[UgaBYTES] We need PayPal in Uganda

Wed Sep 10 09:20:38 GMT 2008

Dear Colleagues,

At the beginning of this year, I signed up for a visa card from Crane
bank. They mention that with this card you should be able to pay for
things/services online. After collecting a secret number from my bank,
I was able to verify my paypal account. I was able to pay for a domain
name using this online account but the bank charges were even much
more than the service I was paying for!

With a verified paypal account, I looked forward to start earning a my
electronic money from google adsense after posting a few of their code
here and there. But I have to confess that I never any bit of that
dime and eventually my adsense account was closed off. I still
couldn't figure it out then. I had another transaction where a
european friend tried to send me money via paypal, and all he was
getting was "..this person is not allowed to receive money"
I thought maybe it was a wrong paypal profile I was subscribed to, I
switched to merchant but still nothing could help. I contacted crane
bank, but they weren't helpful either, the person there only insisted
that you can pay for services online.

I checked around on the Internet and realised that it was not only me
in Uganda having the same problem but the whole of Africa including
South Africa. The post on this particular website was kind of outdated
but still we tried it again this year, with a south african friend and
we still got the same message... not allowed to receive money.

Conclusions:

I have not tried Standard chartered or whatever - but global trade
should be easily accessible for everybody. Its nothing complicated,
almost every bank in this day and age should be able to provide it.

Western Union, MoneyGram et al.. charge huge commissions which make
online companies like paypal better options. Besides, sometimes you
want to keep the money online to pay for an item (digital camera,
domain, etc) and not actually receive it in cash.

To be able to sell or receive payment for stuff on the big sites like
ebay, amazon, etc - Paypal is the most trusted mode of payment
accepted. On ebay nothing else except paypal is accepted and this is a
place to buy cheap stuff online.

The banks in Uganda hide alot of information from their clients - I
think this is the best way they raise their income. Crane bank
mentions no where on all the agreements you sign with them, how much
you will be charged when you engage in an online transaction. I
remember I was paying only $10 for a domain but got charged more than
double that amount!

People in Africa are yet to fully exploit the opportunities of
transacting business online and this is one of the major factors
hindering it.

John

On 9/9/08, Kiringai Kamau <kiringai at willpower.co.ke> wrote:
> 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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>
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