Digital Payment Systems

Saqib Bashir of Monet (Pvt) Ltd. in Pakistan will promote the use of mobile money for financial transactions in Pakistan by developing an electronic commerce platform to connect a range of mobile phones, networks, and banks. This will provide individuals and merchants with more payment options including cards and mobile money. A low-cost point-of-sale application has been built and will be tested across a range of mobile devices, and the system will be integrated with various banks.

Jonathan Gikabu of Equity Group Foundation in Kenya will incorporate near field communication (NFC) tags into low-cost mobile phones for secure mobile money payments. NFC tags enable short-range wireless communication between mobile phones and other devices for contactless and rapid mobile payments. They are commonly incorporated into smartphones, but these are too expensive for the average citizen in developing countries. He will assemble ultrathin NFC ferrite sheet antennas affixed to the back of SIM cards into inexpensive handsets, and analyze them for making payments and for security.

Jessica Vernon and Jennifer Stutsman of Maisha Meds in Kenya will encourage chemists and pharmacies to accept mobile money in East Africa by integrating their tailored software application with an established mobile payment system, and providing automatic registration and financial incentives. Chemists have found it particularly difficult to track transactions made using mobile money and therefore tend to avoid using it. Their existing software program can be run on locally available tablets and enables digital recording of pharmacy's sales and purchases, and stock tracking.

Stan Stalnaker of Hub Culture Services Ltd. in the United Kingdom will provide the global poor, merchants and partner NGOs with easy access to digital currency for making and receiving payments or distributing aid, with no transaction costs using mobile phones. The digital currency can be exchanged for a local currency for a fee using a Gateway Broker, who can be any merchant, NGO or bank.

Harsh Shetty of Firefish Networks Pvt. Ltd. in India will provide a service - mLakshmi - for merchants using SMS to give credit to low-income customers and reduce their credit risk. Merchants and customers will register with the service and customers will receive regular SMS notifications of their credit balances, which they can use to pay for goods. They will promote uptake by rewarding merchants both for using the service and for recruiting customers, and the customers with good credit repayment histories will be eligible for more credit.

Ernesto Damiani of Khalifa University in the United Arab Emirates will develop a software toolkit to enable the secure purchase of goods by taking a photo with a simple mobile phone. The procedure only requires both purchaser and merchant to carry a simple phone and to visually identify themselves and details of the purchase, for example with a card, that can be captured in a single photograph. They will build software that uses visual cryptography to divide the photograph into two parts or shares, one sent to each phone.

Neil Patel of AwaazDe Infosystems Pvt Ltd in India will produce interactive podcasts that are sent by mobile phone to inform local users in India on relevant financial services and to collect their feedback on specific issues in audio form, making it more widely accessible. The feedback will be used to monitor financial habits, and help identify barriers to usage and ways to improve services. The interactive podcast platform can also be supplemented with optional features such as balance inquiries or loan repayment reminders.

Geraldine O'Keeffe of Software Group KE Ltd. in Kenya will develop a smartphone application so that smaller merchants in developing economies can use one system to receive mobile money from customers with different providers, and can digitally track sales and inventory. They will also explore options for subsidizing the technology including offering the generated data to financial service providers and others. Their approach will allow merchants to easily register online to encourage uptake, also reducing recruitment costs.

Enoma Odia of Sofdia System Nigeria in Nigeria will apply network marketing to promote the uptake of mobile money by offering financial rewards to merchants for recommending it to other merchants within their community. This marketing system leverages the communal style of living, where the residing merchants sell similar products and share the same language. When a recommendation to use mobile money comes from a merchant in the same community, and the rewards for referrals are shared between users, it is more likely to be accepted.

Ernest Makotsi of Wayo Company Ltd. in Kenya will develop a mechanism for customers to provide immediate feedback on their retail experiences in Nairobi using mobile phones. Real-time feedback is thought to be more attractive for users and more valuable for providers, and having a mobile phone interface means feedback can be provided and analyzed from any location. They have developed the program, and will set up the technology in regional retail shops that provide digital financial services and advertise the event to promote customer participation.