25 Aug Criteria for Successful Online and Mobile Payment Penetration in Africa

Posted at 11:58h

It is important for multinational merchants wanting to expand to Africa to choose their countries and online and mobile payment methods carefully. For example Nigeria has more than 17 mobile money payment methods to choose from.

How would a global merchant remotely choose the most appropriate mobile payment method for their eCommerce business. For that matter how would they even know that mobile payment methods are ideally suitable. Taking Nigeria as a case in point, the top priority for eCommerce payment in Nigeria is actually local debit card with pin. Mobile payment methods are a distant second for implementation.

The key factor for success is market dominance and interoperability by a mobile payment method as is the case for M-Pesa in Kenya. The recent project in Nigeria to link a MasterCard to the national ID document rollout to 170m people could be an interesting development to watch.

East Africa is advancing with their EU type monetary union for Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi and Kenya. African Payment Solutions is linked for eCommerce and mCommerce payment in local currency with local payment methods in Kenya and Rwanda.

Some reasons for the fast and successful rollout of mobile and online payment in African countries are as follows:

  • The mobile payment methods are low tech, simple, cheap which allows them to achieve significant market penetration.
  • African mobile payment solutions have been allowed to develop in line with the unique requirements of each country.
  • There has been good cooperation between governments, banks, and telcos in building and implementation of mobile payment solutions which has benefited them all

Africa has set an example for the rest of the world on how putting heads together and partnering for solution provision can arrive at disrupting innovative technologies that transform nations and economies achieving leapfrogging developments for its inhabitants.

Developed market merchants can now enjoy a network of African online payment methods through a single integration to African Payment Solutions

Our thanks to http://www.bobsguide.com/guide/news/2015/Sep/11/africa-a-case-study-in-problem-solving-payments-innovation.html for their content inspiration