- Sunday, 22 November 2009
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The problem with political jokes is they get elected - Henry Cote
Gates wants the poor to bank on their mobile phones
THE BILL AND MISSUS GATES Foundation has bunged a few million dollars at the GSM Association in a bid to get people in the developing world to bank the dosh they haven't got on the phones they spend their last shekels on.
GSMA chief executive Rob Conway announced details of the Mobile Money for the Unbanked initiative, at the phoney jamboree going on in Barcelona this week. The scheme will benefit from a $12.5 million (£8.7million) grant from the Gates Foundation to launch around 20 projects in Africa.
The project aims to bring financial services over some form of mobile connection to at least 20 million people who are unable to access them reliably by 2012.
"There are over one billion people in emerging markets today who do not have a bank account but do have a mobile phone," said Conway in a statement.
"This represents a huge opportunity, and mobile operators are perfectly placed to bring mobile financial services to this largely untapped consumer base," he whiffled, apparently unaware that banks take all our money, spunk it up the wall and then get governments to bail them out using the taxes we pay.
Bob Christen, director of the Financial Services for the Poor initiative at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, reckons that, "Traditional financial services are often too costly and inconvenient for people who earn less than $2 a day to obtain, and too expensive for banks to provide".
Technology like mobile phones, he said, "is making it possible to bring low-cost, high-quality financial services to millions of people in the developing world so they can manage life's risks and build financial security."
More to the point, Conway reckons the scheme offers a "$5 billion [£3.5billion] market opportunity over the next three years."
If there's a sucker born every minute, most of them are born in what these neanderthals call the 'developing' world. µ
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"Hold on second while I check my bank balance," Joe said as he proudly keyed in his pin number using new touch screen phone running win mobile 6.5+. "Almost got it, crap!" he said as he read aloud, "sorry your program quit un-expectantly,do you wish to report this crash to MS to help us figure out how to improve our proprietary spyware?" After rebooting his cell phone and finally getting back to his bank he found out all his cash had been dumped too. Finally Joe wised up and moved to a Linux based phone and all his problems went away. His friend pulled his I am am in the back pocket of the FEDS spyware enabled phone and tossed it into the river without saying a word.
I'm sure there's alot of people who live on less than $1 a day who can't wait to pay $300 for a smart phone and $60/mo for a data plan.
It's that kind of accounting that gets you into banking in the first place.
How can someone from an "Developing" country afford it to buy an cellphone with internet? Mobile internet means an abbo. And an abbo means at lot of costs, African people often earn ( as mentioned in the article ) less than $1 a day!
Do we perhaps need to offer Bill Gates a new couple of glasses to see this? This is wasthing you money Bill, someone just said "Financiel Crisis"...
Over here it's my dog ate my homework, which could've easily been other important papers.
But in third world countries: "I'm sorry, you cannot gut that endangered species who swallowed your cell phone!"
Look at the current financial crisis, created by these greedy, fat cat, faithless bankers. And now everyone is suffering while they still get their giant bonuses - on top of their lavish, rich lifestyle including their mansion with no mortgages or any debts at all.
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I admire Bill Gates but he needs to think twice as not everyone is as charitable as he is. People everywhere - regardless of race or colour will try and cheat and oppress others and rob 'em blind, only to satisfy their greed!
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I say, whatever system we have here in the west, we should keep our sh*t to ourself and leave these illiterate people as they have been all this time. Seems to have been well enough up to now, so why bother - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. There might be more harm done than good.
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I think morally rich people should look after the poor instead of trying to profit from them, but that's in an ideal World, and we live in a fu**ed up World where the strong oppress the weak.
and I need more talktime. I have $50,000,000,000 in a Swiss bank account. Vodafricafone will not accept Swiss Francs. If you can set up a direct debit from your account of $40/month then in return I can setup a direct debit from my account into yours of 100 CHF (Swiss Francs). This is over 50% more you will earn each month.
Most African's I see on tv have cars, live in cities, shop at supermarkets, have machine guns and RPGs and hang out on the back of pickup trucks, or beside their local Shell pipeline running outside their back door.
Or they drive nice fast speedboats, also while carrying mahcine guns, RPG's, and climbing rope for getting on board slow moving oil tankers and cargo ships.
Those African dudes can probably afford more air time than half of us!
When is Alan Greenspan going to be prosecuted for causing a world wide recession due to putting up US borrowing costs by 300% in a couple of years?
;-)
M-pesa allows anyone with a mobile phone to recieve money from a Safaricom customer. In a country where most people don't have a bank account this has become the default bank payment system. It started 15 months ago and currently carries €200 million per month. That's 5% of its GDP. There is a cost involved, at 25-35 eurocents per transaction it is not cheap, but it is still appreciated (by the people, not by competing banks)
Banking for the poor... for the poor, actually they can keep their cash under the mat they sleep in or go dig a hole in the ground somewhere and bury it till the next crisis.. lower transaction cost..