It is empirically and theoretically well known that
the major part of growth is supported by the investment and business
performance. To this major factor of economic development; we should mention
the importance of a well-functioning and developed financial system. In Africa,
the main concern about is the inclusion and depth aspect of the financial
system which tend to considerably explain the lower level of the contribution
of the supply side of the economy. However, with his main specific
characteristics such as instantaneity, cash holding free, privacy, security, perceived
ease of use, compatibility, social influence …etc. mobile baking is more
suitable to “Homo Africanus”
behaviour and can therefore improve the inclusiveness of the financial sector
and then unleash investments and economic development.
In Sub-saharan Africa, the 75% of the population which
do not have access to any form of formal financial services is too significant
to be ignored. The reasons of the felt of traditional financial system in terms
of inclusion are mainly: the long distance to the nearest bank; the difficulty
for population to trust and willingness to allow a tierce person like a bank to
manage their very limited disposable income…etc. This contributes to the
success of informal finance like ROSCAS.
The advancement of mobile communication and wireless
technologies has made a rapid development in the sector of banking services
using their mobile phones. A fine system with great potential has the capacity
to attract a huge block of customers to opt for banking services through their
mobile phones. The dynamism in the present era of technology, where many other
channels are available, this mobile banking system stands alone to attract more
customers to come in the net of using mobile banking services. Recently, Africa
has known a very high growth of cellular phones usage performing around 650
million of customer in 2012. The lower access rate of formal banking
highlighted above and the important volume of immigrant transfer have
contributed to unleash the increasing effective and potential demand of
financial services innovation. The banking services started slowly in 2000 in
Zambia, South Africa (which launched the biometrical payment system in 2012)
and Philippines. There has been a rise of other countries such as Kenya with the
launch of M-PESA (a money transfer through SMS) and M-Shwari (a banking service
without folders) in 2007;
Interestingly
the
provision rate of mobile banking (2.7%) appeared to be less than the one
of the traditional banking (5%) in this case. Indeed the development of
mobile banking
can improve communication and information exchange, formal savings,
remittances
and reduce operating costs. More interestingly, the informal finance
which
appears to be important in the African context can be reabsorbed by the
formal
system and allow data availability and good investment and well informed
governmental financial policy implementations. African government should
therefore mobilise and unleash the potential of mobile banking. The
partnership
between telecommunication operator and commercial banks should been for
example
highly promoted by African States; They should learn why are some
African
countries more advanced in mobile phone penetration and mobile banking
than
others to develop their own mobile banking system.
Acknowledge
This point-of-view is closely related to a research-based,
co-authored and funded by the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC).
However, I remain solely responsible of the above contain.
