As far as mobile money technology goes, Elma stands on the threshold of a revolution that began with the launch of Safaricom’s M-Pesa four years ago.

A Kenyan technology firm has built a new e-commerce platform that is promising to change the way consumers will bank, buy goods and settle bills using their mobile phones.

Known as Elma, the mobile phone application is the creation of Craft Silicon, a firm that has built a fortune building software for various clients across the globe. As far as mobile money technology goes, Elma stands on the threshold of a revolution that began with the launch of Safaricom’s M-Pesa four years ago.

The application, which runs on 3G enabled mobile telephone handsets, allows users to do business with any service provider who has installed the platform without giving the operators undue control over its functioning – making it the most promising solution to concentration of mobile money business in the hands of telecommunication companies.

With Elma, consumers can transfer money, pay bills, buy airtime, buy stocks and check commodity prices from the comfort of their seats at a monthly average cost of Sh80.

This means that unlike M-Pesa, Zap, Iko-pesa, or yuCash that are specific to the telecoms operators, Elma can be used on any of the mobile telecoms platforms to connect consumers to their accounts in any bank.

Craft Silicon says Elma is poised to challenge the dominance of mobile operator-linked money transfer platforms with the offer of a more competitively-priced service and a wider range of possible transactions than anything in the market today. To demonstrate his point, Mr Budhabhatti gives the example of transaction costs for the current mobile money transfer services now standing at an average of Sh30 to send the minimum amount and Sh25 to withdraw. For users sending money they have drawn from an ATM they incur an additional Sh25, raising the total cost of transaction to Sh80 – the same amount that consumers are charged for using Elma every month.



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ELMA's problem is the banks on the platform. All mid tier banks (Victoria, Oriental, Equatorial etc) when I last checked. They should get the heavy weights (SCB, KCB, DTB, NIC,Ekuete) on board and then they will be truly there.

Long way to GO!!!

True dat, but check this out...

"Mr Budhabhatti says Elma is in the last phase of piloting in smaller financial institutions such as Paramount Bank, Oriental Commercial Bank, Guardian and Chase banks and is now ready to go into the larger banks."

Two limitations; 3G and banks. Mpesa still the one to beat.