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01.06.2011 Business & Finance

Ghana, Nigeria Poised For Mobile Banking Revolution

By Daily Guide
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01.06.2011 LISTEN

West Africans will soon enjoy the benefits of mobile banking as part efforts to bring on board millions of people that have been excluded from financial services.

The AITEC Banking and Mobile Money conference, which will bring to Accra the world's leading experts on mobile banking, is slated from 8-9 June.

Several countries in the region are merging their rising mobile coverage with financial systems that will allow citizens to use their mobile phones to transact, transfer and store money.

After the launch of Kenya's M-Pesa mobile money accounts, more than 13 million Kenyans are using their phones to pay for goods, access cash from ATMs, receive payments and hold savings.

With several platforms now in place in West Africa, AITEC will present to the region's top banking managers cutting edge options in mobile banking, as well as information on the necessary safeguards to ensure that consumers monies are kept safe.

In Ghana, MTN rolled out the first mobile money platform in the country in 2009, which was followed by Vodafone, and late last year Ecobank announced the launch of mobile bank accounts with the ZAP platform from Zain.

Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued approval-in-principle licences to 16 mobile money operators to carry out a pilot programme of a mobile financial services system for a period of four months to demonstrate that the system can work in the country.

With active mobile phone subscriptions in Nigeria at 88.3 million in December last year, experts have highlighted the potential of mobile phones to provide financial services to more than two-thirds of Nigerians who are unbanked.

According to the Enhancing Financial Innovation & Access (EFInA) report, 67 per cent of Nigeria's population are unbanked and 78 per cent of the nation's rural population are without bank accounts.

Nigeria's unbanked rates reflect Africa's average, with only 20 per cent of African families having bank accounts.

However, with Africa having the fastest growth rates of mobile phone market in the world, the continent is now creating financial solutions that depends on mobile phone platforms.

The International Telecommunications Union estimates mobile subscriptions across Africa have more than tripled to 333 million since 2005 and in South Africa, the DRC, Zambia and Kenya, mobile phone banking has offered services to remote areas where conventional banks have been physically absent.

These subscribers are currently opening accounts, checking their balances, paying their bills, transferring money, and catering for their daily financial needs without ever entering into a bank.

A survey in Kenya last year reported that over 95 per cent of users rated mobile-based payments as quick, easy, safe, convenient, describing it as cheaper than other options of paying or receiving money.

 

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