http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2006/06/19/cell-phone-banking-and-the-bop-wizzit Comments for "Cell Phone Banking and the BOP: Wizzit" en http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2006/06/19/cell-phone-banking-and-the-bop-wizzit#comment-775 For those who don't yet read <a href="http://psdblog.worldbank.org/psdblog">PSD Blog</a>, add it to your RSS feeds right away. I'm skimming through their archives this morning and am reminded of a <a href="http://psdblog.worldbank.org/psdblog/2006/06/mobile_banking_.html">story on mobile banking</a> written by Christine. She mentions WIZZIT, as well as NextBillion regulars CelPay, G-Cash, Smart Money, and M-Pesa. Her commentary is illustrative of what you'll often find at PSD:<br/><br/><i>What are the primary obstacles to m-banking's further expansion? Lack of interoperability of telecom systems is one. This may explain why mobile banking hasn’t really taken off in Latin America. A bigger challenge is regulation. M-banking perks regulators’ ears in a number of fields: e-commerce, payment systems, competition, deposit taking, telecommunications, consumer protection and AML-CFT (anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism). Stephen Mwaura Nduati from the Central Bank of Kenya, who is the most dynamic regulator I’ve ever seen, proposes fast-tracking payment system-related legislation in every country.</i><br class="clear" /> Tue, 20 Jun 2006 07:56:19 -0500 Rob Katz comment 775 at http://www.nextbillion.net http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2006/06/19/cell-phone-banking-and-the-bop-wizzit <p style="padding: 5px; float: right;"><img src="http://www.nextbillion.net/files/images/WizzitAdvert.img_assist_custom.jpg" alt="" title="" class="image img_assist_custom" width="125" height="72" /></p>Driving to <a href="http://www.wolftrap.org">Wolftrap</a> this past Friday, a story on NPR’s <a href="http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/06/16/PM200606168.html">Marketplace</a> prompted me to turn up the volume – the national business media was covering <a href="http://www.wizzit.co.za/">WIZZIT</a>, a South African cell phone banking firm that NextBillion has <a href="/activitycapsule/wizzit">covered</a> <a href="/newsroom/2005/09/20/wizz-kids-take-cellphone-banking-local-in-sa">extensively</a> in the past. For the uninitiated, WIZZIT is a 1-year-old start-up changing the face of South African banking. Their low-cost cell phone debit service, which comes with a funky Maestro debit card, has quickly developed what the <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/200509190163.html">Mail and Guardian</a> calls a “cult status” in poor townships. Marketplace’s Gretchen Wilson describes how it works:<br class="clear" /><p><a href="http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2006/06/19/cell-phone-banking-and-the-bop-wizzit">read more</a></p> http://www.nextbillion.net/blogs/2006/06/19/cell-phone-banking-and-the-bop-wizzit#comment Financial Services Telecommunications and IT Remittances Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:34:14 -0500 Rob Katz 2880 at http://www.nextbillion.net