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		<title>There is more to digital payments in Africa than M-Pesa</title>
		<link>https://sothebankuab.com/the-security-risks-of-changing-package-owners-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-security-risks-of-changing-package-owners-2</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[STB Blogger]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 16 Aug 2020 10:33:25 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Digital Payments]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[payments]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://themes.jibdara.com/tryo/?p=449</guid>

<description><![CDATA[According to Madhvi Mavadiya
Senior Reporter , Finextra in June 25, 2020 article.
Inn 2010, Kenyan payments, money transfer and micro-financing service M-Pesa became the most successful mobile phone based financial service in the developing world, just three years after the launch by network operators Vodafone and Safaricom. ]]></description>
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<p>In 2010, Kenyan payments, money transfer and micro-financing service M-Pesa became the most successful mobile phone based financial service in the developing world, just three years after the launch by network operators Vodafone and Safaricom. Since then, while other developing markets such as the APAC and LATAM regions have dominated headlines, the African continent’s success in digital payments has not been appreciated to a similar extent. There is more to digital payments in Africa than M-Pesa, and this piece will still only capture a snapshot of African success. </p>
<p><b>Beyond M-Pesa and beyond maturity</b></p>
<p>According to Nana Araba Abban, head, group consumer banking at Ecobank Group, transaction flows sent by banks have grown by an average of 10% year-on-year during this 10-year period. Alongside this, mobile money payments have exploded, with the monthly value of transactions increasing 25 times over between 2010 and 2018.</p>
<p>The African digital payments evolution has also led to “banks adopting a mobile-led digital transformation strategy to reach more customers that their services were unavailable to with traditional models,” Abban says and adds that with “light KYC accounts operated on mobile devices, instant mobile payments including the use of QR technology,” banks are partnering with telcos to facilitate mobile money transactions.</p>
<p>Ecobank, for example, has introduced services like Rapidtransfer for instant cross-border payments across their network of 33 countries in Africa. For ecommerce businesses, cross-border payments are an integral part of day to day operations and allow business owners to transfer funds across different territories in the most secure and efficient way possible, making real-time international payments a reality.</p>
<p>While SWIFT gpi, Visa Direct and Mastercard Send are providing fast and secure global payments, banks are also establishing agent networks to expand financial inclusion, serving customers in neighbourhoods in which they work and live. Ecobank currently has 44,000 agents in a network launched less than three years ago, for example.</p>
<p>Furthermore, in conversation with Dare Okoudjou, founder and CEO of MFS Africa, he says that “M-Pesa was a long time ago and if we were to take a global view, there are around 290 M-Pesa-like schemes around the world. Almost 80 of those services have more than one million active daily users. But Africa remains the epicentre of that market.&#8221;</p>

<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>“banks adopting a mobile-led digital transformation strategy to reach more customers that their services were unavailable to with traditional models,”</p>
</blockquote>

<p><b>Cross-border challenges</b></p>
<p>According to Brookings, intra-African trade is at 17% compared to 59% in Asia and 69% in Europe. The implementation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) is expected to boost intra-Africa trade by up to 52%, by eliminating import duties and reducing other barriers to trade.</p>
<p>Araba says that while there is maturity in the logistics sector, the costs of import duties and freighting charges for instance, “might be prohibitive for small businesses seeking to leverage ecommerce platforms. Thankfully, cross-border payments are less challenging.”</p>
<p>She explains that there are regional initiatives being implemented to facilitate cross-border trade between countries. For example, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) is implementing regulations which assist small-scale traders in crossing borders with simplified clearance procedures for low-value transactions they typically conduct.</p>
<p>“With support from the World Bank, the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda, in cooperation with COMESA, are increasing the capacity for commerce and reducing the costs faced by traders, especially small-scale and women traders, at key borders in the Great Lakes region.”</p>
