Mobile banking for the poor has flopped in India India is trying to figure out why it has failed in efforts to replicate the success of mobile banking programs that have succeed in other countries. The nation noted with admiration programs like Kenya's M-Pesa, which made it possible for people living in rural and remote areas to access banking services with feature phones. …
If they liked M-Pesa, why do they need to reinvent the wheel. just take M-Pesa translate it to Hindi, Telegu, and equivalent languages, and put the same cost restrictions in place. boom. You just saved a ton of cash. Nope, have to redo it their own way, at more cost, worse design, etc.
To be cynical, I guess its harder to scrape cash off the top if you just buy an already working system, then if you "develop" a brand new one...
'If they liked M-Pesa, why do they need to reinvent the wheel. just take M-Pesa translate it to Hindi, Telegu, and equivalent languages, and put the same cost restrictions in place...'
No. Just get out of the way and let innovation and competition happen. What business is it of the regulator to determine how many steps are required for a transaction?
Well quite obviously innovation and competition weren't working, as they had to create there own version. If innovation and competition had worked, they wouldn't have needed to.
And I can understand the logic in limiting the number of steps , IF your going to allow the phone companies to charge an arm and a leg for each step. But basically, they got the logic backwards, make each step CHEAP and no one gives a flying f%&k how many steps it takes...
At one time a variant of M-PESA was very much was being developed/customised for India (I was involved in testing and development). I lost contact with the project after 2009 though, so have no idea what happened from there.
One of the first Google hits reveals that M-PESA *did* indeed launch in India - http://www.businesstoday.in/magazine/case-study/case-study-vodafone-mpesa-mobile-cash-transfer-service-future/story/211926.html
To be cynical, I guess its harder to scrape cash off the top if you just buy an already working system, then if you "develop" a brand new one...
Also they need to employ all those graduates of the their "tech" universities... The ones left in India after the others have high-tailed it to jobs in other countries....
Icon ------------------> For those lucky enough to get employment outside of India even as an outsourced developer.
Hahahaha!!! You should tell Donald Trump that one, he's got the best racist jokes. He should know.
Except the article notes the average monthly income, and it's based on a model successfully developed in East Africa (where the average income is similar to, although a bit lower than, India).
Pointing out that poor don't have much money is racist?
I'm not so sure that being rich, or even not poor, is a barrier to mobile banking. There are about a dozen other concerns I'd put before that. What's much more significant is the cost of using the service as a percentage of the sums involved. No one is going to pay 20% of its value simply to move a sum of money, regardless of how poor or rich you are.
<CS> USSD Service in India requires further Simplification. Recently NPCI has provided a 2 digit Numeric code to each Bank. This simplifies the USSD invoking procedure. Example
*99*41# - for State Bank of India
*99*42# - for Punjab National Bank
*99*43# - for HDFC Bank
*99*44# - for ICICI Bank
Further, NPCI is allowing a complete string to be called to do a P2P Funds Transfer for say Rs 1000.
*99*76*3*<MobNo>*<7DigitMMID>*<Amount># - for Karnataka Bank
This can be easily stored in the Address Book of any Feature Phone. However, most customers do not know the concept of 7 Digit MMID - Mobile Money Identifier. This is a unique number formed by the combination of customer's Registered Mobile Number and Bank Account Number. A little stress on Financial Literacy can solve the problem of USSD. I am of the opinion that Telecom Service Providers should be compensated for the service. Let the Quality of Service improve </CS>
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