Mobile Phones & Payment in Zimbabwe

Forums › New Zealand Mobile and Wireless › Mobile Phones & Payment in Zimbabwe

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#115090 13-Mar-2013 15:24

You know things are bad when we lag behind Zimbabwe in terms of mobile micro payments.

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/blog/africa/zimbweans-find-novel-way-using-mobiles

We have a halfway decent mobile network here and as far as I know (with the exception of the barely used Snapper network) no ability to make mobile micro payments.

NonprayingMantis

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#781122 13-Mar-2013 15:26

that isn't NFC.

wellygary

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#781132 13-Mar-2013 16:03

err, this is a glorified txt-a-park system,

The reason this has expanded in Zimbabwe will be because there is no trusted intergrated banking network and eftpos,

In NZ if you want to transfer money to someone you can use internet banking on a mobile, and for in store payments you can just use eftpos or paywave

Hoofhaarted

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#781158 13-Mar-2013 16:59

This system is also all through Eastern Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda that I saw it).

As they missed out on getting a good copper network, the whole area spent a lot of money to make sure they (the govts) have a great mobile network ( while tracking Gorillas in Uganda, the trackers called each other on cell phones, even in very remote bush). They don't have an RMA though, so several of the places with amazing scenery now have an ugly cell phone tower in the middle of it.

The banking part came about as the locals don't trust the banks etc, and no one had a bank account, so now they all use this "text -a-park" system to pay for most things.

freitasm

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#781176 13-Mar-2013 17:39

As others said, we didn't miss anything. Mobile payments in Africa are all the rage because they have a deficient banking system with slow transfer and low access to Internet banking. SMS comes to the rescue.

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