January 31, 2011
In Haiti, Cell Phones Serve As Debit Cards
The past year in Haiti has been marked by the slow pace of the earthquake recovery. But the poorest nation in the hemisphere is moving quickly on something else — setting up "mobile money" networks to allow cell phones to serve as debit cards. npr reports.
The systems have the potential to allow Haitians to receive remittances from abroad, send cash to relatives across town or across the country, buy groceries and even pay for a bus ride all with a few taps on their cell phones.
Larousse Dorcent runs a small grocery store from a shipping container in a dusty slum above the Haitian port city of Saint Marc. Pigs and chickens wander freely through the neighborhood. It looks like a place that technology forgot — except that for the past two months, customers at Dorcent's shop have been able to pay by cell phone.
Dorcent punches a code into his own phone. Instantly he gets a message showing that he has 41,000 gourdes, or just over $1,000, in his account.
Dorcent says he likes that customers can pay from their phones straight to his.
"The first good reason I can give is when you're handling a lot of liquid cash, it's also being handled by a whole lot of other people throughout the country," he says. "And these days, with cholera, it's safer to not be in contact with currency that's making its way throughout the country."
What's happening here in Saint Marc is a test program for the T-Cash service that is being launched by the phone company Voila.
Read full article.
Related:
-- Looking to cell phones to deliver aid in Africa - Workers in Niger are testing a system that allows people to store credits on cellphones and transfer the money to vendors to buy things like millet and rice.
-- Food vouchers on Cell Phones for Syrian refugees - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has launched an electronic food voucher pilot project to aid 1,000 Iraqi refugee families in Syria.
-- Mama Mikes, offers mobile vouchers to Kenyans and Ugandans - Mama Mikes is an online store catering to Africans who live abroad. The virtual online store allows them to purchase gifts (chocolates, flowers, text books, electronics...), vouchers (food, electricity), and services (airtime, tuition) for their family, friends and loved ones based at home.
Buying rice with your cell phone - Mercy Corps, is providing food for people in St.-Marc Haiti who have taken in earthquake survivors. The US government-financed program will be pushing a button once a month, and $40 will automatically go into each person’s cellphone savings account — redeemable at local merchants for rice, corn flour, beans or cooking oil.
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