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非洲版支付宝:交易额超过这个国家GDP的一半

Bernhard Warner
2022-03-13

M-Pesa有超过5200万的活跃用户。

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凌晨4点,住在内罗毕的苏珊·恩杰里开始起床干活,这时她的三个孩子还有几个小时才会去上学。天微微亮的时候,她摆好了食品摊,等待着当天第一批顾客的到来。

恩杰里摆在内罗毕熙熙攘攘的伍德利·贾姆胡里露天市场上的简陋小摊,会给人带来一种视觉上的震撼:鲜艳的西红柿、橘子和酸橙堆成高高的一摞,菠萝竖放在一起,玉米和根茎类蔬菜竞相争夺着顾客的注意。十多年的时间,她积累了很多回头客。

她告诉《财富》杂志:“我做的是些食品杂货小生意,不过现在生意是越来越好了,比之前好得多。”

她可不是吹牛。

和大多数的新兴经济体一样,肯尼亚在前两年遭受了新冠肺炎疫情和通货膨胀的双重打击。政府的最新数据显示,该国今年1月的消费者价格较新冠肺炎疫情前水平上涨了8%以上。这削弱了肯尼亚普通人的购买力,包括恩杰里的客户。一些小生意也迅速受到了物价飞涨造成的破坏性影响的波及,尤其是那些没有收支数据、不能分析预测成本的小生意。

不过,恩杰里坚称自己的生意一直很好。尽管整体经济形势存在一定的不确定性,但她还是另外雇佣了两名女工,每天都忙到深夜。

她觉得,自己的成功一部分是手机上一款简单好用的支付软件的功劳。这款名为M-Pesa for Business的应用程序可以实时追踪她的资金流水。比如说,她能够知道自己一天中什么时候卖出了东西。她说,在存在一定不确定性的经济时期,这些数据可以让人安下心来。只需要点几下,她就能够用它给供应商付款,把钱转入自己的银行账户,或者在附近小摊买些东西带回家。

比苹果公司的年龄还大

这款应用程序上线于一年前,但是它所依托的移动货币平台M-Pesa肯尼亚人则都耳熟能详:M代表移动,Pesa在斯瓦希里语中意为“货币”,二者组合而成的M-Pesa由沃达丰(Vodafone)及其非洲子公司Safaricom成立于2007年,这月刚满15岁,比苹果公司(Apple)、蚂蚁集团、Venmo和Stripe等金融科技巨头的年龄还要大。它的成功建立在一个简单的提议之上:客户在手机上购买M-Pesa信用或者“通话时长”,用来在非洲数百万家支持无现金支付的商铺买东西。或者只要知道对方的电话号码,就可以用M-Pesa付钱或给朋友家人转账。与Venmo不同,肯尼亚人能够用M-Pesa领取政府按月发放的养老金。Safaricom最近还在肯尼亚推出了购买内罗毕证券交易所(Nairobi Securities Exchange)的股票和债券的新功能,引领年轻人进入了小额投资领域。针对恩杰里等商户,M-Pesa平台也在不断推出新功能,例如,用M-Pesa For Business为商家提供记账和应付账款服务。

除肯尼亚外,M-Pesa还覆盖到了坦桑尼亚、莫桑比克、刚果民主共和国、莱索托、加纳和南非等其他六个非洲国家,共有超过5200万的活跃用户。如果去过这些国家,你就肯定在街道上看到过与众不同的绿底白字的M-Pesa标志,表明在这里可以买到M-Pesa“通话时长”。2020年,M-Pesa的电信母公司成立了控股公司M-Pesa Africa,以管理其跨国业务。

M-Pesa以及电信运营商 MTN 和 Orange在非洲南部和西部推出的类似产品,长期以来一直被誉为非洲家庭脱贫的重要推动力,因为它们为非洲没有银行账户的人提供了亟需的信用,并培养出了一个新的创业者阶层。对其最尖锐的批评则是,非洲几家数字支付巨头的爆炸式发展,催生出了一批本土垄断企业。在世界努力实现无现金化之际,盖茨基金会(Gates Foundation)等机构希望有更多的企业在这一领域里出现。

M-Pesa Africa的总经理西托约·洛波科伊特表示,这种批评并不准确。他告诉《财富》杂志,M-Pesa如今是非洲金融科技界的一个重要孵化器。“这个平台已经成为了一个能量充足的飞轮”,有超过5.2万名第三方开发商在上面向M-Pesa客户销售产品,比如保险和太阳能电池板。

2021年9月,M-Pesa Africa的总经理西托约·洛波科伊特。图片来源:Zhang Yu—Xinhua/Getty Images

新冠肺炎疫情爆发

无论是加密货币的飞速发展,还是新冠肺炎疫情的蔓延,都没有拖慢M-Pesa的发展速度。

2021年新冠肺炎疫情最严重的时候,M-Pesa的交易额达到了一个惊人的数字。Safaricom发布的报告显示,M-Pesa平台的交易规模达到了肯尼亚GDP的一半。自那以后,这一数字一直在增加。

洛波科伊特说:“新冠肺炎疫情不仅是一场卫生危机,也是一场经济危机。它也是M-Pesa等数字服务商最大的发展催化剂。我坚信,如果社会成功,那么我们也会成功。所以推动社会发展是我们做所有事情的核心。”