<p>However, with global trade still predominantly conducted in USD, the apparent lack of USD liquidity in some Sub-Saharan African countries can present problems for cross-border trade. Furthermore, as Steven Marshall, chief commercial officer from Crown Agents Bank relays, “with delays to initiatives like the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, ecommerce offers SMEs a vital chance to reach over borders and expand from local enterprises.</p>
<p>“It’s certainly unfortunate that the wider AfCFTA programme has been postponed as it has the potential to boost Africa’s trading position in the global market, but certainly understandable in the current climate.”</p>
<p>Olivier Lens, head of Sub-Saharan Africa at SWIFT, adds that taking South Africa as an example and considering the success of the Southern African Development Community real-time gross settlement system (SADC RTGS), it is clear that the financial systems in this region are well developed, especially as the adoption of ISO 20022 is also being considered for various projects.</p>
<p>“In the cross-border payments space, several of the region’s largest banks are live on SWIFT gpi and many are in the process of adopting it. In 2019, more than 50% of SWIFT gpi payments globally were credited to end beneficiaries within 30 minutes, bringing more speed, transparency and end-to-end tracking to market players worldwide,” Lens explores.</p>
<p>SWIFT gpi will increase competition in the cross-border payments space, delivering faster, more transparent and traceable payments and supporting the expansion of intra-African trade and international trade.</p>
<p>With strong and secure financial market infrastructures (FMIs) such as the SADC RTGS and others such as the East African Regional Payment System (EAPS) and the regional RTGS system launched by the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) emerging, it is evident that harmonisation is important.</p>
<p>“Pan-regional payment systems operating within harmonised legal and regulatory frameworks of regional economic areas will make intra-regional payments easier, faster and cheaper. This will help to increase cross-border trade within regional communities,” Lens adds.</p>

<p><b>Central bank intervention</b></p>
<p>Central banks and banking regulators are playing an active and supportive role in the growth of payment services in Africa. An example that Abban references is the Banque Centrale des États de l&#8217;Afrique de l&#8217;Ouest (BCEAO) based in Francophone West Africa, that has approved KYC friendly basic accounts with the intention of expanding financial inclusion and in turn, digital payments.</p>
<p>The Central Bank of Nigeria has also pushed a cashless agenda by reducing card fees, limiting ATM withdrawals and levying large cash deposits. <strong>The number of electronic payment transactions in Nigeria grew from 66 million in 2008 to over two billion in 2018. It is a fact that digital payments market has matured faster in Africa than it has in Europe: the number of electronic payments in France has grown in the past decade, but from 33 million in 2009 to 61.5 million in 2018, according to Statista.</strong></p>
<p>Ethiopia is another market with bank-led mobile money and a single national carrier serving the population’s mobile telecommunication needs. Araba explains that the National Bank of Ethiopia has, in a new directive, said it will allow new entrants to offer mobile money services and that it will be selling a 40% stake in the state-owned monopoly Ethio Telecom. She adds that the central bank “is granting two licenses for firms to compete with the incumbent. The companies that are successful will likely seek to cash in on the untapped potential for mobile money in the market.”</p>
<p>While M-Pesa’s success has demonstrated the potential for payments in this region, the maturation of the fintech industry in this region has also attracted the attention of investors, as Marshall points out that startups operating on the continent received a total of $1.3 billion in funding in the last year and giants like Interswitch have emerged.</p>
<p>“Africa has also celebrated its first home-grown unicorn Interswitch, after payments giant Visa acquired a 20% minority equity stake in the firm. There’s been so much innovation in the last decade, but there’s still a lot of people and communities to reach,” Marshall says.</p>
<p>The GSMA states that Sub-Saharan Africa is mobile payments&#8217; biggest market, accounting for a staggering 45.6% of all activity globally in 2018. Marshall believes that “digital payments are reaching new heights and, in a reaction to this, traditional banks in the region are increasingly working to digitalise their services and welcome more pay-out methods.”</p>
