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Made-In-Nigeria Smart Cards To Extend Financial Services To the Poor

Posted by timothy on from the all-you-need-is-this-card dept.

jfruh (300774) writes "A new factory producing smart cards opened in Lagos this week, promising to open up access to financial services to many poor Africans and other inhabitants of the Global South. The cards can be used by people without traditional bank accounts to access the worldwide credit card and smart phone infrastructure." From the article: Preliminary estimates indicate that there are currently about 150 million active SIM cards, 110 million biometric ID cards and 15 million credit and debit cards in Nigeria, [Nigerian president Goodluck] Jonathan said. As more financial-inclusion schemes, requiring more bank cards, are rolled out and different Nigerian states implement ID projects, the numbers of smart cards in use are expected to experience double-digit growth, he said.

26 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. You can smell the desperation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The global banking system is desperate for that one last bubble, now that all other credit bubbles have collapsed.

    Let's see, where else can we create artificial, debt-fueled "growth". Africa!

    One.

    Last.

    Bubble.

    (And then the shitshow begins).

    1. Re:You can smell the desperation by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      As long as we have money begetting money, we will have bubbles.

  2. Nigeria... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    has such a good reputation for honesty and not scamming people. *sarcasm*

    1. Re: Nigeria... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Hey according to my recent emails, I have won the Nigerian lottery no less than 12 times. This should decrease the amount of time it takes to get my money, right? /sarcasm

  3. yay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    target rich environment, which means the nigerian criminals will focus more on stealing from their countrymen

  4. It's about time! by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hopefully this will make it a lot easier for those Nigerian princes and military widows to transfer those millions of dollars to me. I keep giving them my bank account info, but I'm still waiting.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:It's about time! by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      Hopefully this will make it a lot easier for those Nigerian princes and military widows to transfer those millions of dollars to me. I keep giving them my bank account info, but I'm still waiting.

      I know you're joking, but the answer is a huge "No".

      Take this sentence for instance which at first didn't make any sense to me:

      Import tariffs heavily skewed to the advantage of imported finished cards would have made it difficult for local manufacturers to compete on cost

      Apparently here, the President is patting himself on the back for having increased the import tariff to such a high level, that it has become impossible for foreign manufacturers to compete on cost. Wow! This President must be some kind of genius or something.

      Not only, this new bolder protectionist strategy (which is even bolder than the previous protectionist strategy) is bound to propel Nigeria to new financial heights, but the President has zeroed in the banking industry's own dirty little secret. In banking, it's not the loans/investments, interests, or fees, that make the money. It's actually the manufacturing of the little plastic cards with a little bit of silicon in them that is the real cash cow of the banking industry.

      For the President's Goodluck sake (yes, Goodluck is actually his real name), I sure hope that the WTO never catches onto his bold and unfair protectionist strategy over those little plastic cards with a little bit of silicon in them. President Goodluck may actually kill himself, if he ever found out that the WTO was against him when it came down to those little plastic cards.

    2. Re:It's about time! by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      The WTO is probably the only scam the Nigerians are not too fond of. Maybe 'cause it's of such insane proportion that it makes them green with envy.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:It's about time! by axlash · · Score: 1

      For the President's Goodluck sake (yes, Goodluck is actually his real name)...

      And why is that noteworthy?

      Must everyone have the same kind of names used where you live?

      --
      Deal with reality - the world as it is - rather than ideality - the world as you would like it to be.
    4. Re:It's about time! by riverat1 · · Score: 2

      For the President's Goodluck sake (yes, Goodluck is actually his real name) ...

      Actually it should be President Jonathan as his full name is Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan.

    5. Re:It's about time! by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      For the President's Goodluck sake (yes, Goodluck is actually his real name)...

      And why is that noteworthy?

      Must everyone have the same kind of names used where you live?

      Yes, my previous post could have been written a little better.

      That being said, semantic ambiguity happens all the time, even where I live.

      As a French person living in the US who gets his news partly from American news broadcasts, I have actually been made fun of by other French people for referring to our former French prime minister as Edith Croissant (just like the crescent shaped pastry, instead of Edith Cresson, which was/is actually her real name).

    6. Re:It's about time! by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      That's a good catch. I stand corrected.

  5. Good idea by cyber-vandal · · Score: 2

    Just the thing for transferring millions of dollars for a Nigerian prince.

