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01 February 2010
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
 The Economic Commission for Africa officially launched today a comprehensive study on mobile banking in Africa. The launch took place at the Press Briefing Room of the United Nations
Conference Centre in Addis Ababa as a side-event to the African Union Summit organized this year under the theme: ‘’Information and Communication Technologies in Africa: Challenges and Prospects for Development.’’
The event, witnessed by over 25 journalists and ICT experts, was presided over by Mr. Sizo Mhlanga, Chief, ICT Policy and Development Section on behalf of the Director of the ICT, Science and Technology Division of the ECA.
Mr. Mhlanga advised that the 130 page publication entitled ‘’M-Banking, an African Financial Revolution” was a synthesis of three country reports authored by Professor Meoli Kashorda (Kenya), Mme Fatimata Seye Sylla (Senegal) and Dr Simon Bachelor (South Africa) which explored the banking revolution brought about by mobile phones in Africa. He noted that “mobile phones are an important ICT tool for development due to their ability to easily leapfrog the infrastructure barriers in remote and rural areas in Africa” and thus an appropriate and adaptable tool to bridge the digital divide.
The publication also assessed a variety of aspects of m-commerce, including the status of telecommunication and financial infrastructure and services, the state of the mobile services market, the legal and regulatory environment for m-banking, as well as security issues. Possible business models to be adopted for expanding m-banking to rural and remote areas and the collaboration arrangements between the mobile-operators, financial institutions, content and applications developers were analysed in the publication. On the policy front, the publication interrogated policy requirements needed to facilitate economic development and explore and exploit the new opportunities presented by m-commerce.
Mr. Mhlanga took the opportunity to advise the audience of ECA’s role in promoting ICT4D in the continent in the framework of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI). Some of such activities included showcasing best practices such as the economic impact of mobile technologies on Information Society given the explosion of mobile telephony across the continent.
The participants hailed the publication a milestone in mobile applications and proposed that the study be extended to more African countries. Policy, legal and regulatory challenges with respect to m-banking and issues of security, trust and confidence were cited as being of paramount importance in conducting and promoting m-commerce activities. These needed urgent addressing if many countries were to effectively take advantage of the mobile boom. Participants requested ECA to focus country support in this area of activity as the scope of applications for development was wide as wireless communications provided the platform that enabled digital data transfer to a majority of people.
‘’M-Banking-An African Financial Revolution’’ is published on behalf of the ICT, Science and Technology Division of ECA, by the Centre for African Studies-Copenhagen University, in collaboration with International Books.
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