Business
Visa, MasterCard Moving Into Mobile Pay in Africa
![This Nov. 18, 2009 file photo shows credit and bank cards with electronic chips in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. In the wake of recent high-profile data breaches, including this weeks revelation that hackers stole consumer data from eBays computer systems, Visa and MasterCard are renewing a push to speed the adoption of microchips into U.S. credit and debit cards. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)](https://www.postnewsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/article-urn-publicid-ap.org-2f274108e5d247f787d3ce130958e24c-6Pn8jaaPR-HSK1-616_634x446.jpg)
This Nov. 18, 2009 file photo shows credit and bank cards with electronic chips in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)
KEN SWEET, AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Americans may just be getting used to mobile pay, but consumers in many African countries have been paying with their phones for years. Now payment processors Visa and MasterCard want to get a slice of that market, and are launching card services aimed at Africa’s growing mobile payment industry.
VISA CARD WITH A CELL PHONE
Visa is partnering with African telecommunications company Bharti Airtel to link Visa cards to customers’ mobile phones. While many Africans do not have bank accounts, most have a cell phone — sometimes more than one. Gallup estimates that 80 percent of sub-Saharan African households have a cell phone, while only 2 percent have a landline.
For the past several years, Africans have been using linking their phones to prepaid payment accounts, in order to send money to each other, pay utility bills or buy more airtime.
Now Airtel Money subscribers in Kenya will be able to get a physical Visa card tied to their mobile payment accounts, so they can use their phone’s pre-paid account to shop in stores and online wherever Visa is accepted. They can also use the Visa card at the ATM to withdraw money from their Airtel Money account. Users will enter a PIN number into their phones each time they want to approve a transaction, said Bill Gajda, a Visa executive who works with mobile network operators.
As smartphones become more common on the continent, Apple Pay-like services are likely to be introduced as well, he said.
The service will be expanded to Gabon, Ghana, Madagascar, Rwanda, Seychelles and Tanzania later this year.
EVERY EGYPTIAN TO GET A MASTERCARD
MasterCard announced a partnership with the Egyptian Government this week that will eventually attach a MasterCard to every Egyptian’s national identification card.
In Egypt, there are more cell phones than people. Mobile penetration in the country was 113 percent in 2012, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Communication. Like their sub-Saharan counterparts, a growing number of Egyptians use their cellphones as mobile payment accounts. Less than 5 percent of Egypt’s 54 million citizens have a formal bank account, according to the World Bank.
As part of the agreement with MasterCard, the government will issue digital ID cards which can be used to pay for services including government fees, mobile bills, and items in stores. It will pay salaries and social benefits through the card as well. Each Egyptian will be able to link that mobile payment account to a MasterCard number that will eventually be displayed on the ID.
MasterCard did not have a timetable for when the service will be introduced, and the company said the privacy issues related to having a national ID attached to a credit card number will still need to be resolved.
MasterCard also said it is doing mobile pay deals in Zimbabwe and Nigeria to allow certain banking customers in those countries to receive funds sent by family and friends abroad directly into mobile pay accounts. Those with companion MasterCard debit cards can then withdraw money at ATMs and pay for goods and services anywhere MasterCard is accepted.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of July 24 – 30, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 24 – 30, 2024
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Activism
Oakland Post: Week of July 17 -23, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 17 -23, 2024
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Activism
Community Celebrates Historic Oakland Billboard Agreements
We, the Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition, which includes Oakland’s six leading community health clinics, all ethnic chambers of commerce, and top community-based economic development organizations – celebrate the historic billboard agreements approved last year by the Oakland City Council. We have fought for this opportunity against the billboard monopoly, against Clear Channel, for five years. The agreements approved by Council set the bar for community benefits – nearly $70 Million over their lifetime, more than 23 times the total paid by all previous Clear Channel relocation agreements in Oakland combined.
![The Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition.](https://www.postnewsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/economic-development-corporation-featured-web.jpg)
Grand Jury Report Incorrect – Council & Community Benefit
We, the Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition, which includes Oakland’s six leading community health clinics, all ethnic chambers of commerce, and top community-based economic development organizations – celebrate the historic billboard agreements approved last year by the Oakland City Council. We have fought for this opportunity against the billboard monopoly, against Clear Channel, for five years. The agreements approved by Council set the bar for community benefits – nearly $70 Million over their lifetime, more than 23 times the total paid by all previous Clear Channel relocation agreements in Oakland combined.
Unfortunately, a recent flawed Grand Jury report got it wrong, so we feel compelled to correct the record:
- Regarding the claim that the decision was made hastily, the report itself belies that claim. The process was five years in the making, with two and a half years from the first City Council hearing to the final vote. Along the way, as the report describes, there were multiple Planning Commission hearings, public stakeholder outreach meetings, a Council Committee meeting, and then a vote by the full Council. Not only was this not hasty, it had far more scrutiny than any of the previous relocation agreements approved by the City with Clear Channel, all of which provide 1/23 of the benefits of the Becker/OFI agreements approved by the Council.
- More importantly, the agreements will actually bring millions to the City and community, nearly $70M to be exact, 23 times the previous Clear Channel relocation agreements combined. They certainly will not cost the city money, especially since nothing would have been on the table at all if our Coalition had not been fighting for it. Right before the decisive City Council Committee hearing, in the final weeks before the full Council vote, there was a hastily submitted last-minute “proposal” by Clear Channel that was debunked as based on non-legal and non-economically viable sites, and relying entirely on the endorsement of a consultant that boasts Clear Channel as their biggest client and whose decisions map to Clear Channel’s monopolistic interests all over the country. Some City staff believed these unrealistic numbers based on false premises, and, since they only interviewed City staff, the Grand Jury report reiterated this misinformation, but it was just part of Clear Channel’s tried and true monopolistic practices of seeking to derail agreements that actually set the new standard for billboard community benefits. Furthermore, our proposals are not mutually exclusive – if Clear Channel’s proposal was real, why had they not brought it forward previously? Why have they not brought it forward since? Because it was not a real proposal – it was nothing but smoke and mirrors, as the Clear Channel’s former Vice President stated publicly at Council.
Speaking on behalf of the community health clinics that are the primary beneficiaries of the billboard funding, La Clinica de la Raza CEO Jane Garcia, states: “In this case, the City Council did the right thing – listening to the community that fought for five years to create this opportunity that is offering the City and community more than twenty times what previous billboard relocation agreements have offered.”
Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition
Native American Health Center | La Clínica de la Raza | West Oakland Health Center |
Asian Health Services | Oakland LGBTQ Center | Roots Community Health Center |
The Unity Council | Black Cultural Zone | Visit Oakland |
Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce | Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce | Oakland Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce |
Oakland Latino Chamber of Commerce | Building Trades of Alameda County | (partial list) |
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