MPESA: CHANGE ALWAYS DEFIES RESISTANCE

I had lunch at a small eatery in Dar es Salaam that I won’t name to spare them the embarrassment, and when I attempted to pay via Mpesa, the amount of ruckus the matter raised would be enough to fill a book.

Right there on a busy restaurant that faces a road that is busy 24 hours you find yourself in a situation in which: 1) you cannot use mobile money to settle bills and 2) common sense isn’t so common so the waitress loudly summons the supervisor who calls the manager who makes it all sound criminal by being as unreasonable if not more than the original waitress.

On the other hand , elsewhere in the same city, a waitress, to her credit, revealed after my guests and I had wined and dined that paying via mobile money has “disadvantages to us waitresses”. Some news at last.

It turns out that the waitresses in this leafy suburb of Dar es Salaam where the who is who go to to feel in touch with our Uswahili (according to a tale she regaled us with) closely look at customers wallets when paying bills, this is their way of weighing their prospects i.e whether they can nip a Sh10,000 or Sh1,000 off the bill and or whether they are likely to be wooed and be beneficiary of some of this fat wallet if it actually is fat.

In many ways mobile money has changed lives in East Africa and without doubt, with our larger population and the wide expanse of the country, it means Tanzania has the highest number transactions in a given year of transactions. These can be either mere statistics or can be seen as an opportunity in a country and a region where the numbers of persons who remain unbanked are huge.

The opportunity remains to be exploited so I ask why with all the numbers pointing at possibilities, why is it that our businesses have and continue to resist mobile money with such abandon?

I have done Busia on the border between Kenya and Uganda to Kampala and all the way to Western Uganda with no cash. Every fuel station, every supermarket and all the notable eateries accept MTN Money. I have also driven from Nairobi through Kisumu to Seme in Nyanza Region of Kenya and cash is no longer the king but Lipa na Mpesa.

What is it that MTN and Safaricom are doing that our friends at Vodacom Tanzania and Tigo Tanzania not doing that makes Mobile Money uptake by merchants seem to do well in those countries? Is it that our people lack financial services awareness? Do we still believe that cash is king?

There is a need for dedicated study to establish what is ailing established A in this story. The place where asking to pay via mobile money causes such a ruckus. Is the level of ignorance high? Do folks associate mobile money with EFD receipting which has been resisted? All these night spots save for the one next to Leaders club which has a mobile money station for 24 hours do not see the need for such a facility?

Our friends in the C-suite at Vocadom Tanzania the M-Commerce team under Polycarp Ndekana would probably not consider this study although we think, these days as a publicly quoted company they owe it to their shareholders to find out what niches they ought to but have not cracked. Yet Pesa ni Mpesa ought not remain the 10th anniversary catchphrase if all we are doing is sending money to friends and family when there is so much we can do with mobile money.

Indeed Mchezo huu haujitaji hasira (not too long ago, the senior director in charge of Consumer Business at Safaricom Ms Sylvia Mulinge was at one time poised to take over as Managing Director at Vodacom Tanzania before issues to do with work permt nipped that in the bud. Satesh Kamath left Vodacom Tanzania to join Safaricom in Kenya as Finance Director-little or no fuss. Indeed huu mchezo hauhitaji hasira, Diego Gutierrez, until recently CEO of MIC Tigo Tanzania , is now Chief Operating Officer of Vodacom International Business in South Africa working on strategies that give Vodacom strategies over MIC Tigo.

Congratulations to the team that founded Mpesa in Kenya. It is where there is stiff competition that there is opportunity-to thrive-indeed Pesa ni Mpesa to many ordinary citizens.