[UgaBYTES] We need PayPal in Uganda

Tue Sep 9 17:00:13 GMT 2008

The technology infrastructure in Africa and the backend needed to promote
plastic money is close to non-existent. Appropriate African solutions will
definitely do as has been demonstrated in Kenya through M-Pesa or through
whatever name Equity Bank is entering the market with.

Sometimes back, microfinance or development finance thinkers were concerned
about the reach of financial services to the poor. With the cell phone being
so ubiquitous as is the case today and with cell phones being used to access
money through ATMs, the challenge is no more the access. It is the cost of
such access. Whatever solution that can be created so that the cost of
financial access is low, then we the telecentre practitioners will be at the
centre of a revolution for connectivity will be a 'necessary'.

My digital company Octagon Data Systems has jointly with another company in
Chennai (it seems there is something about digital money that is only coming
from this City!)has evolved a device that will address the confusion of the
digital money - the solution is in its pilot in the Dairy sector in Kenya
and will soon roll out through the VACID Telecentre Model.

Peter, my word on your concerns: Watch this space.

Kiringai

-----Original Message-----
From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
[mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of Peter Burgess
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2008 4:34 PM
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
Cc: Davis Weddi
Subject: [UgaBYTES] We need PayPal in Uganda

Dear Colleagues

Yes ... modernizing payment practices in Uganda is a very worthwhile
effort, and, as Davis Weddi said, it should be possible already to get
PayPal and Visa type payment methods courtesy of the big mainstream
banks like Barclays and Standard Chartered.

Sadly, however, the mainstream banks serve only a tiny part of the
population, and it is getting smaller rather than bigger. These banks
have a business model that makes it impossible for them to serve
anyone in the vast Bottom of the Pyramid ... and while they might have
quite low cost technology, it is by no means the best (least cost)
available ... and they also have a terrible problem in that the profit
expectations of their investors are a huge cost of them doing
business. In other words ... don't expect these institutions to do
much for society except profit from it.

The good news is that alternative payment systems are emerging very
rapidly that are very much better than those being offered by PayPal
and the present cartel of mainstream banks and credit/debit cards ...
Western Union et al. Unfortunately they are all based on modern
electronic technology and most African Governments have not done
enough to get the infrastructure deployed so that these systems can
work in Africa.

With modern technology, everyone should be bankable ... biometrics are
the identifier of me the person ... and the medium of exchange is
electronic.

I don't know enough about the technologies that are rapidly emerging
... the IFMR Trust in (Channai) India is working on some of these
technologies ... but they have access to a superb 21st Century
infrastructure ... Kampala does not. Kris Dev, also in Chennai has
done valuable work with biometrics.

When I look at Africa through the Community Accountancy (CA) analysis
methodology very many development issues emerge very clearly ... these
include the failure of the banking sector and the failure of
investment in infrastructure. The data about who is responsible for
these failures is, however, not yet available.

Sincerely

Peter Burgess
____________
Peter Burgess
The Transparency and Accountability Network: Tr-Ac-Net in New York
www.tr-ac-net.org
Community Accountancy
Integrated Malaria Management Consortium (IMMC)
917 432 1191 or 212 772 6918 peterbnyc at gmail.com
//////////////////////////
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Davis Weddi <dweddi at newvision.co.ug>
Date: Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 8:41 AM
Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] We need PayPal in Uganda
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org

Hello John,

I think there is no real need for this petition. May be it has just come a
bit late.

Do you know why?

Because many Ugandan individuals and companies are already using paypal.

It is up to you to sign up and get a paypal account if you have a good
banker like for example Barclays or Stanchart. These already allow you to
use the Visa facility, so what stops you from getting yourself onto online
business anyway? Go talk to your banker and you will see the available
options laid down for you.

What I see as the problem is may be the lack of adequate sensitization on
matters like online business facilities or ecommerce facilities available to
Ugandans and how to exploit them.

Davis Weddi
Kampala

-----Original Message-----
From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
[mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of john Kibuuka
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 9:53 PM
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] We need PayPal in Uganda

Sign this Petition

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/PayPalinUganda

It's been a long time since Uganda was in many crises, wars, inflations...
All this causes backwardness in education and Information Tech industry in
this country. Now that things are getting much better, IT industry boom is
upon us, is development is coming very rapidly. The number of active
internet users, debit/credit card owners, and users of many other online
services, is growing from day to day. There are also thousands of internet
users, who are running online businesses among which is real estate,
vehicles import & export, citizen journalists, students or others in some
online trading business, but they are all partly handicapped, because Uganda
is not on the list of almost every major payment service.

One of them is PayPal, which is dominating the global online trade and used
to settle transactions online. We are confident that entrance of PayPal
service in Uganda will make possible for thousands of internet entrepreneurs
undisturbed practice of their online business, especially with allowing
Ugandan traders to pay for goods or receive payment from other traders for
service rendered or goods sold. We are using this petition to address to
PayPal management to think about this step, and to think about Uganda as a
potential online market. It's a shame that Africa is discriminated and left
behind in this era of global online trading!

Lets support Uganda, lets support Africa!

Join the facebook group, Paypal in Uganda,
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=25401832567&refurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fa
cebook.com%2Fs.php%3Fq%3Dpaypal%26init%3Dq%26k%3D200000010%26sf%3Dt

John

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