Disclosure: No organization has either endorsed or paid me for anything said in this article.
Unlike Kenya, Nigeria is just coming of age in Mobile Money. Mobile Money was really started in Africa for the rural dweller and the urban "unbanked".
Nonetheless, as an "urban banked" in Nigeria, here are the reasons i got into Mobile Money:
1. MOBILE TRANSACTIONS: I increasingly want to do my banking transactions without using an ATM or setting foot in a banking hall - except to complain or abuse.
2. EMERGENCY USE: Sometimes i cannot find a GSM recharge card vendor when i really need one.
3. CHANGE PALAVA: I'm tired of the "no change" palava with recharge card vendors.
MOBILE TRANSACTIONS
Three months ago i signed up for FirstBank's "@FirstMonie" Mobile Money Service because i already banked with FirstBank. However, you don't have to be a bank's existing customer to have a mobile money account there.
My first goal was to link my existing FirstBank savings account with my new mobile money account. This way i could transfer funds between both accounts using my android.
Since FirstBank is always tweeting that "to link your FirstBank account with your FirstMonie account just visit your nearest FirstBank branch", i thought linking the accounts would be a slam dunk. Oh, how wrong i was.
Contrary to FirstBank's claim, my "nearest" branch didn't have any mandate forms to link accounts. In fact, one of the branches i visited had no idea i could link the accounts.
Eventually, FirstBank linked the accounts a month after i filled the first of three mandate forms at three branches. Since linking my accounts, I've successfully transferred funds between them once using the FirstMonie moblie app.
Since FirstBank was still rolling out FirstMonie when i signed up i put the frustrating start behind me and focused on the other reasons i got into mobile money.
EMERGENCY USE
While you can use the mobile money account to do many things, I use mine primarily to buy GSM recharge cards.
You see, GSM recharge card vendors seem ubiquitous in Nigeria. Yet sometimes you can't find or get to one - like late at night or when you can't go out in the rain.
Unfortunately, FirstMonie has been a huge disappointment during emergencies.
Whenever it rains in Nigeria everything goes down...power supply, ATMs, GSM networks. Therefore, I'm not suprised that FirstMonie's USSD code channel or the mobile app has never worked when it's raining.
How about during "normal times" - no rain, no labor strikes, weekdays, etc.?
Well, since the USSD channel tends to be out of service a lot, I thought the app would be a more reliable alternative access channel during normal times. However, this hasn't been the case. Both channels have often had accessibility issues concurrently.
To lessen my dependability on FirstMonie, i opened another mobile money account with @StanbicIBTC. So far, Stanbic's app has been more reliable than FirstMonie's.
All told though, for me mobile money hasn't been that reliable for emergency use.
CHANGE PALAVA
The most annoying phrase in Nigerian retail is "no change". I feel so incensed whenever i really need a recharge card and the vendor says no change.
Fortunately, there's no such problem with mobile money. Starting at N100 you can purchase any amount of recharge you want and don't have to worry about lack of change.
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