<p>As has been seen in Kenya, traditional lenders in Africa are innovating, embracing new technologies, streamlining their operations and collaborating with fintech firms &#8211; building on their strengths of having a large established customer base and rich customer data; risk management capabilities; balance sheet strength; industry knowledge and trust, as Lens explains.</p>
<p><b>Diverse customer distribution = enhanced financial inclusion</b></p>
<p>As host to almost half of all mobile money registered accounts globally, it calls into question whether Sub-Saharan Africa will remain the epicentre of mobile money. Customer distribution across the region has become more diverse and mobile money agents have played a key role in driving customer adoption and enhancing financial inclusion across Africa.</p>
<p>According to an IMF Financial Access Survey, there are 60 agent outlets per 1,000 km² vs. two ATMs and one bank branch in the same area in Sub-Saharan Africa. Abban believes: “The proximity of service is critical to the adoption of digital financial services as most people cannot afford to travel long distances to transact.”</p>
<p>With over 1.4 million active mobile money agents in Sub-Saharan Africa, some of which also serve as banking agents, and 90% of transactions still being conducted in cash, it is without a doubt that mobile money agents have played a critical part in strengthening the banking industry, helping extend reach through popular services such as bank to wallet transfers and overcoming logistical issues to do with proximity to bank branches and ATMs.</p>
<p>Okoudjou follows this up and states that “mobile money agents are the unsung heroes of the digital payments evolution in Africa. Mobile money is not about the mobile, it’s about the agents. In time, you will see agents becoming more sophisticated and they will be allowed to distribute or facilitate different types of services like insurance or investment.”</p>
<p>While making a payment is now cheaper, faster and safer than ever before, the next step according to Marshall is to stop customers from “cashing out” after they have received a mobile remittance. Referencing Center for Financial Inclusion data that registered accounts increased by 11.9% in 2019 and transaction value was up 27.5%, Lens notes that “mobile money has grown at pace in countries where regulation has evolved to enable low-cost services.”</p>
<p>Lens exemplifies this and reveals that Ghana has seen a 400% growth in the use of mobile money after rolling out a number of policies that addressed financial inclusion and allowed full interoperability among telecommunications companies and with banks. “Established financial institutions are collaborating with fintechs to build out the ecosystem, increase financial inclusion and deliver enhanced services to end users.”</p>
<p><b>Overtaking traditional infrastructure to offer value</b></p>
<p>Digital technology is allowing emerging markets in Africa to leapfrog traditional financial processes and process payments quicker than is perceived in developed countries such as the US. Innovations such as electronic cash tokens for agent or ATM withdrawal, issuance of virtual cards, payments via SMS or email are in circulation. In addition to this, Abban highlights that in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Nigeria, “transfers can be made between banks instantly and this has been the norm for some years now, in contrast with countries like the US where legacy systems might hinder such innovation.”</p>
<p>While the US is seemingly a laggard in the payments arena in comparison, she goes on to state that in addition to M-Pesa in Kenya, Africa has also since seen the rise of stalwarts such as Nigeria’s Interswitch and Morocco’s Hightech Payment Systems. Marshall reiterates: “By removing some of the biggest obstacles, namely having to be physically at a bank, digital finance directly offers an accessible way for people to fulfil their financial needs. As a result, we have seen it overtake traditional banking methods that are less relevant to an increasingly digital savvy population.</p>
<p>“In the past few years, digital payments in Africa have become world-leading in terms of adoption and volume.” Nadia Costanzo, head of banks for Africa &amp; Latin America at TransferWise takes this point further and surmises that on a continent where most live far from traditional bank branches, banks are providing liveness checks so that customers can complete KYC verification services from the comfort of their homes.</p>
<p>While Costanzo highlights that this is dependent on internet access, “something which is not always reliably available across rural areas,” M-Pesa must continue to be hailed for being the first of its kind in Africa to enable international money transfers, small loans, bill payments, airtime top ups and high interest savings accounts (up to 6.65%).</p>
