Posts Tagged ‘kenya’

Posted on December 12, 2008 - by James

Kenyan Mobile Money Transfer Service Faces Government Audit…

The Kenyan finance minister has ordered an audit of Safaricom’s mobile money transfer service M-Pesa, in an effort to allay concerns about the safety of users’ money. The probe into the system follows news that Safaricom is to team withWestern Union to offer cross-border mobile remittances.

M-Pesa has so far attracted 4 million subscribers and has become a template for the entry of telecommunication firms into the burgeoning mobile finance market in emerging economies in Africa and Asia. The business currently operates outside existing banking regulations and has spooked financial institutions who claim that some users treat it like a bank deposit account.

Safaricom’s chief executive Michael Joseph said, “We welcome the audit because it will verify the concerns and satisfy the regulator that we have put safeguards and the risks are minimal,” he told the paper… [click here to read the rest of this article...]

Posted on November 19, 2008 - by James

Join Panel Discussion on Microfinance in Africa, Nov 20, Kenya…

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Posted on October 14, 2008 - by lincolnw

Kenya: Billions banked in cellphone wallets – the way of the future

Whether it’s students receiving money from their parents or urban dwellers sending money to their relatives in rural areas, mobile phone money transfer has become a way of life in Kenya only one and a half years after pioneers Safaricom launched the M-Pesa money transfer service and Celtel (now Zain) launched Sokotele some time after.

Statistics made available by Safaricom show that the M-Pesa service is today transferring an average of Sh150 million a day mostly in small amounts averaging Sh3,800 per transaction. So far, the system has handled over Sh36 billion.

The cellphone money transfer services are a welcome option to the millions of poor Kenyans who cannot afford to open and operate bank accounts…{click here to read the rest of this article}

Posted on September 12, 2008 - by James

Kenya: Almost 40% of people cannot access banking sector…

A large percentage of Kenya’s rural poor cannot access financial services.

According to the Central Bank of Kenya, 38 per cent of Kenyans have no access to financial services and are classified as “unbanked”, reporting no usage of either formal or informal products.

The majority of them live in rural areas and for them financial services are either costly or rigid.

Only 19 per cent of Kenyans are “banked” and thus have formal access to financial services through commercial banks, building societies and Postbank, according to the bank’s Banking Supervision Department report, 2007.

Savings and credit coopertives (Saccos) and microfinance institutions serve an additional eight per cent while 35 per cent depend primarily on informal financial services such as Rotating Savings… [click here to read the rest of this article...]

Posted on September 8, 2008 - by James

MicroCapital: Mobile phones- changing the world we bank in…

Washington D.C., September 4 - What do these countries have in common: Kenya, Pakistan, Mongolia, the Maldives? They share political challenges, conflict, as well as having highly dispersed populations across varied types or terrain.

They are also pioneers when it comes to mobile phone banking. Here’s why.

For financial services, there are few alternatives to cell phones. Banking infrastructure (branches, ATMs, POS at stores, internet penetration, etc.) in these markets is dismal and slow to change, but cell phone penetration is growing fast. There are four mobile operators in Mongolia, a country with the world’s lowest population density (1 person per sq km) and where 400 villages are spread across a vast geography the size of the lower 48… [click here to read the rest of this article...]

Posted on September 7, 2008 - by James

Kenya: Record Bank Expansion Triples Access…

September 5, 2008: In possibly the most rapid take-off in the provision of financial services the world has ever seen, the number of Kenyans with bank and savings accounts tripled last year, from 3.3 million to 10.1 million.

Banking industry players attribute the growth, which took place in the last 18 months, to aggressive marketing of credit, greater availability of banking facilities and the introduction of a series of new products targeting low-income groups.

As a result, 27 per cent of Kenyans now hold accounts compared with nine per cent a year a… [click here to read the rest of this article...]

Posted on August 19, 2008 - by James

Tanzania Gets Nationalistic Over IPO…

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