Interview: Mobile banking a promising industry in Africa: experts
Interview: Mobile banking a promising industry in Africa: experts
09:57, July 15, 2011 
Email | Print | Subscribe | Comments | Forum 
by Cao Kai
Mobile banking through cell phones will provide basic financial services to millions of unbanked populations in urban and rural communities in Africa, and will become a booming industry, experts told Xinhua at the ongoing Unbanked Africa Summit on Thursday in Lagos.
Mobile banking is a way of getting banking to the rural channels where banking services can not be reachable, said Badewole Oluwafemi from Nigeria's Guaranty Trust Bank.
In Nigeria, there are only 22 million individuals who have a bank account out of the 150 million population, but there are more than 80 million mobile phone users, which provides huge room for the development of mobile banking, a latest media report have said.
Telecommunication companies have wide reach so there are places where a telecommunication company can reach but a bank cannot. Mobile banking enables you do branchless banking. You can perform basic transactions with your mobile phone anywhere in Nigeria, Oluwafemi said.
Guaranty Trust Bank are currently working with MTN to roll out mobile money in Nigeria. Mobile banking will enable the bank get more customers in Nigeria because MTN Nigeria covers 70 percent of the population, he said.
Derick Kwaku Denkyi, CEO of G-Life Financial Service in Ghana, aims to see banking delivered to the doorstep of 70 percent of unbanked population in Ghana.
G-Life Financial Service is the first Micro Finance Institution in Ghana to deploy mobile phone banking services in the delivery of its Microfinance operations. Now over 15,000 people are trading on their platform, both depositing and withdrawing.
Denkyi took full fledge of his operations in 2010 and made close to about 20,000 U.S. dollars as profit in June this year. He is expected to see a monthly revenue of 50,000 dollars by the end of this year.
Nigerian Postal Service, which has outlets all across Nigeria, is also searching for partners to take advantage of the mobile banking to reposition the national postal network, the Deputy Postmaster General Yashim Isa Bitiyong told Xinhua.
Low literacy, poor network coverage in remote villages, high cost of mobile printers and large number of people without cellphones are the challenges facing the mobile banking practitioners, Denkyi said.
Security is another concern for mobile banking. Ivan Komarov from the U.S.-Based mobile service provider Global USSD, is quite optimistic.
"Around the world we have about 100 mobile money implementation already working. I haven't really heard about any major problem of someone for instance making a decision to shut down the service because its too insecure," he said.
The one-day Unbanked Africa Summit has attracted about 100 experts from banks, mobile technology developers and mobile network operators from Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe and the United States.
Source:Xinhua
Mobile banking through cell phones will provide basic financial services to millions of unbanked populations in urban and rural communities in Africa, and will become a booming industry, experts told Xinhua at the ongoing Unbanked Africa Summit on Thursday in Lagos.
Mobile banking is a way of getting banking to the rural channels where banking services can not be reachable, said Badewole Oluwafemi from Nigeria's Guaranty Trust Bank.
In Nigeria, there are only 22 million individuals who have a bank account out of the 150 million population, but there are more than 80 million mobile phone users, which provides huge room for the development of mobile banking, a latest media report have said.
Telecommunication companies have wide reach so there are places where a telecommunication company can reach but a bank cannot. Mobile banking enables you do branchless banking. You can perform basic transactions with your mobile phone anywhere in Nigeria, Oluwafemi said.
Guaranty Trust Bank are currently working with MTN to roll out mobile money in Nigeria. Mobile banking will enable the bank get more customers in Nigeria because MTN Nigeria covers 70 percent of the population, he said.
Derick Kwaku Denkyi, CEO of G-Life Financial Service in Ghana, aims to see banking delivered to the doorstep of 70 percent of unbanked population in Ghana.
G-Life Financial Service is the first Micro Finance Institution in Ghana to deploy mobile phone banking services in the delivery of its Microfinance operations. Now over 15,000 people are trading on their platform, both depositing and withdrawing.
Denkyi took full fledge of his operations in 2010 and made close to about 20,000 U.S. dollars as profit in June this year. He is expected to see a monthly revenue of 50,000 dollars by the end of this year.
Nigerian Postal Service, which has outlets all across Nigeria, is also searching for partners to take advantage of the mobile banking to reposition the national postal network, the Deputy Postmaster General Yashim Isa Bitiyong told Xinhua.
Low literacy, poor network coverage in remote villages, high cost of mobile printers and large number of people without cellphones are the challenges facing the mobile banking practitioners, Denkyi said.
Security is another concern for mobile banking. Ivan Komarov from the U.S.-Based mobile service provider Global USSD, is quite optimistic.
"Around the world we have about 100 mobile money implementation already working. I haven't really heard about any major problem of someone for instance making a decision to shut down the service because its too insecure," he said.
The one-day Unbanked Africa Summit has attracted about 100 experts from banks, mobile technology developers and mobile network operators from Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe and the United States.
Source:Xinhua
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
（Editor：刘晓宁）
Related Reading
Special Coverage
Premier Wen Jiabao visits Hungary, Britain, Germany 
From drought to floods
Major headlines
Editor's Pick
Hot Forum Discussion
