insights by Andre Burnett
could mobile banking
Help jamaica?
T
he love affair between Jamaicans and cellular phone technology is no secret; in fact most of us have made our intentions clear to mobile phone providers by striving to be ahead of the curve when it comes to cellular phones. According to a World Bank in 1998, the population of Jamaica was 2,687,200 just below the number of cell phone subscribers which listed at 2,700,000. These figures would cause some furrowing of the eyebrows if one didn’t know that this small island has three large communication providers fighting tooth and nail for market share. Now, Jamaica is by no means the only third world country out there with a burgeoning cellular phone market, India and Kenya are two notable examples mostly because of their wide usage but also because of the point of this article…cell phone banking.
There are no readily available statistics on the number of bank accounts active in Jamaica but one would imagine that whatever the number is it could be interpreted as the better off Jamaicans having multiple accounts and so forth. Poorer Jamaicans still show heavy reliance on informal saving methods such as the ever present “partner” system and the ever reliable ‘First Posturepedic Savings Bank”.
but that doesn’t mean that there is no space for such technology. With so many corner shops in the island doing great business with the selling of prepaid cellular phone minutes it is not hard to envision those same people depositing money into their bank accounts in the same fashion. Of course, security would be a huge concern but just as the Kenyan system is different from the one in India, the Jamaican mobile banking revolution could be tailored for our particular problems. Fostering a spirit
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Money kept on hand will always be susceptible to withdrawals by needy partners, mooching cousins etc and yet the hassle of finding a bank to make deposits is somewhat of a hassle especially if you live in rural or inner city areas where banks would have a hard time proving the feasibility of a branch in certain areas. In India where poverty is rampant and much of the blame has been placed at the feet of inconvenience of saving, cell phone banking technology has become a beacon of hope for those concerned about the perpetual cycle of poverty in the country. The process has taken off in Kenya also where less than one-fifth of the population has bank accounts and less than that have access to the internet yet the ever increasing cell phone population has opened up doors for small farmers and others to do a lot of business using their cell phones and a simple system that involves text messages and something called “mobile money”.
of saving in Jamaicans could go a far way in improving our economic problems from the inside out, the question thus remains…who first?
In terms of internet access and bank account holders Jamaica is far better off than the two countries mentioned yourmoney ezine
special
Checklist
for a Successful Company Website
The Homepage:
“About us”:
“Contact us”:
The saying “first impressions are lasting” is a cliché because it’s mostly true. Your homepage should answer the initial questions that a customer will have such as “What do you do?” or “What are you about?”Use your homepage to grab attention and deter your customer from simply clicking the next link in the list.
Trust is a hard thing to come by on the internet. Go indepth about your company’s activities, origin, mission statement, in fact just about everything that makes you unique. This page’s purpose is to impress your customer. Go all out!
This page is essential to connecting your online presence to your physical presence. Give full details of all your contacts. You can even include a “Google map” with directions to your office or store. Be helpful your potential customer will appreciate it.
Seven ways of protecting your company’s information As the information age plows on, we find that the data we store in our business and at home becomes more and more vital. As such the protection of our information from cybercriminals and good old fashion Murphy’s Law is essential to ourselves and our customers. Here are some ways to ensure that we rest a bit easier at night. 1. Backing up your files: This might sound like a given but even hard drives can go bad. Use a mix of on-site and remote back-up fa-
cilities to give the best facilities. There are a number of cloud (remote) computing options available nowadays for a minimal price.
2. Protect your files by using a mix of complicated passwords and encryption 3. Hosted e-mail security: Using cloud computing to host your company’s email activities is safer and cheaper than using an onsite appliance. 4. Web Security is serious business: Use the most secure browser available for any browsing that has to be done by you or your
staff. Don’t save passwords in your browsers and speak to your tech person about blocking malicious scripts. 5. Control user admin rights: Not many of your workers need the full gamut of their machine’s capabilities, in fact most malicious software usually gain access to your systems through the non work related activities. 6. Anti-Virus: Don’t skimp on the anti-virus, read reviews and buy wisely. 7. Lock up everything when you leave! Low tech but effective, secure hard drives and laptops with sturdy equipment. yourmoney ezine
Innovate your money by Andre Burnett
Medusa hits
D
foursquare Running
o you remember when Twitter was an obscure social network that nobody really quite understood how it would work or its benefit to small businesses or businesses on a whole? Well, a lot of people still don’t understand Twitter but there are millions that do and there are hundreds of businesses that have made strides in using the social network to their benefit. But what Twitter was to 2008, FourSquare is to 2010 and it seems like the new application is providing a more actionable approach for operators of bars, restaurants etc.
One Jamaican business that has seen the potential of such a service is Medusa, a popular hangout bar located in Liguanea in Kingston. Co-owner, PierreOmar Solomon has seen the unique po-
To appeal to businesses more, the developers of FourSquare have developed an innovative dashboard that provides a wealth of information about FourSquare visitors to the business owners. “Its bird season right now and we have bird night once a week, our FourSquare users can leave tips that indicate the best flavour to order and so forth,” says Solomon enthusiastically,” In fact, we can put special promotions on FourSquare and once a user checks in nearby they will be notified that a special is going on at Medusa”. advertisment
“Medusa can benefit from FourSquare because we also gain information about who is visiting, what they’re saying, who has stopped coming and we can even reach out to them via our twitter account.” Essentially FourSquare is a service that allows users to “check in” at locations they visit using the GPS capability on their smartphones of which there is no shortage of in Jamaica. Once a user has checked in, his friends are able to see that particular update and they are able to read “tips” about that particular venue or just see that a particular hangout spot is becoming increasingly popular. FourSquare has has given a sort of incentive to exploring one’s surrounding by implementing a point system and awarding ranks such as “Mayor”(the person that frequents a particular spot the most).
tential that such a service could offer to a business that is so heavily dependent on customer loyalty. “We have already started to offer incentives as the mayor of Medusa is awarded a 10% discount on all drinks” says Pierre-Omar, “Medusa can benefit from FourSquare because we also gain information about who is visiting, what they’re saying, who has stopped coming and we can even reach out to them via our twitter account”.
The buzz about FourSquare has been considerable and has been growing steadily mostly because of the readily understood benefits to businesses while appealing to the social nature of people. Pierre and his partners at Medusa have seemingly jumped onto this phenomenon at its prime stage and it looks set to take off.
yourmoney ezine
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