This regulatory framework was developed to conform to international best practice and standards. It is also a product of vigorous engagement and consultations with stakeholders.
After identifying person to person payments (over the mobile phone infrastructure) as a practical strategy for financial inclusion of the un-banked, the Central Bank of Nigeria opted for the creation of an enabling regulatory environment as a policy path towards achieving availability, acceptance and usage of mobile payments services in Nigeria. The overriding vision is to achieve a nationally utilized and internationally recognized payments system.

Want to understand the regulatory space…in Nigeria, you can pull the full doc here

Kulwant are in the business of Web design, SEO, web hosting, web maintenance, online marketing, online pr, online media planning and buying and branding solutions. They are currently expanding and are looking for charged individuals to handle Client service and Business development positions.

Interested? drop my pal Ravi an email with your CV on -ravinder(at)kulwantadvisory.com

I kinda figured that MJ and his generals would not finch from the actions of his rivals. Safaricom sent out a press release stating their stand and how they will mitigate any market share conceded to their competition.

Here goes: The move by Bharti to reduce its Kenyan operation’s voice tariffs by 50% is an unsustainable pricing strategy. Zain (Bharti) seem to be banking on the Indian model of low tariffs and high volumes to increase MOU in a market with an elasticity of less than 1.

Safaricom has no intention of getting engaged in a similar pricing strategy that would undermine our business and erode value for our shareholders. Safaricom will launch aggressive promotions to limit any market share gain by the competitors and at all times protect our revenue share. Reduction in MTR’s to KES2.21 will not have a significant impact financially on Safaricom as we are net receivers of off-net calls. continue reading »

Mobile-XL, a mobile technology company, two days ago, announced that it has partnered with Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, to provide its full suite of mobile content services through Gemalto’s Dynamic STK software embedded in SIM cards around the world. Combining the capabilities of Mobile-XL’s XLBrowser platform and Gemalto MNO Portal Management solution, mobile operators will be able to provide a more complete data experience to their subscribers regardless of the handset they own.

The MNO Portal Management solution provides constant contact with the mobile subscriber to inform and educate them on existing and new Mobile-XL services. This interactive promotion is done through a push mechanism allowing the display of silent messages on which the customer could react. Users can therefore immediately access a wide range of services ranging from news, sports, social networks like facebook, yellow pages, education, lifestyle, email like hotmail, as well as user generated content.

continue reading »

The team at Nokia is really committed at promoting local talent. At a previous event when they were announcing the results from the Nokia Innovation Competition, they were challenged to at least mention the some of the Kenyan developers who made it to the top 20. This they did and went a step further.

After looking through the top 20 list, they selected two young developers with whom they worked with to refine their service and even offered marketing support. AfroHot or Not and Wazzup were taken to market with good results. AfroHot has a user-base of 6,000 across East and Central Africa.

Word is…more cool stuff is coming from the various collaborations Nokia is spearheading with local developers. Watch this space.

more videos from the event here continue reading »

Developer Economics 2010 is a global research report delving into all aspects of mobile application development, across 400+ developers segmented into the eight major mobile platforms: iOS (iPhone), Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, Java ME, Windows Phone, Flash/Flash Lite and mobile web (WAP/XHTML/CSS/JavaScript).

The report provides an unprecedented range of insights across all the touch-points of mobile app development, from selecting a platform and designing an app to receiving the profits.

The full report covers all the hottest issues of mobile development:

• Why do developers choose a mobile platform?
• Platform features: which aspects of their platform do developers perceive as being most important?
• Planning techniques: what are the most popular methods developers use to plan their applications in terms of features and target segment?
• App stores: which app stores are used, based on the developers’ platform of choice?
• How much cross-pollination is taking place across Android and iOS developers today?
• Developer challenges: what are the top-4 challenges developers face when taking their applications to market?
• Revenue models: what are the most popular revenue models and in which cases are ad-funded models used?
• Network operators: what do developers think is the role of network operators? Supermarkets, service enablers, or bit-pipes?
• User Interfaces: which platforms offer a good UI design environment and which not?
• Open source: where do developers use open source and what do they see as the key challenges

Needless to say, the report is skewed heavily to the “Western” market…not much intel from Africa captured. continue reading »

My good friend Johan Hellström from Upgraid works deep in the innards of research and has in the past organized a number M4D events through out EastAfrica. He just shared with me a SIDA report paper that he did, and thought it best to regurgitate its contents. The report was commissioned by Sida, Department for Human Development,Team for Knowledge, ICT and Education.

I will share it in a 4 part series here.

* The broad summary
* Overview of East Africa’s ICT sector and mobile market
* Major operators in East Africa, mobile phones and their usage
* Innovation, a look at the mobile applications, issues and challenges

This report gives an overview of the current state of mobile phone use and services in East Africa. It outlines major trends and main obstacles for increased use as well as key opportunities and potential for scaling-up mobile applications. The report draws on secondary data and statistics as well as field work carried out in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya during 2008 and 2009.

The report identifies relevant applications in an East African context for reaching and empowering the poor and contribute to social and economic development. The identified mobile applications,  range from small pilots to scaled-up initiatives – from simple agricultural, market or health information services to fairly advanced financial and government transaction services. continue reading »

Maybe I am not the target consumer but having done my fair share of rounds at BCLB, I do know a thing or two about what it takes to get that receipt…aka your license. I chanced on an advert in the Daily Nation on Friday May 28 that drew my attention but it seems for all the wrong reasons. Here’s why I think something is amiss with this particular promotion. continue reading »