Peter Asolo is chief executive officer, PetVini Global Concept Limited, a mobile payment solution provider – cross-border remittances and m-commerce.
Asolo was an assistant general manager, GistMe Communications limited, a sister company of Sage Metrix Company of USA where he was in charge of the Mobile Payment and e-Solution deployments to banks.
He later moved to FinBank as the product manager, FlashmeCash, the pioneer mobile banking/payment product in Nigeria.
Asolo spoke to peter ugwu highlighting the ingenuities lacking at the present mobile money scheme in Nigeria and the way forward.
Challenges Surrounding Mobile Money
Having done some innovative projects in regards to mobile money, which include the first mobile wallet in Africa, which allows you to transfer money and the receiver can withdraw the money using ATM card; I can tell you vividly that mobile money is visible.
But we have a lot of challenges and as we must look for solutions to them there are underlying factors we must put into consideration.
This is Nigeria. If I am talking to a Briton in England, I will tell them different strategies than I will tell a Nigerian.
Because I have been to the 36 states of this country and went to the rural areas. And I have hands-on experience, working collaboratively with the Microfinance banks and have seen several corporative societies liaising with them.
So, I know what it means when you say that you are targeting the rural population. You are talking of people that are able to save as much as N100 or N50 per day.
However, if anybody walks into the banking hall today and fills a deposit slip for N50, I am sure the cashier will laugh at him, and this is what we want to achieve. So, it is not a game for the banks, rather it solely concerns the mobile operators. But the mobile operators cannot do it all alone.
They need experienced hands, specialties, who knew the terrains. Experts who can tell you about strategy that can work, probably in Kogi State.
For instance, if you want to do mobile payment in Anyingba, Kogi State, you need to know the core product(s) in the area. There are three core products there; I am not from Kogi State, but in the course of my moving around to know those areas I discovered that such products, namely, cashew nuts, palm kernel and soya beans are selling there, which is different from what is obtainable in Akwa Ibom State.
When you get to Akwa Ibom, you start looking at what to use as incentives, which is quite different from the other parts of the country.
It is very important we understand this. So, in reality we have to use home-groomed technologies, ideologies and strategies to win our home-groomed challenges, but that is not the case in the country today.
The mobile operators we are seeing presently, most of them bought their applications from abroad running into millions of dollars and you want to use it to carry out business with people who may not pay more than N5 per transaction. There are issues already.
However, these issues can be resolved by engaging the third party organisations, who are experts in mobile money management system.
Are They Agents?
They are not really agents. For every successful project, there is what we call catalyst. These people are catalysts that will make the success of the project become faster, because they have the experiences.
They have been to the bushes; so they know, if I go to Bayelsa to sell mobile money, as an instant, I have to cue-in into the system there.
One thing is clear, CBN talks about financial inclusion, if they take it serious they will not only generate employment, but reduce poverty among Nigerians by enabling micro-savings.
Through that process, you start talking about micro-credit. From micro-credits we start talking of micro-products. And when products are being carried out in the rural area you will find out that the entire production in Nigeria, in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), will increase.
Ostensibly, as the GDP increases, the living standard of Nigerians will increase.
It is a very simple arithmetic in increasing the living standard, increasing GDP equals to people plus opportunity saved which is equally to production equals to investment and once investment is there forget it, life will improve and there will be incentives for savings. And gradually you are moving away from solely dependence on crude oil.
Microfinance Banks, Capitalization and Mobile Money
On the aphorism that microfinance banks’ capitals determine the kind of business they will do, as an economist, financial expert and as a consultant I defer.
I kept telling people that you do not use textbook knowledge to drive business. Nigerians believe so much in textbook theories and that is why we keep having a lot of failures in our economic projects.
From personal experience, there was a time I was prospecting for the entire microfinance banks in Anambra State for one of our projects. I found out that the microfinance bank that has the smallest office has the highest number of depositors.
That is the microfinance bank that does not have air conditioner in their offices. They have the highest number of depositors, because that bank was able to understand its market.
Microfinance bank market is not for a man that earns N10 million per annum; it is for the micro-savers, the isusu people, how do you integrate them into financial inclusion. How do you bring them into insurance? Save N100 per day?
And in that process, how do you enable them to carry out the commercialised agriculture with their savings. And to enable you recoup your money at the end of the day is that he sells off the agricultural products.
How do you plan for all these? That is what we should be talking about now as the ideal thing.
The micro-savers constitute over 60% of Nigeria’s population. So if you say you want to improve on the GDP, production coming from these people to go up to 50 %, indirectly you are shooting up the GDP of the Federal Government of Nigeria to over 50% increase.
