
How cash is carried across Congo - Turukawa
http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21679720-new-system-paying-civil-servants-puts-banks-through-their-paces-its-jungle-out-there
======
bradvl
Thanks for sharing. Only around 18% of adults in the world receive a salary
into an account. In places where employers have made the switch from cash to
electronic, it's not uncommon for staff to complain that they've been
overpaid, sometimes by as much as 50%.

Too much cash goes missing between employer and employee. It's expensive being
poor, but being unbanked makes it a whole lot worse.

~~~
gruez
>complain that they've been overpaid

Is that a typo?

~~~
bradvl
Not at all!

When people have been paid $x/month in cash for years and suddenly they get
paid $1.5x or $2x electronically, some honest folk have been known to complain
that the new electronic system must be broken. Whereas what has actually
happened is that now its harder for people between the employer and employee
to pocket the cash

------
Olap84
I'm surprised M-Pesa hasn't entered Congo, seems a real opportunity there for
a recognised and trusted mobile banking service.

~~~
bradvl
M-Pesa just launched in Ghana this week. I’m sure other countries will follow.
Nevertheless, there is lots of evidence to suggest that it’s not necessarily a
silver bullet. While it did work really well in Kenya, Safaricom and Vodafone
have had a lot of difficulty replicating it elsewhere.

You could reasonably argue that it has barely been successful outside Kenya.
Part of the problem relates to the unique market position they had at the time
of launch in Kenya. With more than 60% market share, their policy of keeping
it as a walled garden (their economic rationale for launching MPesa at the
time was that it was actually a retention tool for customers and so opening it
up didn’t make sense to them) didn’t reduce its usefulness.

In other markets where they have more ‘normal’ market shares, this walled
garden approach has really impacted their ability to expand. As anyone that
has tried to launch a new social network will tell you, network effects, when
they’re against you are a bitch to overcome. Having a balance in a MPesa
wallet, doesn’t mean much if only 1 in 5 of your friends also have an MPesa
wallet and you can’t send it to any of the other 4.

MPesa is a great tool for banking the unbanked and it is definitely the most
famous example, but it’s not going to solve the problem elsewhere as
successfully as it has in Kenya. It may be part of the solution though and I
think it would be great if they could try.

~~~
tinco
For M-Pesa you also need mobile phone coverage, I think if the only way to get
to a place is by canoe, then there's probably no cellular coverage either.

I was just thinking how impossible it seems to get internet covered over the
green heart of Africa, but perhaps that's just not the solution (right now).
Perhaps a cryptographic sneaker net would work.

If the accountants travel with RFID powered 'credit' cards pre-authorized to
ID's then they themselves don't have to bear any risks. The only thing you
need then is to supply every village with a RFID reading trading platform
(could be a phone or a laptop) to enable digital trades.

~~~
motoboi
Google loons seems to attack this problem by having high altitude ballons that
drift on the wind, but can keep their approximated position using air
currents.

By not using a wired backhaul, seems possible to get to those remote areas.

------
majani
Sounds dystopian, even for me who lives in neighboring Kenya.

------
RP_Joe
The article did not tell me how cash was carried.

