Jacob Winiecki, a friend of mine, is working on setting up self-sustaining businesses based on simple technology in developing countries; for example, replacing kerosene lamps with solar lamps by helping people set up importing businesses, distribution businesses, and local solar lamp rental businesses. This is done by finding workable business models, then working with microfinance banks to set up standard loan products based on these business models.

Now, there is starting to be a lot of attention being focused on mobile phones and internet. People barely ever make calls, it’s far too expensive. The most popular uses by far are texting and money transfers by sending airtime minutes via SMS. Of course, lots of people are very excited by this idea, but it reminds me of when I worked at a dotcom and we were doing banking sites in the late nineties. No one gave a shit about security then, so now we have a flood of phishing and assorted other attacks. This same thing is happening with these mobile mobile transfers, and the microfinance banks are starting to get involved.

I think the time is ripe to nip this in the bud. These services are just starting up now. They are well enough established to see how things work, but not so well established that they can change a lot yet. If people had paid real attention to the security issues about online banking in the late nineties, things would be far better now. We have the opportunity to learn from our gross mistakes, let’s not repeat this mistake.

Here’s one example service from Kenya:

Safaricom M-PESA