Mobile Money is a mobile payments system based on accounts held by a mobile operator and accessible from subscribers’ mobile phones. The conversion of cash into electronic value (and vice versa) happens at retail stores (or agents). All transactions are authorised and recorded in real-time using SMS.
In 2008, a Ugandan software developer named Ronald Egesa of Mobitrix Uganda Ltd was reported by the leading newspapers to have developed the country's first mobile phone bank that he called SmartCash [1] It was reported to be a network independent service.
In 2009, GSMA made a grant to Safaricom to support the development of a social transfer payment project via M-Pesa.[2]
M-PESA was developed by Vodafone and first deployed by its Kenyan affiliate Safaricom. In May 2012, there were over 15 million customers of M-PESA in Kenya.
History
editMobile Money took has its roots in the practice of Ghanaian, Ugandan and Botswanan mobile phone users would utilise airtime as a form of currency by having friends or family outside their country purchase airtime and credit to their mobile number, and then resell it to people who wanted airtime credit for actual money. This phenomenon was noticed and researched by the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, the Department for International Development UK (DFID), and the Commission for Africa in 2002. In 2004, these researchers took this to MCel, a telecommunications company in Mozambique, who would then introduce a prototype of current mobile money infrastructure, an authorised airtime credit swapping system for their subscribers. Following this, the DFID would introduce the researchers to Vodafone, who would develop and pilot a novel monetary system targeted at cellular subscribers alongside an affiliate telecommunications company, Safaricom, in Kenya.[3]
In April 2007, Safaricom would launch the first iteration of Mobile Money in Africa, M-Pesa, in Kenya. M-Pesa allowed users to deposit money into an account that is stored on their phone number, and allows for the transfer between accounts by SMS and USSD between phone numbers. A user can also use SMS or USSD to withdraw money.
By 2012, M-Pesa became the most successful mobile phone financial service in developing countries globally, with 17 million M-Pesa accounts. Given this success, this service was adapted by other telecommunications providers across Africa such as MTN, Orange, Airtel and Vodafone.
Currently, Mobile Money exists in 40 out of the the 54 countries in Africa, and provides banking services for 184 million active mobile wallets as of 2021, with 36.7 billion transactions taking place across the continent.
Countries with a Mobile Money Presence
edit
References
edit- ^ SmartCash"SmartCash".
- ^ M-PESA"M-Pesa".
- ^ Espinoza, Javier (2014-09-03). "Mobile Money: The Battle for Africa". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2022-06-29.
- ^ "Mobile Money". GSMA. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
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