It amazes me how mobile money has taken over the payment ecosystem in the developing countries. Statistics don't lie, it states that most people have never had access to a bank account but almost everyone who owns a phone has access to mobile money. This speaks alot about the kind of innovations that should be coming up from these countries. Card payments is still struggling to gain ground, but the notion that cards are not save still prevents people from using their cards for transactions. So what next?
Is card the solution to our problems? No. But mobile money is.
Openness.
Most of the online transactions say 99.99% i.e ecommerce occurs via use of credit/debit card payments. The reason this is happening is because their has been developments of standards that support extensibility of this services. Today i can just wake up and decide am gonna start selling products or services globally and still be able to do the integration in less than a minute. But if i was to do the same locally i will have to go to a third party who is either an aggregator or just some bright guy who learned the tricks of processing mobile money.
So basically what am trying to say is the providers of mobile money i.e Mpesa, Airtel Money ,Yu cash and Orange money should develop open standard that will allow anyone to integrate and be able to conduct a seamless transaction. I don't know why it's taking them so long and yet they have the power to implement such Application programming interfaces (API). If they really have to compete and keep up with some upcoming ventures, they must learn how to move. I know most people will dismiss my argument, but still the mobile payments ecosystem is evolving. Soon, i mean very soon we shall see bright minds coming up with integration of mobile payments and cards. I will not talk much about it but watch this space.
According to PWC the mobile payments ecosystem will be worth $216 billion. Will you be part of this? And how? You can basically be part of the statistics by making payments, but that is not my concern. What is more important is will you be the one who facilitates the happenings behind the scenes. Will you create platforms to complement or compete with mobile money? I throw the ball on your court. The choice is in your hands either you swim or drown. Looks like you got not option anyway. You definitely will be part of the statistics.
Mobile money is already creating a storm. But seem the owners aren't keen on facilitating major innovations by developing open APIs for developers to integrate with mobile money. I know their are so many factors (like fraud detection, money laundering etc) to consider when it comes to this kind of development. But people have done it elsewhere, why not borrow the concept. We have some of the brightest techies around who can take a walk-around on any of this challenges. So am appealing to the providers to hasten their moves and make this platform available ASAP!
Imagine mobile money vs IOT. Food for thought! :-)
