Africa Looking for Open Mobile Payment Platform
Africa Looking for Open Mobile Payment Platform
Africa, host to 14.8% of the human population, has more than a billion mouths to feed. In a continent with countries on many different levels of development stages and wealth distribution, logistics of cash, goods and food is a huge issue. David Reynders, MD of Pocit, suggests a common, open mobile payment platform as a step to overcome some of the obstacles.
According to Tariff Consultancy’s survey of 34 emerging markets, mobile penetration rates will rise from 46 percent in 2008 to 95 percent by 2013. “Even if this prediction were regarded as overly optimistic, I believe retailers will be eyeing the billion-strong African consumer market, wondering whether the cellphone will be their foot in the door,” says Reynders.
“The excellent security characteristics of mobile payment platforms, combined with the always-on, always-with-you ubiquity of the handsets themselves makes the mobile payments market an extremely attractive sales channel/payment mechanism.”
With so many potential players out there ready to pounce on Africa’s golden goose, Reynders believes open cellphone payment platforms that are network- and bank-independent, will be the most beneficial to consumers and merchants. “Merchants and consumers want anytime, anywhere payments to and from anyone. And the any/any/any world doesn’t, and cannot afford to, care which bank you’re with or which network operator you are subscribed to,” Reynders points out.
His view is that corporate sponsors like large merchants are unlikely to invest in payment systems that, for parochial reasons, can’t offer sufficient coverage. In a fragmented market the open, independent platform is most likely to offer what the market (consumers and merchants) and acquiring banks need - secured, ubiquitous access to payments.
“No doubt network operators and banks will try to become the de-facto standard and lock large portions of the market into their particular platform using excellent arguments about security and the benefits of brand loyalty. It’s important to understand that mobile payment security is not a function of being linked to a particular bank.
However, the success and ubiquity of mobile payments is a function of being built on an open platform. While mobile payments will require security standards and protocols, which are easy enough to build into an open platform system, a shared platform that anyone can access from anywhere at any time will be crucial to a flourishing mobile payments market that meets the needs of consumers,” Reynders says.
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