The mobile phone and mobile banking are a revolution to Africa. “I used to travel for hours to bring household money to my mother. Now I can text her the money.”

By Stefanie Vermeulen

It’s as if the light has been switched on suddenly,” says Aly-Khan Satchu, founder and moderator of the online financial platform Rich. “Africa was dark for a very long time. Then the mobile phone came to the continent. The revolution began.”
 
Over the past five years the number of mobile phone owners in Kenya has increased from 15.000 to 17,4 million. Kenyans use them not only to make phone calls and send text messages. They can also get financial, health or agricultural information on their phones, blog, make friends and do business.
 
Mobile transactions 
The one mobile phone application which has completely integrated into all levels of society, is mobile banking. Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest mobile phone provider, has six million customers, who do mobile transactions worth of 140,4 million Euros on a monthly basis, according to the United Stated Agency for International Development. The cost of one transaction is approximately twenty eurocents.
 
One doesn’t have to own a mobile phone to be able to do mobile banking; a sim card, nowadays practically for free in Kenya, is enough. The transactions are done through text messaging. Simply text the amount, dial the number of the recipient and within a few seconds both sender and receiver receive a confirmation of the transaction.
 
No more hassle 
The payment convenience of mobile banking has changed Kenyan daily life drastically. Tonee Ndungu, manager of the Nairobian iLab for example, usually works late. In the past it would be a lot of hassle for him to buy some fresh food after work, as most of the shops would be shut. “Nowadays I can text an order to a greengrocer on the other side of town who, after he’s received the money on his phone, delivers the fresh vegetables to my house,” says Ndungu.
 
Market vendor Bancy Wanyaga can spend much more time at her stall because of mobile banking. “Before I would travel for hours on a bus to bring household money to my mother. Now I can text her the money.” Wanyaga also feels a lot safer because of mobile banking, as she no longer has to hold cash at home, or travel with lots of paper money in her pockets. “If my simcard gets stolen, it’s a pain, but I won’t loose my money, as it is secured with a pin number.”
 
The reason why mobile banking is so popular in The South, but fails to break through in The West? Most Africans don’t have a bank account, let alone a creditcard. To open an account one needs capital, which most people lack. Mobile banking is now drastically changing the traditional structures of the financial economy. It is transforming Africa from a subordinated continent into a continent that participates in the mobile revolution. Or, as Aly-Khan Satchu puts it: “Suddenly Africa drives a Ferrari. It is our moment, and it only comes once.”