Lecturer to head taskforce on Mobile Banking in Kenya

Left to right: Jessica Colaco, Sam Imende, and Tonny Omwansa at the workshop in Kampala, Uganda

Mr Tonny Omwansa, a lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology will head a taskforce that will explore financial integration in Kenya using M-Transactions, a mobile phone based platform that would link all banks, mobile operators and merchants in the country.

The platform developed using a grant provided by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and The Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (SPIDER) has been successfully deployed in Sri-Lanka. Other East African countries including Rwanda have task forces that will work towards implementing the platform. If it succeeds, it would be possible to do regional transactions via mobile phones simply by sending instructions that trigger bank to bank transactions. This technology is not tied to any mobile operator or bank.

Mr Omwansa was picked to chair the taskforce at a workshop on Advance mobile applications development in East Africa. The workshop funded by the SIDA was held at Protea Hotel in Kampala between 5th and 6th November. It also analyzed Mobile Applications for Development (M4D) in East Africa.

Mr Omwansa chaired a session on Mobile Banking at the workshop. He noted that less than 20 million of East Africa's 100 million people were financially included (banked). He added that M-Banking and M-Transaction have increased access to financial services across the region.

The famous example of M-PESA was used to expound on how the financially excluded can be reached. The service has close to four million subscribers one year after it was launched and the subscriber base continues to grow with 10,000 new registrations daily. Over KShs 100 million circulates in the system in a day. In July 2008 alone, KShs 21 billion was transferred in the system. Currently over 80% of Kenyans are aware of the technology.

Tanzania is following closely but Uganda is yet to significantly adopt mobile technologies for financial services. The session recommended exploration of collaborations to develop regional financial integration thus the formation of the M-Transactions taskforces. Other issues discussed in the workshop included M-Agriculture and M-Health.