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Comment by levismaina

An alternative would be a system like M-Pesa. It's based on your personal phone line using the SIM toolkit, though there's also an app. Transactions can only be carried out on the phone with the SIM installed though.

It's great for personal transfers, and many in Kenya already use it to pay sex workers (usually cam girls selling nudes).

Corporates can have numbers (called paybill) where payments are made, though they are vulnerable to government interference. Safaricom (the network carrier running the M-Pesa platform) has already been ordered to shut down accounts belonging to betting firms. But for personal transactions, regulation is hard since nobody can tell why you sent a certain person money.

M-Pesa has never quite gained traction outside Kenya though.

parent levismaina 7 years ago

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