Month: January 2012

After years of courting Central Bank Of Nigeria,, the bride finally got a nod.. and what a mad rush…
The whistle had been blown and the race begun in all directions.
Here we are today and I have not seen a single Agent  where I live.. not that I live in the middle of nowhere… But, I have seen so much branding you would think you have reached Tom Mboya Street in Nairobi… Any one aspiring to roll out Mobile Money Transfer must visit Tom Mboya Street… This is a street where you can do any amount of Cash In, Cash out,  registration is water under the bridge..done in less than 1 minute as long as you have the documentation.. and M-PESA is accepted here.  In Tom Mboya especially you can shop for anything using M-PESA.  When can I hope to see this in Nigeria?  Too much money is spent for media coverage.. before you go to the media my dear licensees please think about the Agency drama that awaits you.. This is not Kenya where Agents specialise in one product ..either M-PESA, MOBIKASH, TANGAZA OR AIRTEL MONEY. Here the rule is One agent Serves all… You come with your product lets say ” U-MO” or e-tranzact or Ecobank mobile, Fortis Mobile Money… now  the thing is all these products are either using Java, Ussd or Wap…. ehe like we say in Naija… which means if the agent is very clever..they will just buy a java enabled phone for the application that has only java access and then they can use USSD for the rest.. assuming this Agent is brighter than the Governor I saw last night on the apprentice…( cant  sms or even log onto a laptop)   So  we rule out the java for my mother in Ekiti who apparently wants to be an agent but only knows how to make voice calls… what am I saying? Picture this..  An agent will have 16 applications on her phone( she can choose to have 16 phones each for every service).  now in walks a customer asking for service 3 . .. for this drama refer to my earlier blog..  Allow me to proceed with the evalue reconciliation nightmare 🙂 do we really expect one agent to have over 16 wallets and manage them efficiently? just asking:) then comes liquidity management.. you can argue that they are able to manage scratch cards…but remember an Airtel card is clearly Red, Glo Dark Green you cant even confuse with Etisalat Green..
Now lets reconcile 16 electronic value accounts at the close of every day… how much commission are you giving me? where is the insurance for the cash in my shop?  Where is the free customer care line? and the Agent in Kaduna will say let me focus on my egg selling business.. We need to think of ways to push this product in a workable way..Nigeria is big and waiting lets think out of the box… there are so many business men and women waiting for opportunities to invest in this huge business..lets think  about them…. and the thinking continues…………… There is a light somewhere… i see it do you?