Next steps for m-banking in Africa

By Ethan Zuckerman-
I saw John Gage, Sun Microsystem’s official international man of mystery, in Arusha last week, and now at the World Economic Forum in Cape Town. The man is clearly traveling too much. (It’s okay, John. Me too.) John pulled me aside this afternoon and asked whether I’d learned anything useful at the afternoon session on mobile banking.

I did, actually. Two of the most interesting projects in Africa were represented at the meeting – Celpay and M-PESA – as were an African banker and a central bank governor. Lazarus Muchenje, the CEO of Celpay, a company that’s spun out of DRC’s remarkable Celtel, has been so successful in providing business to business services, his company hasn’t even started marketing to ordinary consumers. Businesses use the service to pay their suppliers, moving money from one mobile phone to another. Celpay works as an intermediary between a set of Zambian banks – they’re not licensed to provide banking services, just to offer information services to these banks.

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