Business Former Barclays CEO could face 10 year prison stint for fraud in 2008 crisis

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No More Banana Phones: How the Smartphone Revolution is Changing the Fight Against Global Poverty
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Former Barclays CEO could face 10 year prison stint for fraud in 2008 crisis

Posted: 07 Jan 2019 06:33 AM PST

submitted by /u/SuccessfulOperation
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U.S. Supreme Court rejects Exxon in climate change document fight

Posted: 07 Jan 2019 06:53 AM PST

submitted by /u/stoneycraven
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No More Banana Phones: How the Smartphone Revolution is Changing the Fight Against Global Poverty

Posted: 07 Jan 2019 09:52 PM PST

Spend any time in the slums of Nairobi, or rural Bangladesh and it is hard not to be struck by the proliferation of mobile phones. Many of the poorest households, often without access to electricity or running water, will own a cell phone. Many of the poorest countries in the world are in the midst of a telecommunications revolution that is putting some of the most advanced technology into the hands of the poorest people in the world. Today's podcast episode will cover the cheap smartphone manufacturers that are making smartphones to more and more people in Africa, the growth of mobile telephony in Somalia despite the country's lawlessness and anarchy, and how the rise of the M-Pesa mobile money platform is transforming the lives of ordinary Kenyans.

Most of the listeners of this podcast, especially those living in wealthy nations, have never heard of Transsion, a China based smartphone maker. However, Transsion phones are ubiquitous in sub-Saharan Africa where Transsion had a market share of around 30%. Transsion has succeeded in Africa in part through offering smartphones are rock bottom prices. The cheapest models can cost as little as $80. Transsion can offer such cheap phones in part because of their willingness to accept low profit margins. Apple earns a profit of $184 per phone, Samsung earns $23 per phone, while Transsion earns less than $2. However, Transsion has also succeeded in creating phones well suited to meet the needs of the African environment. Transsion smartphones have long battery lives and can withstand the rugged environment like the feature phones that Transsion directly competes against. Transsion camera phones are calibrated to darker African skins. Moreover, Transsion is increasingly an African company. The overwhelming majority of Transsion's employees are in Africa with R&D facilities in Kenya and Nigeria, and a phone assembly plant in Nigeria.

Mobile phones are of little value without reliable and affordable service. Few places seem less hospitable for modern telephony than Somalia. The country has had no functioning central government since 1992, and is consumed by civil war and famine. However, Somalia has a thriving mobile phone industry, with data prices and phone quality much higher than in some neighboring countries. A recent World Bank study found that Somalia has the cheapest mobile phone rates in Africa, and the same bundle of cell phone services that costs $2.53 in Somalia costs $6.16 in Nigeria and $14.75 in Burkina Faso. The collapse of Somalia's central government also meant the collapse of national telecommunications monopoly, allowing competition to thrive in mobile telephony. A cell phone tower costs only $100,000 and requires little technical expertise to operate. Fierce competition has emerged between telecom companies, and the major telecommunications are highly profitable companies that dominate the Somali economy. Mobile telephony thrives in Somalia because it does not rely upon capable governments or strong institutions. Landlines hardly extended outside of the capital before 1992 because landlines required high fixed investments in cables connecting every house. Many Somalis were not connected to the infrastructure network, or lived nomadic lives landlines and as a result landlines had little utility. No such cables are required for cell phones, and a unspoken agreement agreement has emerged between the mobile phone operators and militias that allow cell phone towers to operate unmolested so long as they pay taxes and fees to these militias.

The rapid growth of mobile phone penetration in Africa has allowed for the development of new business models, that are often superior to those found in more advanced nations. M-Pesa is a mobile money system similar to paypal or venmo although M-Pesa can be accessed via any phone with text capabilities. M-Pesa was launched in 2007. Today, M-Pesa has 30 million users, and 96% of all households have at least one person using M-Pesa. Approximately $30 billion were transacted through M-Pesa, or about one fifth of all transactions in Kenya. To understand why M-Pesa is so popular, it must be understood that less than one fifth of all people had access to formal banking before M-Pesa. The average family live 9 km away from a bank branch, and fees and mininum balances made formal banking out of reach of most families. M-Pesa acts as a building block for greater financial services including M-Shwari, a full fledged bank that offers interest rates on deposits and loans to Kenyan consumers. Greater access to financial services has transformed the lives of many Kenyans. For example, it has allowed fisherwomen along Lake Victoria to avoid having to carry and store large amounts of cash payments, and allowed them to entrust the selling of fish to agents rather than having to travel with the fist to market. M-Pesa has allowed an estimated 194,000 households out of poverty, and allowed 186,000 women start their own businesses. Kenyans have adopted M-Pesa because of the lack of pre-existing financial infrastructure, and have turned this disadvantage into an advantage.

It is easy to think of technology as something that is developed in top secret department of defense labs and by Silicon Valley startups for the benefit of people in wealthy nations. However, Internet and Communications Technology often makes up a larger share of GDP for poorer nations than in wealthier ones. The need for ICT technologies is higher in the poorest countries, and many of these technologies can function reasonably well even in nations with poor institutional environments. Global telecommunications is making it increasingly possible for people in the developing world to take their economic futures into their own hands.