Via Timbuktu Chronicles, an interesting article on the Park Paradigm blog, entitled “A Trinity: Finance, Mobile Phones & Africa“.
“It seems clear that mobile phones (as opposed to personal computers) will be the most important device for access and connectivity in the developing world, and probably everywhere eventually.”
“As has been written many times before, mobile phones are changing everything. From politics to business to culture. The digital generation is but a subset of the connected generation, a worldwide phenomenon. Again, this is probably being felt more strongly in developing countries...”
“This is all pretty interesting and exciting in its own right, but I get most intrigued and excited about the ability to extend this mobile financial platform to a converged set of financial products beyond payments and basic credit (loans and deposits.)“
With mobile banking breakthrough especially in South Africa and elsewhere in the continent, there is room for further improvements in the usage of our cellphone and its transformation in a potential financial services center, like in the Ugandan case, with mobile phones used as ATMs. Whether or not you believe that finance, mobile phones and Africa constitute a trinity, one can assert that mobile phones already epitomized a technological leapfrog in developing countries, and we have most of the ingredients to move even further forward and create a financial leapfrog. As asserted before, digital technology comes only as a complement to industrial advancement. This leapfrog would be possible in Africa only if it resides on top of existing and perennial financial infrastructures. Challenges are plenty to enable this change and make this progress, and so are the opportunities!
From Lydie – Sanaga Peregrinations
http://sanaga.blogspot.com
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Les joies du blog-crossing en marche ! Truly Africa web 2.0 as Joel would contend