Positioning Retailers as Change Agents in the Transformation of Mobile Payment Transactions
With mobile phone penetration rate well over 90 percent and expected to reach 100
percent by 2013, the lack of awareness of mobile money among Ghanaians and the low
adoption rate of the product is quite thought provoking. Ghana, a developing country
with economic conditions similar to Kenya, is yet to realize the full potential of
mobile money in meeting the financial needs of those who currently feel socially excluded
from the financial discourse.
Researchers and mobile money service providers alike are dumbfounded with the dismal
adoption rates in Ghana given the success stories of MPESA in Kenya, and the diverse
potential benefits mobile money has to offer the poor and consumers at large. One
wonders if an intensified, concerted effort (beyond Radio/TV advertisements and Flyers)
that engenders dialogue and hands-on activities would do a better job at creating
awareness to help improve uptake in Ghana—hence a 2-day Mobile Money conference organized
under the theme; ‘Reaching the Unreached: Mobile Money Uptake in Ghana.’
The conference is aimed at exploring the role of retail agents in the provision of
mobile money services in Ghana and identifying the hindrances to the uptake of mobile
money services among the rural and urban poor in Ghana. It would thus create a forum
for retail agents, mobile money service providers, regulators, policy makers, researchers,
community leaders/organizers and consumers to interact and deliberate on the impediments
to the adoption of mobile payment systems and strategies to enhance usage.
Call for papers available
here.
See the conference program
here.
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