Saturday, May 19, 2007

Mobile phones as aid in Africa: first results

Dave Birch blogs on the results of a mobile phone used for payment/remittances. Since its formal launch on 6th March:
- people have been registering at the rate of around 1,600 per day,
- there are now around 60,000 registered customers,
- approximately $2.5 million was sent person-to-person in the first nine weeks of operation,
- on a random day recently, more than $157,000 was deposited with M-PESA agents.


Which tells us boundaries continue to blur: is it a phone, is it a bank .... ?