I  saw a posting on banktech.com, which led to an article on Voice of America. The basic claim of the headline – that a new mobile banking service, built on top of the existing and very successful M-Pesa money transfer service, will help eliminate poverty in Africa. This new banking service is called M-Kesho (I would love to know what that means (Kesho means “tomorrow” – thanks to Mr. Njunge for that), and is intended to reach the 60% of more of Kenyans who have no access to banking services (or to savings, loans, insurance, etc.). Of course, the headline is a bit of a stretch, but the article’s contention is that these banking services (which also enable money transfers between two people) are a critical component to ending poverty. I suspect, though, that eliminating corruption, building political stability, and providing the infrastructure for commerce across the country will also be critical to making a dent in the level of poverty, in Africa and elsewhere.

Banktech article: http://www.banktech.com/blog/archives/2010/05/could_mobile_ba.html?cid=nl_bnk_daily

Voice of America article: http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Mobile-Banking-Gives-Kenyans-New-Weapon-Against-Poverty-94942564.html

I’d welcome your thoughts. If you have comments you’re willing to share publicly, please do so – thanks.

One of the ways your bank tries to protect you from loss is by calling you if it sees transactions that look suspicious. All well and good except for a couple of things:

1) Thieves who can take control of your bank account can tell the bank you have a new phone number, and then answer the calls on your behalf.

2) Banks who are smart enough to call your previous phone number if your number was recently changed can be blocked from reaching you.

A new variation, primarily applied (thus far) to high-value thefts, uses automated calling programs to call your previous numbers, delivering dead air, advertising, and other such things. The calls continue incessantly (as much as every 30 seconds for a month). This prevents the bank from checking with your old number, and allows the thief more time to convince the bank that they do have the rights to take money out of your accounts.

See the original article in Wired magazine here.