 |
2007
|
 |
|
Google Announces $10 Million Android Developer Challenge
November 2007, Google
(Google.com)
|
|
In an attempt to inspire innovation and improve the mobile experience, Google has announced the Android Developer Challenge, which will provide $10 million to developers who build mobile applications for AndroidTM, the first complete, open, and free mobile platform. The Challenge is designed to support the developer community and spark innovation on the Android platform by awarding cash prizes ranging from $25,000 to $275,000 to developers whose applications are picked by a panel of judges.
|
RBI in favour of migration to new payment model
November 2007, Economic Times
(India Times (Economic Times))
|
|
The Reserve Bank of India is considering moving to a payment system involving mobile phones and pre-paid cards, after deeming credit and debit cards too costly.
|
Philippines leads in electronic money
October 2007, Paul Icamina
(All Headline News)
|
|
This article reports on how nearly six million Filipinos now use mobile telephones to move electronic cash, a leader among developing countries in the brave new world of e-wallets.
|
Bank-based group brings bank services to isolated and poor
September 2007, World Bank
(World Bank)
|
|
This press release highlights a new $26 million technology programme, co-financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and implemented by CGAP, to look at how technology can be used to bring access to financial services to poor people in rural areas. Pilot programmes are underway in Colombia, Kenya, Maldives, Pakistan, the Philippines and South Africa.
|
Credit card transactions coming to your phone
September 2007, Okuttah Mark
(Business Daily Africa)
|
|
This article outlines a new portable business phoned named Biashara, which enables payment of bills or cash transfers using credit or debit cards, and is about to be introduced in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
|
How moneymanager can create wealth for Nigerians
September 2007, Seun Adesida
(Daily Sun)
|
|
This article outlines a new e-payment transfer scheme in Nigeria designed to facilitate money transfer without the need forthe sender to visit a bank. The Money Manager Instant Cash Card Scheme, owned by the Torricellian Trust, allows a sender to purchase a card online and send the code to the recipient, who can go to a bank to transfer it to cash. The process is facilitated to the paying banks on the internet through MoneyManager software, which authenticates the card pin codes before payment is made.
|
Mobiles for the world's poorest
September 2007, Jonathan Fildes
(BBC Website)
|
|
This articles outlines a new UN programme to provide mobile phones to 79 villages across 10 African countries, with the hope that new connections will improve healthcare and education, as well as boosting the local economy.
|
Enhancing the livelihoods of the rural poor through ICT: A Knowledge Map
August 2007, Overseas Development Institute
(Overseas Development Institute)
|
|
This website acts as a portal for a research project on "Enhancing thelivelihoods of the rural poor through ICT: A Knowledge Map", led by the Overseas Development Institute. It contains reference resources, background information snd case studies on their focus countries (Argentina, Bangladesh, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uruguay), interim outputs, and thematic applications of ICTs in development.
|
Kenya: Foreign Aid Will Not Make Poverty History
August 2007, Alex O Awiti
(East African Standard)
|
|
This opinion piece highlights the role of mobile technology in allowing access to markets and the transfer of cash between mobile phone users (of which there are more in Kenya than bank account holders) as innovative ways of promoting poverty alleviation.
|
Fear as Safaricom targets retail
July 2007, Kui Kinyanji
(Business Daily Africa)
|
|
This article explores the growth potential for the mobile revolution in Kenya, following Safaricom, one of the cellphone operators that has been involved in the cash transfer service M-Pesa, which allows Kenyan consumers to use their cellphones to payfor goods and services.
|
FSD Kenya announces recipeint locations for Social Protection Project Challenge Fund
July 2007, FSD Kenya
(FSD Kenya)
|
|
Kenya's Financial Sector Deepening programme - FSD Kenya - has announced recipient locations for its Social Protection Payments Challenge Fund, launched in 2006 to support the development of the payment systems needed to make social protection payments across the country.
|
Mobile phone giant calls for ease of mobile money transfer
July 2007, Bizcommunity.com
(Bizcommunity.com)
|
|
Vodafone Plc, the mobile phone giant, has called for a new regulatory framework to allow greater access to financial services via mobile phones in developing countries.
|
The Transformational Potential of M-Transactions
July 2007, Vodafone Group Plc
|
|
Vodafone has published its sixth policy paper on the social impact of mobile phones. The report entitled 'Transformational Potential of M-Transactions' has been developed in partnership with Nokia and Nokia Siemens Network. It presents new, independent research by leading economists from Frontier Economics and Groupe d'Economie Mondiale as well as consultants to the World Bank and calls for a new regulatory framework to allow greater access to financial services via mobile phones in developing countries.
|
Dial M for money
June 2007, The Economist
(The Economist)
|
|
This article introduces the potential for mobilecash through the M-Pesa mobile payment scheme in Kenya, whereby mobile phones are used instead of banks to make payments.
|
Mobiles beat Zimbabwe fuel queues
May 2007, Lucy Fleming
(BBC News)
|
|
This article explains Mukuru, a scheme which allows expatriate Zimbabweans to send money back home through text messages which can then be exchanged for coupons for various goods, such as fuel.
|
Kenya sets world first with money transfers by mobile
March 2007, Xan Rice
(Guardian UK)
|
|
This article introduces the M-Pesa transfer scheme in Kenya, whereby mobile phones are used to transfer money, bypassing the formal banking system.
|
Progressing towards sustainability banking in Africa
March 2007, Sean De Cleene and Christina Wood
(AICC)
|
|
This report from the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship outlinesinnovative banking practices introduced in five countries - South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Botswana and Kenya - aimed at improving access to financial services for the poor, including, inter alia, innovative access mechanisms.
|
|
|
2006
|
|
|
Upwardly Mobile: Delivering Social Protection by Cellphone
April 2006
|
|
RHVP is building evidence on innovative approaches to develop better, more dynamic, ways of tackling both acute hunger and chronic, predictable vulnerability. One novel potential area is the use of mobile telephony which would involve the provision to the beneficiary household of a mobile phone, and a regular monthly top-up. The model offers significant advantages over more traditional current safety net transfer mechanisms, as discussed in the briefing paper.
|
