Our money, our rights: - Consumers International

The potential for such development in Africa is clearly huge, but there are
limitations that should be taken into account. Mobile banking services have tended
to be taken up by people with bank accounts as a convenient add-on service, and
there is a risk of new monopolies developing.
And of course the system will only be as comprehensive as the extent of the
telephone network and transactions can fail due to system congestion at peak
texting times 36 . While Kenya, South Africa and much of North Africa are
approaching 100% mobile phone penetration, levels in Burundi, the Central African
Republic, Eritrea, and Rwanda are less than 30% 37 . There are also issues around
whether such services should be bank led (as in South Africa, where mobile phone
companies have to form joint ventures with banks to provide mobile banking) or
whether non-bank agents may take part, as in Kenya 38 . The root cause for
optimism is that there are already about one billion people on the planet with a
mobile phone but without a bank account 39 . In South Africa, for example, 48% of
the population is ‘banked’, while mobile phone usage is 78%. In Kenya the figures
are 10% and 20% respectively 40 .
Towards universal access.
Many of the approaches to financial services for poor consumers are common
across continents. There are similarities in many of the recent innovations with
developments in South Asia for example. Broad conclusions can be drawn for the
poorer regions of the planet.
However, different initiatives must be judged carefully on merit. Micro-credit, for
example, should not be considered a magic bullet and has had to face the problem
of costs remaining relatively fixed regardless of the size of the loan, meaning that
charges for small amounts tend to be high.
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