Selected publications (.pdf)

"Education Change, Leadership and the Knowledge Society" 
Global e-Schools Initiative (GeSCI)  

Survey of ICT in education in the Caribbean
Volume 1: Regional trends & analysis
Volume 2: Country reports
infoDev 

Using technology to train teachers:
Appropriate uses of ICT for
teacher professional developmen
t
 
infoDev (Mary Burns, co-author)

Project evaluation:
Uganda rural school-based telecenters

World Bank Institute
(Sara Nadel, co-author)

The Educational Object Economy:
Alternatives in authoring &
aggregation of educational software 

Interactive Learning Environments
(Purchase or subscription req'd) 

Development of multimedia resources 
UNESCO (Cesar Nunes, co-author)

Real Access/Real Impact
Teresa Peters & bridges.org
(hosted for reference; RIP TMP) 

« We are all economists now | Main | A (semi)clear position on laptops vs mobile phones (!) »
Tuesday
Mar172009

Mobile banking launches in five African countries

Tom Burgis reports in today's Financial Times:

Africa's biggest mobile phone operator yesterday launched what it hopes will become the world's largest mobile banking service,

MTN's new scheme, which follows the success of a similar Kenyan venture by Vodafone of the UK and local operator Safaricom, accelerates the provision of basic financial services to people long considered "unbankable". It uses the popularity of mobile phones to offset the absence of bank branches.

Subscribers in an initial five countries - Uganda, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria and Ivory Coast - will be able to deposit, transfer and withdraw funds on handsets.

The Johannesburg-based group is using software from Fundamo, the world's largest specialist mobile financial services company, in a deal worth $10m.

In a sign of the potential obstacles mobile companies face as they seek to wrest some banking services from financial institutions, MTN has also entered partnerships with local banks in each territory in order to meet central banks' requirements.

It will generate revenue by charging transaction fees.

MTN is also running pilots in other countries.

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