*An excerpt from a Jamie Davies article published in telecoms.com.*
For certain countries in Africa, mobile money is a necessity due to the lack of availability of traditional banking institutions.
Across the continent, roughly 25% have bank accounts, which drops to as low as 14% when looking specifically as West Africa. Mobile money isn’t a convenience here, it is a necessity.
Mobile payments have been very successful across the continent, in particular in Kenya, where the M-PESA money transfer and payment system developed by Safaricom in 2007 now serves over 17 million people.
It’s estimated that as much as 22% of the population in East Africa uses mobile payments (statistics are from late 2015), compared to 3% in OECD countries. Admittedly these numbers are slightly dated, however Africa is still miles ahead of the Western nations 18 months later.
So the Western world has a lot of catching up to do, but are we mature enough to learn from the African nations?
The export of services and experience has primarily gone one direction in recent years when it comes to developing telco infrastructure or implementing digital solutions.
The Western societies have been teaching the African nations, but when it comes to mobile money, the experience should be flowing the other direction.
African engineers have the experience of developing the systems to facilitate the mobile money evolution, as well as the business models to support them.
The UK is just about catching on, and in the US signing a credit card receipt is still a thing! There is no question that the student has now become the master, but will the Western nations be able to accept this disruption to the status quo?
Will a perceived arrogance and superiority lead to ignorance? Are Western business mature enough to accept they are no longer the best and brightest?
When the tables are turned like this, it can be difficult to accept the new hierarchy, and culturally it might be a shock to the system for some.
But one thing which is clear is that the African nations are the bosses of the mobile money world. If the Western nations cannot accept this, there is a risk of severe complications when there really doesn’t need to be.
Read the full article HERE.
Source - telecoms.com