"As Africa's largest economy and the most populous country, Nigeria has the greatest market potential for mobile payments, but its performance is not good enough, and the penetration rate of mobile payments is not high."
After Reeves waited for the bosses to finish speaking, he continued his introduction work.
He played the PPT and said: "Currently, Kenya is the best country for mobile payment in Africa. It has stable political situation, security and pragmatic foreign policy. It is the most industrially developed country in East Africa and can be self-sufficient in 85% of daily consumer goods."
In addition, the Kenyan government attaches great importance to the development of education, and education funding has always accounted for about 20% of government fiscal expenditures. The adult literacy rate is nearly 90%, ranking among the best among African countries.
If the Nigerian government can learn from the Kenyan government, I guess Nigeria’s rise will not be far away.”
Zhang Yida smiled. He thought what Reeves said was very reasonable. At the very least, there was nothing wrong with attaching importance to education and eradicating illiteracy.
“Kenya’s M-Pesa was born in 2007. It is a mobile payment platform based on feature phones for users without bank cards developed by Kenya’s largest mobile operator Safari.
Overall, M-Pesa is more like a combination of "mobile wallet + bank card".
The mobile phone number is the payment account, and there is no need to install software or bind a bank card to complete the payment."
Shen Beipeng became interested and asked: "Without a bank card and without an APP, why does this sound a bit fantasy?"
Reeves smiled and said, "Now I will reveal the mystery to you."
After speaking, he turned the page of the PPT, and a grocery store appeared on the big screen.
It was probably the kind of grocery store in Murakami that existed in rural areas in the 1980s and 1990s. It was very dilapidated and had very few products.
Reeves said, "This is the M-Pesa agent outlet. There are 156,000 such outlets in Kenya, covering even remote mountainous areas.
Users who need remittance transfers can register for M-Pesa for free by simply entering basic information at various agent outlets and control the account on their mobile phones.
Users can convert electronic money and banknotes at agents, while M-Pesa's back-end system helps users complete off-site transfers and other services.
Any current payment scenario in China that can use Alipay and WeChat Pay has been covered by M-Pesa in Kenya. Even deposits and withdrawals that are not supported by Alipay and WeChat Pay, M-Pesa can also be completed through its outlets."
Xu Xiaoming was amused and thought it was a great invention, and asked with a smile: "Isn't this just the bank's offline branch? Is there anything strange about it?"
Shen Beipeng shook his head, "This is equivalent to the e-wallet launched by China Mobile in our country. It also has the characteristics of bank deposits, withdrawals, and transfers."
"If we do this, will those small store agents take away the money and run away?" Xu Xiaoming asked.
Reeves nodded, "It has happened before, but the security in Kenya is relatively good and the person can be caught quickly.
Over time, no one will do such stupid things."
"Why don't banks in Kenya open their own branches? Leave this matter to telecom operators."
Reeves said with a smile, “I have worked in this company for ten years and have a good understanding of Kenya’s financial level.
There are only more than 2,000 bank branches in the country, and they are positioned to serve a small number of high-end groups. About 38% of the population in Kenya have never used any financial services.
Moreover, both bank branches and ATM machines only exist in urban centers, which makes user groups living on the edge of cities and suburbs have to spend a lot of time and cost to handle banking services.
The emergence of such small shop agent outlets has greatly facilitated Kenyan citizens' access to financial services.
Nowadays, M-Pesa has its own APP, and users with smartphones have begun to use mobile phones to transfer money.
Only some users using feature phones and in remote mountainous areas continue to call agent stores to help with transfers, deposits and withdrawals.
The penetration rate of M-Pesa among adult users in Kenya is 90%, which is probably higher than any bank or mobile payment company in China."
After Zhang Yida heard this, he almost understood how M-Pesa rose.
Although this company's methods are a bit unsophisticated, they are very down-to-earth.
Ordinary people must be afraid of what to do if their money goes missing from their mobile phones, but the nearly 160,000 physical outlets have dispelled a lot of users' worries. A monk can run away but cannot run away from a temple.
In addition, these stores are also usage scenarios.
Over time, users’ usage habits are formed.
“Compared with Kenyan people who are accustomed to cashless payments, Nigerian people are more willing to believe in tangible cash notes.
They would rather go to a bank branch and queue for two hours to withdraw money under the scorching sun than use mobile payment to pay."
Reeves said solemnly, "Changing users' usage habits is the top priority!"
"We cannot copy this model."
Zhang Yida shook his head, "Many mobile operators in Nigeria are European and American foreign-funded companies, and I heard that they have a bad relationship with the Central Bank of Nigeria.
It is impossible for us to buy a telecom operator just to promote mobile payment."
Reeves nodded, "I know this. The market in Nigeria is a bit special. Users have old-fashioned ideas, which is a tough nut to crack."
The reason why I introduced Kenya and M-Pesa is that my suggestion is that Nigeria should continue to promote it at the originally planned pace and devote more energy to countries such as Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa that have higher acceptance of mobile payments.
t currently operates in 11 countries and has more than 100 million users.
If they can do it, so can we."
Zhang Yida nodded, "Okay, that's no problem. We can appropriately increase our promotion efforts in other countries."
Seeing that Zhang Yida listened to his opinions, Reeves was a little happy and introduced the consumer credit market.
"M-Shwari is a credit product that provides users with a 30-day period, a monthly rate of 7.5%, and a maximum amount of 1 million shillings (approximately 68,500 yuan). Users can apply for a loan directly on the M-Pesa page
.
M-Shwari receives 300,000 loan applications every day, and issues an average of 70,000-100,000 loans every day, with an average credit size of 3,300 Ksh. (approximately 226 yuan).
This is also a big cake, but risk control is more difficult, and the bad debt rate is as high as 10% or more.”
Loans in Africa are similar to those in Southeast Asia. Annual interest rates of several hundred percent are normal and do not violate local laws.
Zhang Yida thinks that the monthly interest rate of 7.5% is a relatively conscientious loan.
According to his understanding, the annual interest rate of OKash under Opay is as high as 730%, but it does not grant long-term loans as long as one year. Generally, it ranges from 7 to 30 days, and the daily interest rate is 2%.
Even if the interest rate is high, I heard that demand exceeds supply in Africa. It was snapped up as soon as it was launched. In the first quarter of this year, it generated more than 25 million US dollars in revenue, nearly 200 million yuan, for the US-listed company Opera.
Zhang Yida pinched his chin and wondered whether he should ask Yimindai and Yimin Wangjin to come over and provide benefits to African brothers.