  6. They'll give you the $10million... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    ...but first you must deposit $100,000 to cover administrative fees. Don't worry though, you'll still be $9,900,000 in profit once the money is unlocked!

  7. Questionable priorities by Kazymyr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not sure that Nigeria needs more smartcards rather than less Boku Haram.

    --
    I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
    1. Re:Questionable priorities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They need more smartpeople.

    2. Re:Questionable priorities by Khashishi · · Score: 1

      eh, red herring.

  8. "more financial-inclusion schemes"?! by amplesand · · Score: 1, Interesting

    That can only lead to more snake oil e-mails from Nigeria, I venture to say. Is Nigeria perhaps the biggest snake oil producers in the world?

  9. What a fantastic idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Give financial services ... to people who have NO Money.
    Why didn't we think of this earlier?

    1. Re:What a fantastic idea! by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2

      Why do you think they have no money? Or no need for financial services like bank transfers or loans? I'm surprised that the image of the average African as a fly ridden naked tribesman grubbing in the mud for meager sustenance, persists to this day. The same idea that prompts the question: "Why would these people need cellphones (or smartphones)?", when there have been so many stories about cellphones having brought about a revolution in local commerce and finance.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    2. Re:What a fantastic idea! by unrtst · · Score: 1

      Give financial services ... to people who have NO Money.
      Why didn't we think of this earlier?

      Over 150million sims out there (that's cell phones) and 173million people... there's money to be dealt with.

      I was surprised at teh number of people... just one of those facts I wasn't aware of.
      Nigeria: 173.6 million people per 923,768 sq km = 187.9 people per sq km.
      New York State (for comparison): 19.7 million people per 141,300 sq km = 139.4 people per sq km.

      Less than 10% of the people have bank cards, but over 86% have a cell phone, and there's almost 9x's as many people as New York state. That's a big market.

  10. Financial stability, trustworthy commerce... by klubar · · Score: 1

    A functioning economy with commerce is part of the solution. One of the functions of banks, beside a more secure place to hold your cash, is to use the deposits to make loans that allow businesses to develop. Businesses generate jobs, wages and more infrastructure. All which help develop civil and functioning societies. Although far from a complete success, take a look at how Rwanda has developed post civil war.

    I not sure that this particular company will not suffer the fate of other attempts, but the concept of providing banking to otherwise unbanked is a good idea.

    1. Re:Financial stability, trustworthy commerce... by kevinbr · · Score: 1

      Obviously the author of the article never heard of Mobile Payment systems like MPESA, which are already very successful in other countries, and do not require a bank account, or a smart card, just a SIM card and an ID document.

      Smart cards on their own can't succeed, the key is reusing the vast african system of agents associated with mobile operators. Smart cards need infrastructure t accept payments. An MPESA merchant only needs a mobile phone with SMS or USSD capability.

      So I see this as just more banking hype, banks hate MPESA..........

  11. Will this work? by axlash · · Score: 1

    I am not sure about the market for smart cards in Sub-Saharan Africa (the intended market for these smartcards). Smartcards need to work with a lot of complementary technology and infrastructure in order to deliver the benefits of convenient and secure payment (readers, communication systems, electricity to power these), and I don't know that this is present to a great extent in many African countries.

    In addition, given that running a business in Lagos is a pretty difficult thing (given the chronic power shortages, difficulty in obtaining skilled manpower, poor transport infrastructure), I'm not sure the smartcards will necessarily be cheap enough to compete against imported cards, even with cheaper labour offsetting some of the costs. If Jonathan's idea is to use tariffs to level the playing field, it means that the factory's market is effectively limited to Nigeria, making it even a more dubious enterprise.

    --
    Deal with reality - the world as it is - rather than ideality - the world as you would like it to be.
  12. Re:There is a bubble because we participate in it by davester666 · · Score: 1

    except you still have to live surrounded by a whole bunch of destitute people, and perhaps also lose your job, and the money you have saved also gets devalued.

    when the economy crashes, it takes everyone connected to it along for the ride.

    so you are either working really hard right now to try to prevent/delay the crash, or working really hard to separate yourself from the economy.

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  13. Ignorance by eokwuanga · · Score: 1

    There's a lot of ignorance going on in this comments section.