Govt: Mobile money sector to include share marketing

BabuK

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Jul 30, 2008
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The government is in the process of transforming mobile money industry to provide insurance, banking and marketing of shares.
This was revealed in Dar es Salaam on Thursday by the Director of the National Payment Systems of the Bank of Tanzania, Lucy Kinunda, at a mobile money inclusion summit.
She said through her department, prudential regulations and policies shall be made to make the exercise possible.
“The summit will provide an excellent opportunity for policy makers and stakeholders in mobile financial services to improve the functioning of the said financial system,” she said.
She said knowing the importance of financial inclusion the United Nations advised on the establishment of an advisory group to advise it and all member states on issues relating to its advancement on the global scale.
According to her, the motivation of the event has roots in the platforms created by the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) which has conducted Global Policy Forums where policymakers met to discuss various initiatives taken by the developing world to increase the broad base of financial inclusion.
Likewise she said efforts demonstrated by the consultative group to assist the poor, and Gates and Melinda Foundation; to build the capacity of regulators has provided a knowledge base in promoting and supporting financial inclusion initiatives.
“In Tanzania studies have indicated that formal banking has not penetrated to the wider segment in the society, particularly in rural areas, where the percentage of the population accessing formal financial services is 22 percent,” she stressed.
She said the aim should be to achieve at least 50 percent of financial access by 2015.
In order to achieve the strategy, among other concerted efforts, there is a need to implement interpretable solutions for access and cost effectiveness, she said.
The population economic power being low, as a key challenge to complement a commercially viable and workable mobile banking solution, is to achieve a critical mass of users required to reap economies of scale hence keep transaction costs low, she said.
Meanwhile, the major providers of mobile financial services have been the Mobile Network Operators (MNO’s), while banks and financial institutions have been given the responsibility of keeping the services accounts.
At the same time, she noted that BoT oversees operations of mobile network operators (MNO) and financial institutions in providing mobile financial services.
The bank will adopt the financial inclusion in its corporate plan strategy as it strives to enhance the regulatory framework for mobile financial services.
For his part, Solomon Masunga one of the organisers of the event said participants from parts of the world gave their point of view on the operation of mobile financial inclusion in their countries.
The participants were from the US, Kenya, Uganda and France where most of these countries mobile money transfer has already developed,” he said.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
 
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