The Invisible Bank: How Kenya Has Beaten the World in Mobile Money

Re:The Invisible Bank: How Kenya Has Beaten the World in Mob... by ramabk on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @09:37AM (#4199362)

In Africa, many homes do not have electricity but increasingly everyone has a cell phone. Prepaid cell phone minutes have become a defacto currency in many African countries. Africans are in many ways more acclimated with using privately issued digital currencies (such as M-PESA)...

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Re:The Invisible Bank: How Kenya Has Beaten the World in Mob... by tome on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @09:52AM (#4199402)

Where do they charge their phones? Are portable hand-powered generators common, like wind-up radios?

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Re:The Invisible Bank: How Kenya Has Beaten the World in Mob... by ramabk on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @10:00AM (#4199426)

http://www.viewchange.org/videos/kenyan-solution-for-chargin...

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Re:The Invisible Bank: How Kenya Has Beaten the World in Mob... by pgeorgi on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @10:37AM (#4199560)

video2text: They extend the light machine on bicycles with just enough circuitry to make it suitable as a charger.

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Re:The Invisible Bank: How Kenya Has Beaten the World in Mob... by JonnieCache on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @12:06PM (#4199868)

Hooking up a bicycle dynamo to charge your phone is a popular african hack: http://www.ted.com/talks/william_kamkwamba_on_building_a_win...

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Re:The Invisible Bank: How Kenya Has Beaten the World in Mob... by slurgfest on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @11:24AM (#4199728)

An unreliable grid, car batteries can also store off-grid power, fancy people have generators

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