A few years ago election monitoring and reporting was a tricky, tiring and often thankless affair. Dealing with Kenya‘s elections processes in the last decade, in particular, has largely involved sending hordes of polling clerks, election observers and monitors, with paper files stashed in their underarms, to far-flung areas to help record the goings-on election and referenda. Apart from being slow, unreliable and erratic, such processes have proved risky for election officials especially if violence broke out.

But things are changing. Mobile phone technology is rapidly transforming the way these national and other crucial life-changing activities are carried out, bringing with it faster, reliable and credible relay of information from outlying areas.
Apart from elections reporting, the ubiquitous device, owned by nearly 20 million Kenyans, has also helped stem incidents of violence that have in the past rocked various parts of Kenya notably in 2007 elections. A lot depends on how transparent such processes as elections are but the mobile phone is taking a lion’s share of the contribution toward this positive change.

In a ground-breaking project in conjunction with the Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC), Safaricom, Kenya’s largest network operator, the world’s leading mobile handsets-maker Nokia supplied over 18,000 Nokia 1680 phones to be used by the electoral body’s returning officers and clerks in various part of the country.

IIEC had picked Safaricom after, inviting Kenyan telecom operators for a partnership with it with the objective of running an efficient and credible referendum process. continue reading »

The recent mobile price wars have sparked a lively debate both on and offline with people aligning themselves along various schools of thought, trying to dissect the moves by the three underdogs – Zain, Orange and Yu. While most of the discussions are from a consumer perspective, where cheaper may be considered better, we need to look at the ecosystem that has become part of our daily lives more closely to appreciate the factors at play and perhaps project what the space will look like in another five years.

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It may feel abit dumb to start off like this…but any kiosk owner will tell you this. If you all stock the same nyanya skuma, you will be left with no recourse but to compete on price. The kaching comes with setting yourself apart…I would stop here and have you call me and pay me to walk you back to the school of basics but am in a good mood today.

Like I told you before, you better stop this price war maneno or you will all soon go out of business or best bet see massive hemorrhages on your bottom line. Micheal Joseph has said time and again – he has investors to take care of, and I have to agree with him on that point, coz I would expect a divided on my shares, if I had bought like 1 million of those “papers” when the country was going green and this not alluding to the referendum. My boy Rene is willing to take a hit for the next 5 years because he has a big brother with deep pockets. Deep pockets get depleted, and if your strategy doesn’t work out, you will be out of a job – tail tucked and the Kenya operation will be spun to some other hapless investor with big visions and their head in the clouds, with grand plans of a turnaround.  Rene was on Business Daily explaining their strategy…you will remember the Vuka tariff that was discontinued…hmmm

Bwana Atul of Yu, jumped over the cliff late last night and put it out that they too had “amuad” and dunked prices to 5cts per second or more directly 3 bob per minute and 50cts per sms on onnet messaging.

Mickael Ghossein has been quiet thus far after the sparing between the Pinks, Greens and Blacks, but I kinda guess he too is thinking of their new lower price point. I am sorely hoping that his decisions will have a good measure of thought and not some knee jerk reflex. continue reading »

Zain Kenya has today lowered its calling charges across all networks by a whooping 50% – becoming the first mobile phone company in the country to pass to customers the benefit of the new low interconnect charges released by the Communication Commission of Kenya. The mobile phone company has lowered its callings charges to Kshs. 3 across all networks in Kenya for both its prepaid and postpaid customers in a move that abolishes completely the distinction between intra-network and cross-network calls costs.

SMS costs have also been lowered to Ksh. 1 across all networks in Kenya. In what is arguably the best value proposition ever launched in the Kenya telecommunications industry, Zain said the drastic reduction in calling charges would benefit its customers and those on other networks who are paying extremely high prices for making phone calls. With the lowering of the connectivity charges to a new low, Kenyans will now be in a position to switch mobile service providers while retaining their current numbers once the number portability directive comes into force. continue reading »

RedCloud, developer of cloud computing financial services platform have recently announced an alliance with PesaPot in Kenya to provide mobile loan technology for the fast growing MFI and Sacco industry in Kenya. This reseller agreement enables PesaPot to offer innovative technology and mobile solutions as a best practice in the cloud.

The alliance will bring RedCloud Technology to fast growing financial services companies reaching the under banked. By joining the cloud, financial services companies can gain real-time insight into their loan portfolios as well as dramatically reduce their costs.

“Our work with PesaPot is helping make MFIs and Saccos (Savings and Credit Cooperatives) more efficient and effective and enable them to reach thousands more of the underbanked population with their products” said Elizabeth Galpin SVP of Product Marketing at RedCloud. “Bringing together Pesa Pot’s unique industry knowledge and experience and Red Cloud’s cloud computing technology will make a highly positive impact on the entire financial eco system in Kenya and beyond.” continue reading »

Many don’t know the true origins of the Mpesa (read it here ) service offered by Safaricom which has been a runaway success for Micheal Joseph and crew… a true cash cow.

How do you, after all, beat a success like M-PESA? Iceni assured me that M-PESA was just the beginning. Using the mobile as a platform, Iceni plan to create developmental services that penetrate other spheres —m-health, agribusiness. They further predicted that the mobile will soon begin to revolutionize these other spaces as well. This is a very exciting proposition. If the mobile phone can penetrate and transform financial sector, which is dominated by old and powerful players, imagine what it can do in these other spaces  – Olga  Morawczynski

What matters is that a scion from the development house that brought Mpesa to life – Sagentia ,a technology consultancy firm based out of Cambridge has spun off a new service dubbed RedCloud under Iceni Mobile. RedCloud is being positioned as the financial hub for emerging markets and word is that the tools and feature sets will rock Mpesa and its cousin Mkesho. From what I have picked up, they are looking at a mix of mobile money aggregation and mobile banking, with the issuance of loans to young entrepreneurs being a key strategy.  I gather they have been courting all manner of micro-finance institutions…and not just in Kenya as they get set for the market roll-out.

RedCloud’s  purpose is to be the leading provider of cloud computing technology to financial and associated services in emerging markets. The RedCloud team hope know that their platform will have a significant positive impact in bringing financial end economic benefits the world’s 4 billion under banked that include over 50 million young Entrepreneurs.

The Iceni team behind RedCloud is quite formidable and I look forward to seeing how they roll out the product. Their profiles in a snapshot: continue reading »

iPay is an easy-to-use mobile money transaction processing system that incorporates the popular M-Pesa and Zap modes of money transfer.They have packaged these two popular money transfer systems into an online transaction processing system that will allow you to receive payments off your website and thus further extend the reach of your brand’s products and services within the East African Region and beyond. continue reading »