With that you will able to have funds for other projects and investment opportunities created while people live better lives. Through that, you reduce crime and problems in the society.
Local Technologies in Mobile Money Implementation
Nigerians are thinking and are bringing out a lot of technologies that will solve the issues in mobile payment.
Mobile payment operators are not buying into these technologies rather they prefer to go abroad and purchase foreign technologies. Now, if you buy from abroad, the technologies sell as high as $1million, which is not less than N150 million.
The same technology you are buying for N150 million that you cannot customise and adapt successfully in our local market situation.
When I say market, I mean the ‘Nkwo’, ‘orie’, ‘Eke’ markets in the East, the Oba’s markets in the Western part of Nigeria, and other local markets in the North, they cannot work there; whereas you have same technology that can perform better in the same market and sold for less than N20 million.
They will not buy that because it is made in Nigeria. It does not make sense. By the time we start patronising locally produced technologies then things will get better.
Another thing we should look at is when there are challenges or opportunities for maintenance, the source codes are not usually within reach.
You have to wait, make calls; the time waste is there, you have to wait for the supposedly experts who will probably wait for visa, how will business improve under that condition? Will your customers be waiting for over two weeks?
We have developed that notion that if I am coming to present a technology to a company and not accompanied by a White man, we assume that the technology is inferior.
The country should move beyond that. I go for presentations today and I tell the companies that I have only White partners who can produce the hardware, but the software is here. I do them myself, source the code and other things involved; I do not have to wait for technical experts to come and do the work when challenges arise.
Definitely technical matters will arise, because we are dealing with technology. If you have issues with the machines, I ought to be there in about 20 minutes or my staff, to fix the challenge and allow business continues…
…But That May Be Pointing At Lack Of Confidence Or Trust On The Locally Produced Technologies?
In fact, any Nigerian company that is patronising foreign companies should first ask themselves the question of trust.
There is more affinity when you patronise local companies; you know my house, my company, and you know what to do in a given occasion, even security wise. But when you go and bring in a White man, for all I know, that man may be working as an intelligent officer in one of the intelligent agencies in his country.
A lot of espionage is going on in this country that we are not monitoring. But we wouldn’t know we have allowed these people to infiltrate our ranks.
They send these technologies to us we set it up and begin to use it as they have instructed us. We do not know what they are doing behind the walls. But in Nigeria I do not have another country that I will call my own.
Integration of Local Content in Technology-Drive Policies
Well, when we refer to CBN, technology and local content, it all depends on local content policy-makers.
If CBN looks at it that today, these things are not working, we need local experts to chart a course for the mobile payment then they will be thinking right.
But one will be surprised that CBN will overlook this. There is an urgent need to integrate competent individuals in the formulation of certain economic blueprints for the country.
Role of Banks in the Mobile Money Scheme
The banks need to call-in experts; local experts. Enough of the international this and that; we need people who understand the market. This is a local market, business and local challenge.
Thus, when the local experts are intimated and incorporated into the system, they will provide charitable frameworks for them. From that framework they can look at their investment pattern and strategy formulation.
Many believe the country is not ready for mobile money, but the truth is that we are very ripe for it.
The country is ready for any new thing especially that will enable the poor man put food on the table in his house.
That is why I said that banks or the policy makers should consider that farmer whose interest is how to make his farmer get enlarged and increase productivity. They will embrace any platform that will support that.
That is why I spoke about grants being given by international agencies, they are not used for the purposes they were received; rather you see them taking flights to America to organise or attend training.
Are you going to America to train on fishing in Baylesa or how to grow cocoa in Ondo State? No! At the end of the day, they squander the money.
This must stop. They must come to the local front and take develop pilot schemes in the various areas.
They can say, we want to grow cocoa in a part of Ondo State for three years, give us grant. And the money is used on that. When the neighbouring towns see appreciable gains from that, they will queue into it…
Volatility of Communities and Projects
Let’s face the fact, and like I said earlier, I have gone round the 36 States of this country. I do not see any volatility anywhere that people are rioting against their stomach. Nobody fights his tummy.
The moment they discover that the said project is going to favour them, they will support you. I have been to the creeks in Ondo, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa; personal experience shows me that there is threat anywhere. There may be Boko Haram attacks in the North, but if the Federal Government should intensify effort, move in to identify the solution, it will abate or die completely. But that does not mean we should hide under some pretence not to do the right thing. You have to empower those people and stem down the weight of violence.