MMU Case Study: Econet Zimbabwe’s Big Mobile Money Ambitions

Econet Wireless’ mobile money service, EcoCash, has jumped off the starting blocks registering 31% of Zimbabwe’s adult population in just 18 months. EcoCash accounts already outnumber all of Zimbabwe’s bank accounts combined. How has EcoCash achieved such early success? They have combined effective operational execution with an unusually high degree of investment and organisational focus.

Payvia Partners with Mobile-XL to Provide Carrier Billing Mobile Payments in Africa

Payvia, the direct carrier billing mobile payments and messaging provider, announced a partnership to integrate its mobile payments technology with Mobile XL, whose feature phone browsing platform provides access to digital services such as Facebook, Twitter, email, news, sports and games for millions of people in Africa and India. Mobile-XL browsers use SMS as a data

Chunghwa Telecom selects Gemalto for NFC trial with MasterCard in Taiwan

Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, announces that its UpTeq NFC SIM embedded software and product has been selected by Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) to secure its NFC payment program. CHT is Taiwan’s largest mobile network operator with 10 million subscribers. The initiative, using the SIM as the secure element to safeguard mobile NFC transactions,

Mobile payments company Ensygnia secures second UK Patent

Ensygnia, the mobile payments company backed by Telefonica’s technology start-up accelerator Wayra, today confirmed it had been granted its second UK patent. The company, which recently closed its $3.3m start-up funding round, added that its granted UK patents now covered both log-in and payment processes. Ensygnia also confirmed that it had now acted on its

Launch of SpotCash to Facilitate Money Transfers to M-Pesa

Tangazoletu Limited recently launched one of its products ‘Spot Cash’ at the Hotel Starbucks in Karatina town of Central province, Kenya. Speaking during the event, the company’s Technical Director Chris Gathingu, clearly explained that members of SACCOs (Savings and Credit Cooperatives) and Microfinance institutions will now be able to withdraw and deposit their money from

Kipochi launches first Bitcoin wallet in Africa with M-Pesa integration

Kipochi Ltd has launched a groundbreaking solution that allows people to send/receive BitCoin and convert it to and from an M-Pesa balance. This enables Kenyans to receive money transfers from the diaspora in an easier, faster and cheaper way, compared to using banks and money transferring services such as Western Union and MoneyGram. Kipochi is

Mahindra Comviva Announces Global Launch of its MPOS Solution

Mahindra Comviva, a provider of mobile financial and VAS solutions, announced the global launch of its payPLUS solution, powered by its award-winning mobiquity® platform. An integrated payment solution, payPLUS works as a one-stop-shop for all requirements of businesses and enables merchants – small and medium businesses and service professionals, to convert their mobile phone into a Point-of-Sale (MPOS) device and drive

Airtel Money Facilitates Civil Servants’ Access to Salaries in DRC

‘Airtel Money’, Bharti Airtel’s mobile money platform, is making a mark in the Democratic Republic of Congo with the government embracing it to make large-scale salary payments from December last year. Now, civil servants including the military, the police force, pensioners and other civil servants can receive payments on their mobile phones. Louis Luballa, the Managing Director

MTN Uganda Revises Mobile Money Tariffs Following New Tax on Money Transfer

MTN Uganda announced revised Mobile Money rates effective July 2nd, 2013. Commenting on this increment, the MTN Uganda’s GM Corporate Services, Anthony Katamba said, “According to the new national budget 2013/2014, the 10% levy on Mobile Money is to be applied on transaction fees paid on all money transfer services and as such the fee

Gokul Rajaram Joins Square as Product Engineering Lead

Square, a point-of-sale company which developed credit card readers for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, has hired Gokul Rajaram, who was most recently the Product Director of Ads at Facebook, where he drove product development and execution for Facebook’s advertising products. As Square’s Product Engineering Lead, Rajaram will lead software development for Square Register, a