks to function. ATMs and POS Terminals require regular maintenance and, with ATMs, regular liquidity balancing. By leveraging third party retail outlets and making the phone the primary means of exchange, mobile money bypassed the need to distribute ATMs and POS Terminals.
Mobile cash facilitator M-Pesa and its competitors have to make their services as responsive and simple as possible to accommodate a wide spectrum of user needs, education levels, and technology types.
For Americans, there is too much complexity and too little utility for mobile money. There is no shared platform for payments and most of the current offerings are merely wrappers for credit cards. And, most importantly of all, in the Western world, mobile cash is not a solution to a problem.
To see the whole article, click here .
JJS: A solution to an invisible problem -- that is one reason why proponents of a tax on land or other means of recovery of the socially-generated value of “rents” have such a hard time advancing their cause. It’s hard to connect “land dues” to displacing other taxes, curbing sprawl, raising wages, channeling investment into useful enterprise, etc, eventho’ that has been the track record of the land tax.
Perhaps if proponents were to downplay the tax aspect and play up the notion of sharing any recovered rents -- a la Alaska’s oil dividend -- then they might get further with the public. They’d not be alone in issuing such a call. Sharing the rental revenue from resources is a demand that some prominent Africans do on occasion make.
Mining activities under microscope of New Year School panellists
At the symposium on “’Yellow Gold’ management for the past half century: Implication for the ‘Black Gold’”, opinions diverged.
While the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, Dr Tony Aubynn, contended that mining contributed to the national economy, other panelists at the 63rd Annual New Year School and Conference at the University of Ghana declared that mining has been more costly than beneficial to the nation.
The Co-ordinator of the Third World Network (TWN), Africa, Dr Yao Graham; a senior lecturer at the Department of Economics of the University of Ghana, Dr Daniel Twerefou, and the Executive Director of WACAM, Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, were unanimous that the cost of mining to the nation far outweighed its benefit.
Dr Graham said sometimes it was better to leave minerals unmined, especially if the mining would be more costly to the environment and communities; further, the state does not well regulate mining companies. Also, he stressed the need for the revenue accruing from mining to be distributed equitably.
When Owusu-Koranteng revealed that mining companies paid 50Gp per annum as ground rent for a one-kilometre square of land, the audience responded with spontaneous remarks of disapproval.
Mr Owusu-Koranteng said that as mining shifted from underground to surface, that created lots of environmental problems in mining communities.
He said in assessing the cost and benefit of mining, it was important to also consider the destruction of the cultural and spiritual heritage of mining communities that were intangible but invaluable.
Dr Twerefou agreed it was important to put value on the social and environmental impact of mining and not just the benefits, adding that the impact of mining was inter-generational.
He observed that only 22 per cent of revenue accruing from mining was injected into the national economy as against about 98 per cent from cocoa.
To see the whole article, click here.
JJS: And if African governments were to distribute natural resource revenue equitably, then individual Africans could receive their share on their phones -- and they’d be way ahead of ordinary citizens in America.
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Editor Jeffery J. Smith runs the Forum on Geonomics and helped prepare a course for the UN on geonomics. To take the “Land Rights” course, click here .
Labels: GHANA, INTERNET, MOBILE PHONES
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Dollarisation a boon for capitalists
by Takura Zhangazha
14/12/2010 00:00:00
EVER since the dollarisation of our national economy, it has become common public opinion that ‘things have improved’. This improvement is directly related to the fact that goods are now available on the supermarket shelves and elsewhere.
What is, however, not questioned is whether these now available goods or services are accessible or affordable to the majority of Zimbabwe’s low income earners. Instead, what is now apparent is that both the government and big businesses are functioning on the basis of the dictum ‘take it or leave it, so long as it’s better than what was there before dollarisation’.
For many economists, there would be nothing fundamentally wrong with the above cited dictum. In fact it fully serves to augment the purpose for which business exists -- which is profit no matter the circumstance. And this is why since the introduction of a multi-currency national economy, business has been milking the meagre incomes of the majority mercilessly.
Some readers might argue that to define the operations of corporate business as merciless might be misleading, but the fact is the examples are now too glaring to ignore.
To begin with, the reinvigorated expansion of our telecommunications network via the licensed mobile telephone service providers must be welcomed and viewed with the greatest of caution. Because one of the most sought-after electronic gadgets in the country is the cell phone, the marketing around this has become preposterous if not downright dishonest. In the chase for the dollar of the Zimbabwean consumer, the mobile telephone companies are bordering on being ruthless.
Take for example a mobile phone company which is now offering life insurance via the topping-up of airtime in collaboration with a life insurance company. The exact contractual arrangements of this life insurance are glossed over and are motivated by trying as far as is possible to ensure maximum exploitation of the consumer on -- an issue which normally would be much more serious than a text message to a subscriber.
