We quip about Mpesa but is Kenya truly a cashless society? Is cash favored instead of mobile money?
But we don’t even come close to how fast China has grown. China’s mobile money market is worth $9 trillion dollars and it shows that in Kenya we need to expand and build up our mobile money users as consumers start buying up more smartphones.
The aim of Mpesa was and still is to send and receive money. In my opinion, it has achieved and exceeded this goal. Mpesa was never a payment service when it was started. In developed market, including china, mobile money apps are being developed as a payment tool. This means your mobile money app is linked to your transaction bank account and therefore you do not need to top up your mobile money account like you do with Mpesa.
Mpesa has already exceeded its original directive.
And it needs to evolve forward. China’s Alipay was the exact thing as Mpesa and it has leaped forward into an app where it’s linked to your bank account so you can online shop, pay rent, etc.
Right now Kenya has so many different mobile money platforms that do exactly the same thing that the space for innovation has become limited. This space needs to open up and evolve which will give Kenyans a lot of new benefits.
The rate of smartphones growth has dramatically increased in Kenya and Africa. USSD applications will be made redundant. Theres a voracious appetite for apps in Kenya and Africa WhatsApp, Telegram, Twitter etc. they’re more Africans using these apps ever more than before and the outsiders are salvate to tap into another trillion dollar market in the upcoming few decades and we as Africans don’t seem to be paying attention.
Kenya-based regional financial institution Equity Bank and Singapore-based online payment company Red Dot Payment have inked an agreement to introduce Alipay and WeChat Pay to the East African market, reports Xinhua. Jack Ngare, Managing Director of Equity Bank subsidiary Finserve said the deal will be able to use WeChat Pay and Alipay to purchase goods and services in local currency.
Ngare said they hope to roll out the Chinese mobile payment service in East Africa by the end of July. Under the agreement, the Alipay and WeChat Pay will be connected to the Equity Bank payment gateway. Telecompaper
Looks like Alipay and Wechat will be landing here soon. But will Kenyans adopt is the question??