![\"Mobile](\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Mobile-Banking.png\")
<\/a>Mobile Banking<\/p><\/div>\n
Broadly, the MEF reported that Africans tend to use mobile to send airtime to other users, transfer funds and seek credit – though most of their data was skewed by Kenya’s massive use of mobile for banking.<\/p>\n
“Kenya has a reputation for being the world\u2019s pace-setter in mobile money. Globally, 66% of mobile media users use some form of mobile banking,” MEF said.<\/p>\n
“For many observers, mobile money in Kenya equals one service: Safaricom\u2019s M-Pesa. And no wonder. It has 15 million users and processes two billion transactions a day.”<\/p>\n
M-Pesa is microfinancing service for Safaricom and Vodacom, which allows users to deposit, withdraw, and transfer money easily with a mobile device.<\/p>\n
Aside from mPesa, Kenyans also use rival services like Zap and yuCash for mobile transactions.<\/p>\n
“The research revealed Kenya to be ahead of other African countries in most mobile money activities. The most striking differences are in sending money to someone else (54% of mobile media users do this in Kenya, against 12% in Nigeria and 16% in Africa) and sending airtime,” MEF said.<\/p>\n
M-Pesa in South Africa<\/h3>\n
Nedbank launched M-Pesa in partnership with Vodacom in August 2010, and boasts more than 1.2 million registered users.<\/p>\n
In November 2013 Vodacom announced that it plans to relaunch M-Pesa during the first quarter of 2014.<\/p>\n
Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub said at the time that M-Pesa has \u201ca couple of hundred thousands customers\u201d locally.<\/p>\n
Asked about the announcement, a Vodacom spokesperson told MyBroadband that it is part of the revamp that they are working on, with a full update expected in early 2014.<\/p>\n
In December 2013, Nedbank said it aims to re-launch its mobile money service, M-Pesa, onto a new IT platform that will interface directly into banks.<\/p>\n
\u201cNedbank and Vodacom have drawn valuable learnings and insights from the M-Pesa roll-out, and the M-Pesa product is being re-launched in the near future onto a new IT platform,\u201d said Ilze Wagener, head of digital innovation and payments at Nedbank.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The platform] will interface directly into banks and will include the expansion of the distribution channel to add on more points of sale and more transactional capabilities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
More on mobile<\/h3>\n
Mobile to evolve in 2014: F&S<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n ISPs beat mobile operators to LTE in Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n