The extent and nature of the coverage or how relatives of subscribers to the same will benefit are unclear until you have paid a part of the requisite payment via re-charging your phone’s airtime.
Another example is that of our now ever mushrooming supermarkets that are doing service through inducing an exaggerated consumer culture in the country. The fact that they are selling South African goods and by so doing not assisting our own local industries, means that they are operating purely on the basis of an unsustainable profit. Or a profit that relies totally on the ability of the South African manufacturing industry to supply us with finished goods and products in a manner that makes Zimbabwe similar to Swaziland and Lesotho.
But because their primary purpose is unmitigated profit, they will not see the linkage, hence the arrival of Pick ‘n Pay amongst others onto the scene without any clear plan of how they will boost local production of goods and increase employment.
A third example is that of our health services sector. This sector has become a multi-million dollar spinning enterprise minus any clear public benefit. With the complicity of health-related non-governmental organisations, the health industry has taken advantage of issues relating to fear of mortality to make a super profit.
The very basic maxim of the health services is that if one does not have money, one does not get treated. Even if a medical doctor wants to assess a patient for free, the equipment, drugs and other related products are beyond the reach of many. The NGOs weigh in by arguing about private-public partnerships which to all intents and purposes are a euphemism for profit making at the expense of public access to reliable health services.
Even ARV distribution is a big business with better versions of the latter being the preserve of the rich, together with the attendant medical supervision. That is perhaps why the funeral services are making a huge profit burying our fellow citizens as though it were normal for death to be a roaring enterprise.
A fourth and final example is that of our education services sector. The outsourcing of education to private colleges or commercial school development associations has led to exorbitant tuition fees being charged on parents who barely make more than US$150 a month. The universities and other tertiary learning institutions are taking advantage of parents’ basic intention to get their children the best education possible by charging fees that lead to a profit that no-one is clear as to where it ends up.
Occasionally, a school/college bus will be bought as a demonstration of where the money is going but to all intents and purposes, this is largely a cover up for profits that intend to milk the parent/guardian to the last cent.
So as we all go for Christmas, some with a bonus, others without, we must be conscious of the dishonest manner in which private and commercialised state enterprises are functioning. It is now their primary purpose to milk every dollar that a Zimbabwean citizen has to the last cent. Their tactics include emotional blackmail in the case of a relative, friend or child falling ill or needing an education befitting best practices.
They will also function on utilising every other opportunity that emerges to make a super profit, regardless of how unsustainable it is for the national economy or the betterment of the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe.
As far as can be discerned, it is private business that has benefitted the most from the GPA and its inclusive government. And at this rate, it shall continue to be the same.
Labels: CONSUMERS, DOLLARISATION, MOBILE PHONES
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ZAIN to outsource call centre and back office services
Tuesday, October 26, 2010, 21:04
Zain has announced plans to outsource call centre and back office services. Bharti Airtel which owns and operates the Zain brand in 16 AFRICAN countries says it will soon conclude the deal with IBM Tech Mahindra and Spanco which will run the customer services for Bharti Airtel.
A statement issued by the firm says the deal will allow its 40 million mobile customers to enjoy world class customer services.
The statements says IBM Tech Mahindra and Spanco will introduce quality best practices based on their experiences of working with international organisations in the telecommunications, banking, finance, insurance and retail sectors.
The firm says this will also lead to the development of the nascent African Business Process Outsourcing sector which promises to deliver economic growth to many countries across the continent.
ZNBC
Labels: MOBILE PHONES, OUTSOURCING, ZAIN ZAMBIA LIMITED PLC
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Zim sees mobile phone sector boom
by Godfrey Marawanyika
28/09/2010 00:00:00
ZIMBABWE’S cellphone subscribers have increased four-fold since a unity government took office last year, but local firms say they battle to attract investors who worry the country’s political truce won't last.
In 2008, when the local currency was ravaged by world-record hyperinflation, SIM cards were selling for up to $220 - not including a phone.
The lucky - and wealthy - few who could afford cellphones were routinely greeted with messages such as "The number you have dialled is not reachable, please try later" or "The number you dialled does not exist."
Then the local currency was abandoned and the unity government took office in February 2009, and the price for a SIM card fell to $1. Even in a country where per capita GDP is just $160, and unemployment is estimated at over 90 percent, people have snapped up phones.
Forty nine percent of the nation's 12-million people now have a cellphone, up from 9 percent 17 months ago, according to government data - making telecoms of the few industries to rebound strongly after a decade of economic freefall.
Zimbabwe has three mobile operators, but Econet Wireless controls 73 percent of the market and has dramatically upgraded its network, using earnings from its operations on the rest of the continent.