<p>Following in M-Pesa’s footsteps, startups across the continent are “doing incredible things to replace banks,” Costanzo says. “Farmers in Senegal and Mali are able to develop savings habits through mobile layaway platforms such as myagro, where they usually would have had to go to traditional financial institutions to get loans at high interest rates. Similarly, people without access to energy in Madagascar can access solar lamps through loans that link activation of lamps to repayment of debt via baobabplus.”</p>
<p><b>Thriving and surviving in the ecommerce sector</b></p>
<p>Smartphone penetration could unlock access to a broader customer base over time and allow micro, small or small to medium businesses thrive. According to The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the number of online shoppers in Africa has surged annually by 18% since 2014 and this has occurred on the back of rapid smartphone penetration, as the primary means of accessing the web in Africa is via mobile device. But it takes more than mobile penetration as Abban explains.</p>
<p>Abban says: “This trend can be expected to continue with the introduction of less expensive ISP data packages, evolution of payment solutions including virtual cards, inexpensive web acquiring solutions and improved logistics infrastructure. To be sure, it takes more than access to smartphones for e-commerce to thrive. Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa account for more than half of online shoppers in Africa. Market access is key for businesses and with the right investment in infrastructure and well written policies, there should be growth in the businesses reaching clients online,” she continues.</p>
<p>Marshall has a similar view and refers to mobile technology as a “primary engine of economic growth. Mobile has enabled innovative business models that have helped SMEs compete on an even footing with much bigger companies.” He calls attention to the fact that ecommerce in Africa was valued at $16.5 billion in 2017 and a McKinsey report revealed that this value could well go up to $75 billion by 2025.</p>
<p>“Mobile money would further empower the growth of ecommerce in Africa and the growing penetration of smartphones opens up a wider opportunity both in terms of accessing online stores and in enabling a range of payment methods. This is key in facilitating cross-border transactions, particularly in a market that has been nervous about ecommerce until Covid-19 accelerated its relevance.”</p>
<p>It goes without saying that mobile phone penetration is high across Africa, usually significantly higher than bank account ownership. Costanzo mirrors this and says “mobile providers do not only develop mobile money services for smartphones, but also for feature phones, so people at all income levels in countries, where mobile money services are available, can receive remittance payments and make local payments.”</p>
<p>For MSMEs, this is positive as they would be able to leverage mobile money tools to improve accounting processes and reduce the risk of theft for example, where mobile money is a commonly accepted form of payment and will slow down the use of cash or hand-written accounts. However, as Costanzo explicates, there are still challenges that can’t be solved through smartphone penetration alone.</p>
<p>“In countries where mobile money is not as high profile, accepting payments through cards or bank transfers would be the only viable ecommerce alternative. Debit card ownership in countries like Nigeria and South Africa were less than 50% in 2017, thereby significantly reducing the addressable market in ecommerce.”</p>
<p><b>Okoudjou concludes by saying that typically, when coming across headlines about African payments, leapfrogging is used as a description, “which implies that Africa is catching up. In many ways, Africa is on its own path and some of what we’re doing is ahead of what is being done in Europe or the US. Our path is also not to replicate what is being done in Europe or the US. Payments have been instant across Sub-Saharan Africa since 2010.”</b></p>
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		<title>Meet the African girls who are coding to make a difference</title>
		<link>https://sothebankuab.com/protect-your-workplace-from-cyber-attacks/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=protect-your-workplace-from-cyber-attacks</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[STB Blogger]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 15 Aug 2020 10:32:05 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Workplace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protect]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://themes.jibdara.com/tryo/?p=438</guid>

<description><![CDATA[Khayrath Mohamed Kombo, 15, is one of more than 80 participants in the first Coding Camp in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in August 2018. Photo: UN Women/Faith Bwibo]]></description>
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<p>Bright-eyed 15-year-old Khayrath Mohamed Kombo is heading off to camp in another city for the first time. But far from arriving to a sea of tents, sleeping bags and wilderness, this camp has a decidedly more high-tech environment.</p>
