10 years of MTN mobile money

MoKash promotes savings culture among Ugandans

By Jacky Achan

It all started in August 2016, mobile telecommunications company, MTN, entered a partnership with the Commercial Bank of Africa (Uganda).

The aim was to bridge existing inancial gaps through helping Ugandans have easy access to money, as well as saving. The two introduced MoKash, a mobile phone-based service that provides customers with an avenue to save and borrow using their phones.

According to Christopher Ssali, the MTN-Uganda acting general manager for mobile inancial services, the money the customer borrows from MoKash supports them where there is a need as they wait for the next pay cheque.

How it works Ssali says unlike banks, where you will have to be physically present and have collateral, such as a land title, to borrow money, with MoKash, all one needs is to sign up using their mobile phone.

"We will check how long one has used the MTN mobile line, how much one spends on voice or data bundles and how much one saves, to determine the money you get," he says. Ssali adds that one can borrow as little as sh3,000 and as much as sh600,000 in a month from MTN MoKash services and pay back with 9% interest.

"However, sometimes life becomes tough, one may default on pay. If one does not pay back after the one month agreed on, we give them another month and maintain the same interest rate," Ssali says.

He says if the customer is still unable to pay, even after the added time, the focus will shift to recouping the amount borrowed and the interest made in the irst two months of borrowing. CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON THIS STORY

MTN dealers appeal for govt support

MTN Uganda is celebrating 10 years of Mobile Money service in Uganda. Owen Wagabaza interviewed Norman Batuma, the chairman MTN Dealers Forum, over a range of issues and below is the excerpt.

Briely tell us about the MTN Dealers Forum
MTN Dealers Forum has partnered with MTN to provide excellent services. The forum has 12 distributors, who cover the entire country. Our role is to ensure that MTN subscribers get services in their totality.

We also have a formal executive administration of the forum, headed by the MTN Dealers Forum Exco. The exco is made up of the chairman, vice-chairman, executive secretary, treasurer and upcountry representatives. The committee is voted democratically by the members.

The exco's role is to work with MTN and come up with strategies that make subscriber services as easy as possible. The committee meets once every week to see the progress and challenges and to make appropriate interventions.

This is because the industry we are working in is fast-paced and competitive. It is, therefore, hard to complete a week without meeting new challenges. CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON THIS STORY 

Bank of Uganda pushes for law to streamline mobile money banking

By Edward Kayiwa

Statistics from the Bank of Uganda (BOU) indicate that the percentage of the adult population with access to formal inancial services has more than doubled since 2006.

The exponential growth, according to BOU, is attributed to formal nonbanking services, dominated by mobile money, which has unlocked the opportunity for people, especially in unbanked areas, to save money on mobile phones.

The service has also partly built the inancial services industry into a more eficient and inclusive one, opening a broad range of inancial services for millions of Ugandans.

Although it started as a customer retention tool for telecom operators in 2009, mobile money has now deepened inancial inclusion through lower transaction costs, improved rural access and greater customer convenience.

It has also become a platform for telecom operators and formal inancial institutions, such as banks and microinance entities, to offer a broad range of inancial services CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON THIS STORY 

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