Vodacom says it will target a \u201cfourth revenue cycle\u201d – namely financial services.<\/p>\n
In May, Vodacom<\/a> was awarded a long-term insurance licence by the Financial Services Board (FSB). This licence, along with the short-term licence granted earlier this year, enables Vodacom to underwrite and sell insurance products, including funeral cover and life cover.<\/p>\n Speaking at a roundtable event in Sandton on Friday (28 September), Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub<\/a> said: \u201cAnother opportunity that exists is what we call the fourth revenue cycle, and one we are putting a lot of emphasis on is the whole mobile money, m-commerce area.\u201d<\/p>\n In March 2010, Vodacom, in partnership with Nedbank<\/a>, launched M-Pesa in South Africa. M-Pesa enables unbanked customers to transfer money from person to person using their mobile phone.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d say it (M-Pesa) has not been as successful in South Africa as it has been in our (other) African countries,” said Joosub.<\/p>\n He said further that a distribution issue had hampered the group\u2019s initiatives in the past.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Tanzania now, 15% of our revenue is coming from M-Pesa, which is quite impressive. In Kenya, M-Pesa is now the preferred method of transacting for most people.”<\/p>\n \u201cI think that provides us (South Africa) with an opportunity to do something similar. There are some improvements we can make in the South African market to try to get the product to work. We have about a million registered customers, but I think we need to push faster in terms of distribution to get that to work,\u201d Joosub said.<\/p>\n He said that, for the more developed market, Vodacom would focus on the virtualisation of the wallet, and near-field communications (NFC<\/a>) technology.<\/p>\n He said that in Spain and the UK, parent company Vodafone<\/a> had created joint ventures with other operators.<\/p>\n \u201cThe competition when it comes to mobile commerce, if we really want to be a serious player, is not the operators, it\u2019s the Googles and the Apples, and it\u2019s a different competitor that we need to deal with.”<\/p>\n \u201cWe would like to do something similar in South Africa,\u201d he said, referring to a possible joint partnership.<\/p>\n The chief executive said that he had already approached some local operators. He described his engagement with the other operators as \u201ca little bit\u201d with \u201csome initial discussion\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat they have said is that there is some excitement\u2026but come back with a proposal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAlso, what we are doing now – and we\u2019ve launched it in South Africa already – is insurance. I think the insurance part is something that we have already seen some success, and something that we want to grow,\u201d Joosub said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have set ourselves up as a financial services broker. We are starting to provide funeral cover\u2026and that seems to be taking off quite well. We want to expand our financial services offerings,\u201d Joosub said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea is not to become a bank, but to provide the financial capability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Related article<\/strong><\/p>\n Vodacom ready to sell you insurance<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Knott-Craig has his work cut out: Joosub<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n