<p>“When I heard about this I was excited because my dream is to learn more things and expand my knowledge,” says Khayrath, who is the only girl in her computer science club at school, back in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania.</p>
<p>She was among more than 80 girls from 34 African countries who attended the first Coding Camp in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for 10 days in August 2018. The camp served to launch the African Girls Can CODE Initiative, a joint programme of the African Union Commission (AUC), UN Women Ethiopia and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).</p>

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<p>The four-year programme is designed to equip young girls with digital literacy, coding and personal development skills. They will be trained as programmers, creators and designers, placing them on-track to take up education and careers in ICT and coding.</p>
<p>“Girls face discrimination in the sector, because computer science has always been seen as a course for boys, not girls,” says 15-year-old camp participant Eno Ekanem, from Abuja, Nigeria, adding that what they hear often is: “Shouldn’t you learn to be a housewife or do girly stuff?”</p>
<p>.</p>

<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>“Most of the time, young girls in ICT get married and their potential is swept under the carpet because they now have different responsibilities.”</p>
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<p>During the camp, girls were divided into smaller groups tasked with developing a computer programme—and coding it. While Chibanda and Kombo’s group developed an animated video on gender equality, Eno Ekanem’s group worked on building a drone controlled by SMS messaging that will be able to dispense medicine in rural areas, which lack access to medicine.</p>
<p>“We were six in my group, from Namibia, Rwanda, Swaziland, Senegal and Nigeria,” explains Ekanem. “It was cool to work in a group like this. You learn about coding, but also other aspects of how we share ideas and develop them. You also learn about the different countries and cultures.”</p>
<p>The African Girls Can CODE initiative uses a “spark interest” approach to attract young girls towards coding at early stages, when they are contemplating about future careers. Upon completing the programme, participants have the knowledge, skills and competencies to forge careers in ICT. It also equips each girl with enterprise know-how, to ensure their financial security.</p>

<p>“Technology in its various forms, including ICTs, continues to redefine and revolutionize the way we all live and work,” said Letty Chiwara, UN Women representative in Ethiopia, the AU and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. “Harnessing this technology to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment is not only vital for women and girls, but critical throughout the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. If we do not have enough women in the so-called fourth industrial revolution, we will not get the variety of the solutions that are needed by women and girls. By teaching coding and other digital skills to young women, we can reduce youth unemployment and also achieve gender equality, women&#8217;s empowerment and accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.”</p>
<p>The African Girls Can Code Initiative will run from 2018-2022 and is expected to reach more than 2,000 girls through 18 Coding Camps (2 international, 12 regional and 4 in Ethiopia).</p>
<p>In its first year of implementation, the programme has received generous financial support from the Government of Denmark.</p>
<p>.</p>
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		<title>Africa’s quest for a cashless economy gains momentum</title>
		<link>https://sothebankuab.com/paypal-here-card-reader-review-2019/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=paypal-here-card-reader-review-2019</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[STB Blogger]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Oct 2019 07:08:46 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Card]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Review]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://themes.jibdara.com/tryo/?p=213</guid>

<description><![CDATA[Insufficient financial inclusion, unbanked masses and financial literacy are increasingly attracting investors
According to Kingsley Ighobor from Africa Renewal]]></description>
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<p>When she needed to transfer money to a friend in a faraway village last March, Mouna Ahmed, a gender equality activist in Liberia, did not have to worry about long bank queues and complex paperwork. Instead she took her phone, tapped on the mobile money app, punched in an amount and pressed the send button. Minutes later, her friend acknowledged the kind gesture.</p>
