Mobile Money Payments: Optional or a Must for Small Businesses?

After selecting the items I needed from the shop, I presented the shop owner with a XAF 10,000 note. “I don’t have change” he said. While wondering how many shops I might have to visit before finding someone who could afford the difference based on the cost of the items I needed, the shop owner said with a very charming smile “let me withdraw it from your mobile money account.” I looked at him with surprise and quickly asked…Are you assuming I have one? What if I don’t? He looked at me and with just a smile and without saying a word, I got the response to my questions (is it possible for someone these days not to have a mobile money account? He certainly was thinking). To this businessman, it was almost inconceivable to him that someone would not have such an account in this FinTech age (he was a very elderly man too). Not having money in my account would have been probably more acceptable to him than not having an account at all.

I gave him my number, he withdrew his money, I thanked him and he thanked me. “I love this initiative” I told him (for him to have embraced this technology at his age was fascinating to me because I have seen resistance to it across different age groups) and he responded thank you. I adopted this to solve problems like this. Many people often come to buy for small amounts but present big bank notes and the problem of change always comes up. With this system, I am able to solve such problems. This made me think of how many times I have proposed making payments through this medium with no success.

People, FinTech Solutions are here to stay and would only multiply over time. Any business that intends to survive in this age must offer at least one possible way of receiving payments with the help of FinTech.

While its penetration/acceptance rate is still low in Cameroon, it offers unique opportunity for business people of all sectors and scale to benefit from. It helps capture sales in competitive age while increasing sales volume and turnover.

Some yellow cabs on the streets now offer the possibility of passengers paying via mobile money. As more and more people embrace this and frustrations grow over businesses that don’t offer this possibility of settling bills via mobile money, expect them to sit up very fast as they see opportunities constantly slip of their hands and customers decreasing (no customer in this age wants to be limited to just one option and no businessman wants to see customers come and go repeatedly unsatisfied).

The numbers point to the fact that the mobile money trend is bound to keep growing with over 9 million mobile money subscribers in Cameroon and a population in excess of 25million and counting. According to the IMF, XAF 3.5 billion worth of transactions were carried out in Cameroon via mobile money in 2017, representing 17.5% of GDP.