Okwuanya Pius-Vincent
The advent of technology in the aptly named computer age has created a demand for ease in all aspects of human endeavors. In the society, people continue to seek and advance new means of performing their daily tasks with a lot more comfort. The mobile phone came to typify this inclination and has come to become the go-to gadget in all walks of societal life. It has helped to bridge the communication gap and consequently lubricated interpersonal interactions; it has also facilitated globalization and ultimately could be considered the major driver behind globalization. However, there exists a chasm between the potentials of communications technology and its visible impacts in some parts of the world. Succinctly put, Nigeria is yet to harness the full possibilities of the computer to make life as easy as it could be. A vast majority of Nigerians are stuck in the use of the social media while ignoring other technological means to smoothen relationships. For instance, one often does encounter a Nigerian youth who should be savvy, technology-wise, queuing in front of a bank or the ATMs so as to withdraw money and buy airtimes. Others arrive to their workplaces late and leave early so as to meet up with the payment of so many bills. All these they do while cradling the latest mobile phones and having a 24hour internet connection. These challenges are what the introduction of Mobile Money is expected to tackle in Nigeria.
Mobile money has a history of success. Its introduction in Kenya was a resounding success and prompted other countries to review avenues to tap into the vast potentials of the mobile money. Thus in the month of August in 2011, The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) introduced the mobile money platform as a veritable tool to provide basic financial services and create payment access to the millions of unbanked or underbanked in the rural areas and consequently drive financial inclusion in the country. In that same year, The CBN licensed sixteen banks and other financial services institution to deploy the services across Nigeria. According to Financial Access Report of 2009, half of the world’s population is unbanked and thus, the mobile money industry is expected to reach $600bn globally which would be double of its figure in 2011. This figure exposes the wealth of opportunities that lies in the mobile money industry. The success stories of The Mobile Money industry in Kenya, Afghanistan and The Philippines have proven that the projections of vast exploitable opportunity in the sector are exact. However, Mobile Money in Nigeria is yet to realize its full promises despite the projections of a lot of financial experts have projected that Nigeria, with over 150 million operational mobile lines packs the potential to lead the world in the mobile money industry. This is because of some problems which I will briefly explain below.
One of such problems is the default distrust with which Nigeria approaches services they cannot see or touch. The fear is that of accountability. Simply put, Nigerians are basically worried about who to blame when something goes wrong. There are often cases of terminated and incomplete transactions which the individual may not have the time to sort. An apt instance could be found in the use of debit and credit cards in Nigeria. It was expected that in 2013, the number of debit card usage will pass the 70 million mark. This number is simply a far cry from the over 150 million Nigerian who still nurse some fears about the security of electronic transactions. According to CBN statistics, banks lost more than #40 billion to electronic fraud in 2013 alone.
A study conducted in the recent past Visa and Fundamo revealed that the success of the Mobile Money Service will be dependent on how deeply the mobile money provider knows his clients. This “Know Your Customer” initiative will be an interesting facilitator of the mobile money industry and have proved helpful to countries with well-managed identification database. Nigeria, on the other hand, despite the recent strides has failed to capture a vast majority of the unbanked population, leaving the mobile money operators with little working information.
The information gap is another impediment and is self-explanatory. The unbanked are usually semi-literate or illiterate and work in the informal sector of the economy. Thus, understanding this information may prove difficult to them even when it is passed across. The “Kunu” and “Akara” sellers, the “Keke” and Taxi drivers need this information chewed down, taken to and explained to them. This would require aggressive marketing because they certainly won’t walk into an office or meet a mobile money agent and ask “Hey, How does this Mobile Money Services work?”
There is also the challenge of interoperability across different mobile money platforms which need to be smoothened. For instance one needs to be able to send money from Fortis, a leading mobile money operator in Nigeria to Paga without worrying about the transaction. According to Rao Chalapathi Immidi opined that interoperability will make the providers of mobile money work in tandem that will encourage many positive factors and many organizations and people to participate towards ensuring that there are wider ranges of products to offer to customers. It was his view that once there is communication, connectivity and common source, there would be a pool of customer expansion, agents will find it easier to run operation while reducing cost and increasing access expansion.
By and large, the most important part of the Mobile Money Service is the Agent. Mobile money agents are small bank outlets where different services like utilities, remittances, Person-2-Person payment and banking services can be conducted. Their major rule can be summarized as “cash in and cash out”. The shortage of mobile money agents is directly proportional to the slow roll out of the process. Thus, for mobile money to realize its vaunted potentials in Nigeria, an agent-centered approach needs to be adopted. This can be achieved by making it worth their while to subscribe in the emerging industry. The government can help in this by providing the enabling environment which would include introducing and enforcing the cashless policy and providing incentives for businesses to use the mobile money platform in payments and other related services.
Posted via Blogaway
0 comments:
Post a Comment