When Econet unveiled its 3G network a year ago, lines snaked through the streets as people rushed to spend $100 for the service. Econet CEO Douglas Mboweni believes telecoms in Zimbabwe still have room to grow.
"With a mobile penetration rate of 40percent, there is still a significant demand for communication services in Zimbabwe," Mboweni said in a circular to shareholders.
Investors are still reluctant to enter the market, as long-ruling President Robert Mugabe and his rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai feud over political posts and begin to mull elections in the next year or two.
Political risks only add to difficulties of investing in Zimbabwe, which ranks 159 out of 183 countries in the World Bank's ease of doing business index.
While Econet has expanded rapidly, state-owned operator Net One has battled to find investors to upgrade its systems.
"This is a vibrant market, but the problem is that investors always want to buy our companies at discounted prices because of perceived risk and they want to use this as a discount to get our assets at a lower value," said Net One managing director Reward Kangai.
Zimbabwe's government is spending $6,2-million dollars to link Zimbabwe to fibre-optic cables running under the sea on both the Atlantic and Indian coasts of Africa.
Technology minister Nelson Chamisa says the link will improve both phone and internet services for fixed lines and cellphones, which he hopes will help lure investors.
"This is the best time to enter the market because we are a virgin market, there is huge potential," said Chamisa.
"We are inviting investors to launch internet, mobile connectivity here despite the 'so-called fears'. We need investors."
Government has also removed import duty on all cellphones and computers, hoping to promote investment in technology.
Aimable Mpore, chief executive offer of Telecel, the second largest mobile operator, said he believed links to the undersea cables will change the market.
"Zimbabwe has been starved (of connectivity) but it's coming," he said.
"The sector has recorded growth over the past two years due to dollarisation. Before that operators could not buy equipment like base stations and other things we use."
"Even in stable economies there are risks," he added. - AFP
Labels: DOUGLAS MBOWENI, ITC, MOBILE PHONES
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Zain Zambia ranked most expensive service provider – survey
By Moses Kuwema
Fri 11 June 2010, 14:30 CAT
ZAIN Zambia has been ranked as the most
expensive service provider in the country according to a consumer protection research report for 2010 on mobile service providers.
The research was conducted by Charley Lewis from the University of the Witwatersrand and David Mukosa from the University of Zambia.
“In this case a substantial majority of 63 per cent ranked Zain as the most expensive, reasons given for interviewees’ rankings were varied and sometimes mixed,” Lewis said.
“The difficulty in obtaining clear information is further compounded by the lack of comparability across service provider package, and the plethora of short term special offers,” he said.
Lewis said the report further went on to find out the service provider they thought was the best and worst.
“Interestingly, Zain previously ranked as the most expensive is nonetheless felt to be the best by fully 50 per cent of respondents, with MTN ranked best by further 38 per cent. In both cases this may mirror the fact that the overwhelming majority of interviewees owned Zain sim cards, inter alia,” he said.
Lewis said Zain was also ranked as the worst service provider adding that some interviewees complained of the cost of service with 58 per cent of the interviewees indicating that the cost of service was expensive.
“On call charges, few interviewees appear to have detailed knowledge of call charges, with some apparently not even sure of how to ascertain this. Of the 24 interviewees, 13 replied that charges were not made clear to them while four of them were not sure and the rest replied that charges were made clear by the service providers,” he said.
The qualitative research involved in-depth semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 24 individuals from different countrywide geographical locations.
The research was conducted with the support and approval of the Association of Regulators in Central, East and Southern Africa (ARICEA) and the support of the International Development Research Center (IDRC) of Canada.
Lewis hoped that the findings in the research report will empower policy makers and regulators in charting the way forward to protect consumer rights in the ICT sector
Labels: MOBILE PHONES, ZAIN ZAMBIA LIMITED PLC
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Zain Malawi wins 3G mobile phones licence
By Nyasa Times
Published: November 4, 2009
Zain Malawi, a leading mobile service provider in the country, has finally received an International Mobile Telecommunication’s third generation (3G) licence which the company applied to government in 2006.
Zain Malawi Marketing Director Elwin Kadango (pictured) said in the capital Lilongwe that the company would now start using the 3G data which would effeciently improve the mobile services to its customers by providing them with modern technologies.
“Using the latest international mobile telecommunications popularly known as 3G, users of Zain services can surf the internet and other services at a cheaper cost and faster speed,” he said.
Currently, he said, other communication providers in the country are using 2.5G which is the oldest, with low speed and high costs.
He added that with the modern service, the company was planning to connect the country’s schools and hospitals.
As a social corporate partner, these are the key areas (education and health) the company would like to assist government in order to improve its delivery service, he said.–APA
Labels: LICENSES, MOBILE PHONES, ZAIN
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