Much Know wrote:Four years later, we are almost there. its going to be a BIG BANK!
If you open a Libra account, or “wallet,” Libra will invest your cash in interest-bearing bonds while paying you nothing. The members will keep the difference as dividends.Think about it, you will not suffer the pains caused by a falling shilling, shopping online all problems solved, producing id kila saa for mpesa agents gone, not being charged 20% interest rates when hedge funds/investors in US are promising 15%. KRA will experience problems because they made Mpesa an "agent" , people will run away from mpesa so Sportpesa will use this system to avoid problems. You have to be better than warren buffet to make money using borrowed money in Kenya, or a government thief.
Not only an extremely serious threat to finish M-pesa/Safaricom, this is also going to affect the banking sector, it will be a currency killer for shithole currencies, some banks, saccos e.t.c will definitely close. Mitigating action by safaricom would be to take up a huge membership or look for ways to partner with facebook otherwise i cannot see any other place a wise Kenyan would keep his money, or borrow from.
Have also been thinking about this Facebook digital currency Libra and think we in the developing world might reap the benefits only when we totally go digital which is not in the next 10 yrs maybe, where most transactions are digital no physical money and the death of mpesa-agents maybe.
Digital currencies like bitcoin and ethereum are not as easily exchanged locally or getting a business that would take them is also a challenge hence not being very popular and very few people know what they really are. One of the issues with it begin decentralized is if you lose your pass-code it bye bye johnny to your wallet as opposed to you walking into your bank and asking for a reset. But they work.
Mpesa is not really a digital currency as the two, it's only a conduit an intermediary between you and the goods and services that you want, that's the beauty you don't have to carry cash, downside is you always paying much more for the same goods. By the way, why is there a maximum daily transaction amount?
Mpesa is just ripe for disruption but unfortunately Libra is not it yet. What we all need is a way to access our money 24/7 without any charges or maybe a low monthly charge fixed rate that then enables me to send money using an app / [short code service in case not smart phone] not bound to any telco where i get my internet connection from.
Pesalink is an idea in this direction but only for those who do have bank accounts though the service is not as smooth. Do you like the idea of linking directly to your main bank account or other dummy account for withdrawals and deposits? Think it is brilliant
So back to wanjiku the unbanked, a virtual bank or there whatsapp account?
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else - Albert Einstein