Windy City - M-pesa now transacting close to 1 trillion in 3 months

[RV Pundit]

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I remember the many years we argued when you dismiss m-pesa as morse code tech...now I see it keep growing in sophistication...only 1/3 are p-2-p payments--the rest are commercial transaction including e-commerce.
http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2000206357/kenyans-made-sh870b-phone-deals-in-3-months

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

You make  blanket accusations against people without even caring to listen to what is being said.  I have never said anything negative about M-PESA.  On the contrary, I generally like the technology.  You must be conflating me with someone else.  I remember you arguing about the technology with some diasporan(dont' remember who) dismissing it.

In fact I have always wondered why it could not catch on in the developed world.  I have seen explanations but I am still not totally convinced there is no market for it here.  No question, there are too many well established options...but still.

What have I said about the technology as currently implemented?  I have complained about the lack of an API(which they now have).  I have said that the security on USSD is lightweight(which I think can easily be improved for a market dominated by smart phones).  The closest thing I can think of that I said to upset you was that it was not Kenyan technology(and it's not.  I don't see what is there to gain by claiming otherwise).

[RV Pundit]

All cool. No need for archives. Glad to see you're a little bit more enthusiastic about this.

[hk]

What's eye popping is the person to business transactions dominated by Lipa na Mpesa . The use of Lipa na mpesa has led to decline in card usage. The merchant fee for lipa na mpesa is 1.5% vs 3-3.5% for credit cards. already purchase of alcohol and cigarettes is now strictly cashless distributor to retailers. Supermarkets even nakumatt have started accepting lipa na mpesa and almost all bars accept lipa na mpesa. Going forward the real opportunity in my opinion is combining mobile money and mobile internet to create disruptive companies in each sector of the economy.

[RV Pundit]

Something that Windy city seem to miss. This began as P2P -person to person - sending of money --but now it's morphing into a complete financial systems. Slowly everyone will start to accept payment from M-pesa including for payment of salaries and name it.

Last year all of our banks made I think 140B kshs profit. M-pesa gave Safaricom 20-30B profit alone.

What's eye popping is the person to business transactions dominated by Lipa na Mpesa . The use of Lipa na mpesa has led to decline in card usage. The merchant fee for lipa na mpesa is 1.5% vs 3-3.5% for credit cards. already purchase of alcohol and cigarettes is now strictly cashless distributor to retailers. Supermarkets even nakumatt have started accepting lipa na mpesa and almost all bars accept lipa na mpesa. Going forward the real opportunity in my opinion is combining mobile money and mobile internet to create disruptive companies in each sector of the economy.