<p>“Transferring the money took less than a minute,” Ms. Ahmed told <em>Africa Renewal</em>.</p>
<p>A leading Liberian telecom company, Lonestar Cell MTN, launched mobile money in the country in 2013. Since then, Ms. Ahmed says, “I pay my electricity, water and cable television bills through my cell phone.” Last year, the company announced it will offer transfers in both US and Liberian dollars—a relief for customers who must currently use the US dollar for<br />payments.</p>
<p>Liberians haven’t had much experience with cashless payment methods, particularly mobile money (popularly known as “mobile wallet”); even credit and debit cards are little used. Although businesses and individuals still issue age-old cheques, mobile wallet use is steadily increasing.</p>
<p>Unlike in Liberia, where mobile money is the primary means of making cashless payments, Rwanda is using several different methods. The country’s ambitious Smart Rwanda Master Plan (SRMP) seeks to digitize all government financial transactions by 2018, which will allow citizens to make online payments as well as use debit and credit cards for services in health care, finance and education, among other areas.</p>
<p>This strategy is an offshoot of Rwanda’s Vision 2020, a government blueprint designed in 2000 for achieving a knowledge-based economy (in which growth depends more on information than on production) and leading the country to the middle-income bracket by 2020.</p>
<p>Already most bus operators in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city, accept prepaid cards. Thousands of commuters riding swanky city buses need only swipe a debit card on a card reader fitted on a bus dashboard before taking their seats. Gone are the days when conductors collected cash payments. </p>
<p><strong>M-Pesa sets the pace</strong></p>
<p>Philip Ngarambe, the chief operations officer of AC Group, a digital payment systems company in Rwanda, explains that previously, “by the time [cash] gets to the company there are so many hands it has gone through—from the conductor to the bus driver to the person collecting it, to taking it to finance and the bank account,” that businesses lost between 40% and 60% of revenues through cash pilfering.</p>
<p>Rwanda may be ahead of the curve in cashless commuting, but Kenya’s M-Pesa, a mobile payment service launched in 2007, is acclaimed for the revolutionary impact it has had on society. M-Pesa (a Swahili word for “mobile money”) allows people, even in rural areas, to transfer money to one another, make day-to-day purchases and pay for services such as electricity and water.</p>
<p>The Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), the London-based industry group that represents mobile operators worldwide, has lauded M-Pesa’s pioneering effort for demonstrating “the potential of mobile technology to transform access to financial services in emerging markets.”</p>
<p>Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa are also bellwethers of cashless payment use in Africa, according to GSMA.</p>
<p>The Egyptian government, in collaboration with MasterCard and the Egyptian Banks Company (EBC), is working on a similar project that will allow 50 million citizens to use a single mobile payments gateway. The gateway will link citizens’ national IDs to a digital system, which means all those in the financial mainstream—suppliers, distributions, customers, government and so on—can transact with one another.</p>
<p>Similarly, the Nigerian government and MasterCard are planning a national ID programme with biometric functionality that citizens can use to pay for goods and services and to receive salaries. That project, targeting 100 million citizens, will be the largest of its kind on the continent.</p>
<p><strong>Tantalizing investment opportunity</strong></p>
<p>A pan-African bank, Ecobank, and MasterCard have set their sights on 100 million customers in 33 African countries (including Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda) with a service dubbed Masterpass Quick Response (QR). Masterpass QR is a digital system that enables customers to make online and in-store payments. In-store customers can make payments by scanning a QR bar code downloaded on a mobile device.</p>
<p>Paradoxically, Africa’s lack of financial inclusion—the slow adoption of tools of global commerce, such as banking and financial literacy—has proved attractive to investors. About 90% of retail transactions in sub-Saharan Africa are cash based, while just 34% of adults have traditional bank accounts, according to the World Bank—suggesting tantalizing potential for investors.</p>
<p>More than 500 million Africans currently use mobile phones; according to GSMA’s 2016 annual report, that number will rise to 725 million by 2020, while 84 million have active mobile money accounts. That report also notes the use of mobile money in 31 African countries.</p>
