Future is Mobile banking?

Currently, there's a conference ongoing at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies on M-Banking. While it has not been completed, one thing is very clear. M-Banking is here, and is here to stay. Banks may claim that the figures currently being shifted about in mobile phones, using the now popular MPESA (from Safaricom), and the not-so-known ZAP (from Zain), are not big enough to cause an upset, but one thing is most imminent. Mobile Banking is taking over sooner than later. A large majority of Kenyans are not banked nor insured. The cost of banking is not low. The cost, on the other hand, of pushing and receiving money using MPESA is affordable, if not negligible. Therefore, to a large percentage of Kenyans, this is certainly the way of the future.

We are currently experiencing a lot of problems with banks, because most of them are not providing for internet banking. This means that even for the high class that they are priding themselves of holding onto steady, should MPESA provide a way of making transfers over the internet in order to perform E-Commerce, then this group of people will also shift base.

I think our banks must now take up the cue and start providing services to the average Kenyan in the mashinani. Otherwise they should all brace themselves for an interesting tussle with MPESA (even though Mr. Joseph, CEO, claims that they are not in the same competition bracket) as more and more people seek convinient banking.