James ad all

Well put. The difference though is that industry's open up themselves for open standards. Rarely do companies. 

Its incumbent upon TESPOK to convince Safaricom to open up its Mpesa system 'fully' as many listers have suggested. The fact is that the Safaricom chaps are clever enough to see this coming (and if they are not unfortunately they will go the way of Telkom Kenya). 

Rarely has government intervention in open standards helped the people they are supposed to help. Even the Banking sector clearing house is run by Bankers with the hawkish eyes of central bankers looking on.

Safaricom will open up Mpesa fully - when they are good and ready and not a moment sooner. That's my take.   

Ali Hussein
CEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd
Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd

+254 713 601113/ 0770 906375

"The future belongs to him who knows how to wait." - Russian Proverb

Sent from my iPad

On Aug 6, 2013, at 11:15 AM, James Mbugua <jgmbugua@gmail.com> wrote:

Openness

I have always felt very strongly about this issue and I agree M-PESA should be open. I used to barge Michael Joseph relentlessly about this. Open first in the sense that third parties can interface their products on their API but secondly and more importantly, open to talk to other platforms the way banks talk to each other. I can withdraw money from Pesa Point or another non-Barclays quite easily.

The fact is we cannot let platforms that stifle innovation continue to prosper. AT&T was finally split up in 1984 not because of its overwhelming market dominance, but that IT WAS REFUSING TO ALLOW NEW INNOVATIONS TO WORK ON ITS PLATFORMS thus overall stifling technology.

In the same way, this is not a sustainable position for M-PESA if it projects its medium to long-term horizon, surely it must see that even the government will not be comfortable constantly hearing that this % of our GDP passes through M-PESA.

If I was Safaricom I would be strategizing on how to open up the platform as painlessly as possible before the combination of disruptive market forces and government national security interests converge.

Already I can deposit money into my bank account with M-PESA and withdraw it with Airtel Money. Surely, you don't need to be a genius to see that you don't need that middle man called the bank if the demand for the service is there.

Regards

James


On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 9:15 AM, Mark Mwangi <mwangy@gmail.com> wrote:
In my opinion what Equity is asking for is for a common platform aka a common account that can be credited and debited by airtel money, yu cash orange money, tangaza etc in the manner that a visa credit card is open game for any merchant, bank etc. This way M-pesa becomes a platform and not a safaricom product. 

I actually don't see how Safaricom looses in this scenario. Exponentially more transaction fee collections, Increased dependence by industry players, maintain the intellectual property and ownership of the platform etc. 

Maybe they are reluctant due to technological immaturity. I also wouldn't want to embarrass myself after being feted worldwide. 


On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 8:31 PM, Kivuva <Kivuva@transworldafrica.com> wrote:
@areba, what Equity wants, if I'm not wrong is the ability for you to
setup a club within MPESA where you can use the platform to transfer
funds without them passing through Safaricom.

The MPESA platform becomes  an enabler.  Unless anybody else has a
better understanding.

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