Mobile banking by Tolu Ogunlesi More people in Africa use their mobile phone to bank than in any other region in the world. The continent’s banking revolution began in March 2007 when Kenyan telecoms operator Safaricom launched M-Pesa, a service that allows users to send, receive and save money using a cellphone. Since then M-Pesa has spread to Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. Mobile banking now exists in 33 African countries, according to GSMA, a trade association. Mobile phone technology is especially useful in banking where many people live in rural areas far from cities where most banks are…
Tolu Ogunlesi
Show me the money by Tolu Ogunlesi Every year billions of dollars in development aid stream into sub-Saharan Africa. Western countries and multilateral agencies like the World Bank and Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID) are the continent’s major donors. Some countries in Africa depend on these grants and loans more than others. Overseas development dollars make up about 40% of landlocked Malawi’s annual budget. In contrast, oil-rich Nigeria’s foreign aid portion of annual spending is less than 6%, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a think-tank. Africa has a dismal track record of transforming foreign…