<p>Mobile money transactions in sub-Saharan Africa could exceed $1.3 billion by 2019, according to data by the consulting firm Frost &amp; Sullivan. Experts forecast that the increasing number of mobile subscribers will inevitably lead to an increase in the mobile money market.</p>
<p>Also on investors’ radar is the $62 billion per year—and growing—of international remittances to Africa, which a company like WorldRemit, an international money transfer enterprise founded by Somaliland’s Ismail Ahmed, has successfully targeted. Unlike the big global money transfer companies such as Western Union that mostly require receivers to pick up cash from banks, WorldRemit enables African immigrants in Europe and North America to use their debit or credit cards to send money directly to recipients’ bank accounts or mobile wallets in Africa.</p>
<p>“I send money to my folks in Ghana every month. I use WorldRemit,” says Naa Atswei Kodia, a Ghanaian living in the United States.</p>
<p>For individuals, digital payments save time; for businesses, they send monies seamlessly into accounts; and even government transparency and accountability credentials are enhanced with digital payments. “The use of smart cards…also protects the environment, as there are no longer paper tickets littering [Kigali],” adds Mr. Ngarambe.</p>
<p>In Rwanda, electronic payments have reduced the birth registration time from six hours to 40 minutes, reports GSMA. In Tanzania, paying a vehicle license fee now takes an hour, instead of a whole day, as was the case previously.</p>
<p>Less cash leads to less crime, researchers say. A study by William Jack and Tavneet Suri titled, <em>Mobile Money: the Economics of M-PESA</em>, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a US-based nonprofit research organization, found that a few months after M-Pesa debuted, consumers cited personal safety and security as reasons for using the service.</p>
<p><strong>Benefits</strong></p>
<p>Jude Onwuegbuzie, a Nigerian businessman and legal practitioner, told <em>Africa Renewal,</em> “These days, people traveling between cities don’t carry cash, so highway robberies are no longer lucrative in Nigeria.”</p>
<p>The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the foreign aid arm of the US government, touts success in partnering with the Liberian government to implement the Mobile Solutions Technical Assistance and Research (mSTAR) project, which enables teachers in Nimba County in northern Liberia to receive monthly salaries paid in the capital, Monrovia, through their phones.</p>
<p>“The mobile money payment eliminated time away from their classrooms and reduced costs to receive their salaries by 84%,” USAID states on its website.</p>
<p>Mobile money moves the poor from the informal to the formal financial sector. With 40.5% of its GDP in the informal sector, Africa has the highest rate of the shadow economy, according to the World Bank. By comparison, the figure is 16% for countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “Payments provided via an account can provide the on-ramp to financial inclusion,” maintains the World Bank.</p>
<p><strong>Digital payments and SDGs</strong></p>
<p>GSMA considers mobile payments relevant to 11 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 1, because it helps to eliminate extreme poverty; SDG 5, because financial services empower women economically; and SDG 9, because digital payments and access to credit services lead to new industries.</p>
<p>But regulatory bottlenecks often slow progress in the cashless payment industry. A lack of interoperability among mobile transactions in some countries, meaning individuals cannot transact across carriers, is a problem, says Daniel Monehin, MasterCard’s division president for sub-Saharan Africa. In Liberia, for instance, Ms. Ahmed says that she cannot send money to people on another mobile phone network.</p>
<p>GSMA advises countries to allow banks and nonbank actors into the financial sector and advises providers to focus on “operational efficiency.”</p>
<p>Nigeria penalizes certain amounts of cash withdrawals, which encourages people to make cashless transactions. That policy will help modernize Nigeria’s payment system, says GSMA.</p>
<p>Still, Neal Estey, a former director of the Boston University’s Center for Finance, Law and Policy, is circumspect about digital payments. Mobile money “should not be sold as a miracle cure for financial inclusion,” he argues, because people in developing countries who use mobile money instead of opening bank accounts cannot build a financial record, have no credit ratings and do not enjoy the benefits of banking.</p>
<p>But banks hungry for good returns are feeling the winds of change, which is why many are already partnering with credit card and mobile payment companies.</p>
<p>“The future of mobile banking will sooner or later belong to the banks,” says Sunil Sachdev, CEO and chief business development officer of Meed, a US-based mobile financial services company.   </p>

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