The system is already available to over 28 million bank account owners, even though there are plenty of people with no access to such services, themerkle.com reports. The solution can be used from both smart and feature phones to have increased availability.
This news comes at a time during which electronic payments are starting to take off in the country. As is the case with any successful venture, however, certain issues need to be addressed. For example, the number of Point of Sale Terminals in the country is much lower than financial experts would like to see.
The lack of success of POS terminals is easy to explain; high costs, a devaluing national currency, and poor GPRS infrastructure which make it very difficult to operate these machines. On top of that, there are high participation fees, leaving very little breathing room for store owners to make a profit. In fact, some merchants go so far as to claim that owning a POS terminal in Nigeria is outright unprofitable.
mCash heavily relies on having access to a bank account which will exclude a big part of the country’s population and, as such, financial inclusion should be the top priority. So far, it seems that Bitcoin and cash remain the two only options providing financial inclusion to all Nigerians equally.
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