:: The Park Paradigm ::

Markets for the Digital Generation

Robert Metcalfe in Forbes (free but you need to register):

The network effect is expanding the collective intelligence of the human race. We can hope that on the whole we humans are getting smarter by the square of some very large numbers. It’s enough to make one optimistic.

Share This

I am fascinated by the application of modern information and communications technologies to help improve the lives of some of the world’s poorest and ‘infrastructurally challenged’ (don’t know if this term has been used before but seems to encompass the fundamental problem that holds back the people in developing countries from improving their economic prospects.) To be able to succeed (in providing meaningful, affordable, services) in such challenging environments to my mind offers great insights into how improvements can be made to how services are designed and sold in any environment - including the developed and wealthy western markets. A variation on the New York, NY theme of - ‘if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere’…

While I have written previously on the impact of mobile telephony on the developing world, and I will try not to repeat myself too blatantly, I thought it was worth highlighting a few more initiatives that have caught my attention over the last few weeks.

Bruno (a prolific source of new and interesting people and ideas) in reporting on the recent TED 2007 conference pointed me in the direction of Jan Chipchase’s post on the Village Phone initiative in Uganda:

the Village Phone extends regular base station cellular coverage from around 15 kilometers to around 30 kilometers through the use of a village phone kit - an antenna and ten meter cable (shown above) and a coupler (shown below) connected to a regular Nokia 1100 mobile phone plus of course, a micro-finance loan. The net result? In a number of cases it provides the first convenient, reliable and affordable connectivity to the outside world for many rural communities as well as providing a stable income for the local entrepreneur that takes out the loan.

He also goes on to mention the development of essential services facilitated by access to mobile communications:

One example of the benefits of connectivity? Sente - the transfer of money via mobile phone that essentially also extends regular banking services such as the remittance of cash to these communities.

Another exciting initiative I stumbled accross (at the excellent Timbuktu Chronicles) is Sevak Solutions “commitment of developing the product specifications, business plans, and financial requirements to create an open architecture transaction system [for microfinance institutions.]” Rather than paraphrase, Sevak Solutions describe themselves as follows:

Sevak Solutions is a start-up initiative that has emerged from a consortium of microfinance institutions seeking to understand the role technology could play in scaling microfinance. Early work demonstrated a need for alternative, low-cost transaction solutions and business models that addressed the needs of microfinance institutions that do not have the client volumes required to afford, or piggy-back on, existing payment systems. Sevak Solutions is focused on interoperability, open architecture systems that can connect to cell phones, point-of-sale terminals, ATMs, or any other access devices available in the market. The company performs its own in-country research and development, supports technology innovators that are attempting to enter the market, and provides strategic and implementation consulting on a global basis. Sevak Solutions is interested in promoting a set of technologies and migratory path for microfinance institutions and microfinance banks to expand their reach to the unbanked.

So here is a non-profit organization focused on developing open-source solutions in order to open access to the formal global financial system to anyone, anywhere, irrespective of their wealth. Bringing banking to the unbanked. Historically one of the great impediments to economic progress has been the lack of a cost-effective and robust financial infrastructure, Sevak seems to be taking direct aim at contributing significantly to solving this problem. I hope they succeed. Will they build the equivalent of Linux or Wordpress for banking/transaction processing? I hope so, I will certainly try to follow their progress and they are definitely on my ‘find out more’ list.

As if it weren’t long enough already, another initiative that bounced on to my ‘find out more’ list earlier this year when I read about it in the Economist is TradeNet, a new mobile2mobile trading platform for farmers and traders in Africa founded by Mark Davies:

TradeNet, a software company based in Accra, Ghana, will unveil a simple sort of eBay for agricultural products across a dozen countries in west Africa. It lets buyers and sellers indicate what they are after and their contact information, which is sent to all relevant subscribers as an SMS text message in one of four languages. Interested parties can then reach others directly to do a deal.

Listing offers is free, as is receiving the texts. TradeNet plans to earn revenue by putting advertisements in the messages, though it hopes the service will become so useful that recipients will eventually want to pay. For the moment, though, the company is busy signing up users and swallowing the cost of sending the messages.

I have to admit this is one of those ‘I-wish-I-had-done-that’ companies. The potential for this kind of platform seem to me to be enormous. I’ll leave it at that for now. Very exciting stuff.

Share This

An interesting new marketing campaign by the french mutual bank Credit Mutuel is based around a website www.sijetaisbanquier.com (ie www.ifIwereabanker.com); a classic drive to solicit customer feedback but making good use of the internet and the idea (especially relevant for a mutual) of community.

The website is a bit too ‘traditional marketing look-and-feel’ for my tastes, but on the other hand might well play better to their target constituency who may well not be familiar or comfortable with a proper Web2.0/social software type approach. The website is also supported by a significant mass media campaign, in particular television (you can watch the ads on the website.)

In any event, scrolling through the ideas submitted, there are many good ones, most of these relying on nothing more than common sense but nonetheless hardly or never applied in retail banking to date. But that is exactly the point. Will be interesting to see what this leads to in terms of new products or services and if it improves their market position. As everyone knows, getting people to change banks (unless they are actually stealing from you) is bloody nigh well impossible!

(btw all these links are obviously in French.)

Share This