Free Mobile-to-Mobile Money Transmission Revolutionizes Trade Between the Poorest in Africa
TS-5147

For technologists, there can be no finer cause than using technology to enable the poor to help themselves. African poverty is legendary. Aid can never be the substitute for the long-term answer, which is to increase trade between people. Trade generates profit, and profit is the true antidote to hunger and poverty.

Bekoz is a private organization specializing in rapid, low-cost money transmission across international borders. A chance conversation with Sun's Java Card technology team led to the development of a mobile money transmission application running in a Java Card technology-based SIM card in a mobile phone. This provides the identification and authentication necessary for one mobile user to instantly send money to another mobile user and thus forms the basis of payment for goods and services. All communication is handled by the mobile handset, and a stack of Sun servers running the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) provides the back-office infrastructure necessary to provide the service.

However, it is not the technology but the business model that is truly revolutionary, in that Bekoz intends to offer the service for free for both users and merchants. This is not a philanthropic gesture by Bekoz but rather a conscious decision for business growth. The company has already signed agreements with 3 countries in Africa, and another 10 are under negotiation. The rapid deployment timetable could see 10 million users in its first year. Needless to say, the idea is attracting a great deal of interest from the World Bank and others who share a concern for the plight of the world's poor.

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