cell phones and banking

I continually sing the praises of the use of the cell phone in Africa.Technology enables many 'unbanked' to use their cell phones to send money for family, to pay bills and even hold cash while they travel. The system of Mpesa which is run by Safaricom (a partner of vodaphone) allows deposits & transfers by phone of up to 140,000 shillings (about $1800) There are other cell phone companies that do similar things. One has to register with mpesa and if there is money in the account you can use the link on your phone to send money to anyone else with a cell phone number. There is a small fee of about 30/- (35c)
Some of our women's groups are sending micro finance payments by mpesa when we cannot send someone to collect.

Another function is Mkesho whereby people can keep money in a secure account. I don’t think it pays interest, but is wonderful for those who are far from traditional banks or who cannot afford the high fees.

Cell phones are everywhere and have proved invaluable in communication Landlines have always been unreliable and expensive. I suspect they might eventually disappear. We already ignore the landline number in schools (which hardly ever works) and use the principal’s cell phone.

A ‘Line’ or SIM card costs 100/- ($1.20) and can be inserted in your phone yourself. ‘Airtime’ can be bought in units of 50/- by means of a scratch card whereby you enter the number of our line. One can also buy airtime from the mpesa account, and can send airtime to another phone for use by someone else.

I have even heard discussion that voting in the next election might be by phone.

We use the same system for our computer modem which is basically a tiny cell phone and has a SIM card which we top up with ‘airtime’ I should also note that there are no ‘long distance’ charges. We can call anywhere in Kenya for the same cost. And there is no charge for receiving calls. Text messages are also very cheap and used extensively.

When we have travelled to Uganda & S Africa our phones automatically switch to the local network (ugandatel or vodaphone) and we continue to use them as normal with local rates (even if we call Kenya or overseas). Calling Canada at the moment is 3/- per minute (2.5c)