Mobile banking could also grow in Uganda

EDITOR: Mobile telecommunication companies should unanimously create an alliance locally and internationally to provide a Mobile Money Transfer Service, through which money can be kept, sent or received instantly across all networks with or without a mobile phone.

The system should be designed to handle payments and remittances not only nationally but also internationally.

The problem of international remittances has been overlooked here: There are millions of people who would wish to send money to their families, children and friends but who are unbanked onto such a system and have no real means of doing so.

The ability to remit money internationally with little more than a text message could be revolutionary. International remittances already account for an enormous part of the annual capital inflows into many countries worldwide.

Compared to Western Union or banks, the ability to send money directly from mobile phone to mobile phone across borders is easier and cheaper.

Then there is the emphasis on the poor. Although the poor are more likely to be unbanked and, therefore, in need of flexible mobile banking services, they should be directly targeted by many of the mobile banking providers even when they own no phone.

This, I am sure, will tap even into the unbanked urban and rural population both locally and internationally since they may have a mobile money account and a secret PIN which they can use at any mobile money agent regardless of the Service Provider.

What sets this particular initiative apart are three things: its global ambition, its emphasis on the poor and the central role of micro-finance institutions.

Moses Olinga
Kampala