
Kenya’s M-Pesa has helped the poor, and the economy, while turning a profit - davidderhy
http://fortune.com/2016/12/10/mobile-banking-poverty-research/
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MarkMc
> It seems safe to assume, then, that the services are having similar effects
> in poverty reduction and economic development around the world.

I'm not so sure. M-pesa-like services haven't really achieved a critical mass
in India, for example.

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sandGorgon
for a simple reason - credit.

India works a trillion dollar economy on a lot of unstructured credit
products. One of them (semi illegal) is hawala.

The other is cash-on-delivery. Almost 4 billion dollars of India's ecommerce
works on cash on delivery.

Including Uber - in India, you dont pay for Uber until the NEXT TIME you take
a cab!

~~~
vinay427
> in India, you dont pay for Uber until the NEXT TIME you take a cab!

Since when has this been an option? Earlier this year when I used Uber in
India I either used cash payments at the end of the trip or credit/debit card
as in other countries.

~~~
sandGorgon
add a credit card. Because of the two factor requirement, you _cannot_ be
charged until you put in a pin.

Uber does not ask you for this. It gamifies it so that the next time you use
Uber, it reminds you to first _pay the previous bill_ before you use it again.

