http://ghaleedadams.co.za/2011/09/neteller-online-payments-made-easy/

I’ve been ‘hanging out’ in East Africa (mainly Kenya) for the past 5 years from Canada & I just have to say that M-PESA rocks!! You won’t find this in Sillicon Valley or in Japan folks! I gotta take my hats off to Safaricom for really delivering the goods. I went to buy some aloe vera juice @ the supplement store the other day in downtown Nairobi and paid the cashier with M-PESA.

When I was coming back from Arusha, Tanzania a month ago, I sent the Riverside Shuttle (based in Nairobi) my payment via M-PESA. I just put in my Safaricom sim (they roam with Vodacom Tanzania), went to my M-PESA menu & sent the funds to Johnstone at Riverside Shuttle. He then told the office in Arusha to give me a ticket the next day. Ya can’t do that in America, Canada, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Russia or China.

What’s most amazing about M-PESA though is that I can use ANY bank’s ATM to get cash. I go to the “ATM Withdrawal” screen on my phone, then enter the agent# for the bank (Equity Bank is 286286). I then receive a 6 digit transaction code from M-PESA that I must use within 2 hours.

There’s a soft button on all bank ATM that says “MPESA”…no need to have an ATM bank card. I click that, enter my 6 digit code, plus my mobile # and then choose how much money I want to withdraw from my remaining M-PESA balance.
As soon as the cash comes out of the ATM, an sms is sent to me about the transaction. Didn’t need a friggin ATM bank card at all!!

This is truly going to transform East Africa. Vodacom TZ has M-PESA (not as slick as Safaricom’s version in Kenya), AirTel has Zap which is also pretty good. Orange, Tigo and Yu and other mobile players all have mobile money services with agents throughout the region.

What gives me orgasms about M-PESA & other similar services is that the greedy banks don’t CONTROL anything at all. It’s all done using the mobile network. Equity Bank & Safaricom teamed up to create a mobile bank account called M-KESHO. You don’t ever have to go to a bank but your money is virtual and you can withdraw it from any Equity Bank ATM or use it to pay for goods or services via M-PESA. Lots of poor people (and savvy citizens) are getting M-KESHO accounts further giving the finger to the greedy banks. I LOVE it!!!

Word on the street is that Safaricom/Vodacom UK is trying to get M-PESA to be seamless so that Kenyans working abroad can send money (they send back about $600 million per year) via their mobile phones. This will literally screw Western Union, MoneyGram and the expensive FOREIGN banks…and I love the thought of that.

The CCK (Communications Commission of Kenya) is soon going to make it mandatory that all mobile money systems be able to “transact” with each other.

So, if I’m an Airtel subscriber using their Zap mobile money, I should be able to send money to a mobile # (say Orange Kenya, Safaricom or Yu) without having to be a member of the other network. This is POWERFUL stuff that’s gonna send the greedy banks packing.

What can be simpler than to open an account for my CC and give me the right card to link to Paypal?

Every time they give me the wrong card to link to Paypal, and the cycle starts again.

I have even phoned the Paypal helpline in SA and given FNB staff the correct information, and alas, it has taken me three weeks to get my account connected and it still is not done.

This is even after screaming at FNB “customer” or is it “victim” help line. They jumped on the local manager and the whole situation is still in the toilet.

My internet activities are suffering because of this I have lost deals for quite a bit
because of the incompetence of FNB and my inability to accept Paypal.

I have had both business and personal accounts with ABSA and Standard bank now for many years, and never a hiccup.

I have decided to give FNB until Friday 18/06/2010 close of business and should they not have things sorted out I will go over to Alertpay and close all the useless accounts they so kindly opened for me