根据洛波科伊特的说法,M-Pesa上有超过250万户与恩杰里类似的中小商家。以及15万家大型企业,包括饮料巨头可口可乐(Coca-Cola)和帝亚吉欧(Diageo)。它们在供应链的各个环节都会使用M-Pesa,包括配送以及用卡车把货运到酒吧或小商铺,全程都是无现金化和数字化。

肯尼亚和世界其他地方一样,在新冠肺炎疫情爆发之初,数字化为商家提供了一根救命稻草。2020年停业停课期间,肯尼亚的大多数小商铺几乎无法接触到居家隔离的顾客。为了应对这场危机,为其抗风险能力最弱的消费者和商户客户提供帮助,M-Pesa首先免除了10美元以下的交易费。然后在2021年第一季度,它针对像恩杰里这样的商户推出了扩展功能:The M-Pesa business,能够通过短信、WhatsApp和电子邮件等远程接收顾客的订单,将他们带入了电子商务时代。

洛波科伊特称:“这个应用程序现在每月有15万活跃商户,交易额占到了平台总额的47%,对于一个诞生于新冠肺炎疫情期间的新电子商务产品来说,这是一项非常了不起的成就。”他补充说,由于M-Pesa推出了这项电子商务新功能,它每天会处理6000万笔交易。

内罗毕的蔬菜摊主恩杰里也发现了这一点。她说,现在每三位顾客里面就有两位用M-Pesa买东西,这是自新冠肺炎疫情以来的一个大变化。她表示,生意总体上不错,最近她还买了一辆运货车,用来把东西运到市场。她正在一步步实现她的梦想:买栋新房子。

她说:“我的计划就是这些。”(财富中文网)

译者:Claire

凌晨4点,住在内罗毕的苏珊·恩杰里开始起床干活,这时她的三个孩子还有几个小时才会去上学。天微微亮的时候,她摆好了食品摊,等待着当天第一批顾客的到来。

恩杰里摆在内罗毕熙熙攘攘的伍德利·贾姆胡里露天市场上的简陋小摊,会给人带来一种视觉上的震撼:鲜艳的西红柿、橘子和酸橙堆成高高的一摞,菠萝竖放在一起,玉米和根茎类蔬菜竞相争夺着顾客的注意。十多年的时间,她积累了很多回头客。

她告诉《财富》杂志:“我做的是些食品杂货小生意,不过现在生意是越来越好了,比之前好得多。”

她可不是吹牛。

和大多数的新兴经济体一样,肯尼亚在前两年遭受了新冠肺炎疫情和通货膨胀的双重打击。政府的最新数据显示,该国今年1月的消费者价格较新冠肺炎疫情前水平上涨了8%以上。这削弱了肯尼亚普通人的购买力,包括恩杰里的客户。一些小生意也迅速受到了物价飞涨造成的破坏性影响的波及,尤其是那些没有收支数据、不能分析预测成本的小生意。

不过,恩杰里坚称自己的生意一直很好。尽管整体经济形势存在一定的不确定性,但她还是另外雇佣了两名女工,每天都忙到深夜。

她觉得,自己的成功一部分是手机上一款简单好用的支付软件的功劳。这款名为M-Pesa for Business的应用程序可以实时追踪她的资金流水。比如说,她能够知道自己一天中什么时候卖出了东西。她说,在存在一定不确定性的经济时期,这些数据可以让人安下心来。只需要点几下,她就能够用它给供应商付款,把钱转入自己的银行账户,或者在附近小摊买些东西带回家。

比苹果公司的年龄还大

这款应用程序上线于一年前,但是它所依托的移动货币平台M-Pesa肯尼亚人则都耳熟能详:M代表移动,Pesa在斯瓦希里语中意为“货币”,二者组合而成的M-Pesa由沃达丰(Vodafone)及其非洲子公司Safaricom成立于2007年,这月刚满15岁,比苹果公司(Apple)、蚂蚁集团、Venmo和Stripe等金融科技巨头的年龄还要大。它的成功建立在一个简单的提议之上:客户在手机上购买M-Pesa信用或者“通话时长”,用来在非洲数百万家支持无现金支付的商铺买东西。或者只要知道对方的电话号码,就可以用M-Pesa付钱或给朋友家人转账。与Venmo不同,肯尼亚人能够用M-Pesa领取政府按月发放的养老金。Safaricom最近还在肯尼亚推出了购买内罗毕证券交易所(Nairobi Securities Exchange)的股票和债券的新功能,引领年轻人进入了小额投资领域。针对恩杰里等商户,M-Pesa平台也在不断推出新功能,例如,用M-Pesa For Business为商家提供记账和应付账款服务。

除肯尼亚外,M-Pesa还覆盖到了坦桑尼亚、莫桑比克、刚果民主共和国、莱索托、加纳和南非等其他六个非洲国家,共有超过5200万的活跃用户。如果去过这些国家,你就肯定在街道上看到过与众不同的绿底白字的M-Pesa标志,表明在这里可以买到M-Pesa“通话时长”。2020年,M-Pesa的电信母公司成立了控股公司M-Pesa Africa,以管理其跨国业务。

M-Pesa以及电信运营商 MTN 和 Orange在非洲南部和西部推出的类似产品,长期以来一直被誉为非洲家庭脱贫的重要推动力,因为它们为非洲没有银行账户的人提供了亟需的信用,并培养出了一个新的创业者阶层。对其最尖锐的批评则是,非洲几家数字支付巨头的爆炸式发展,催生出了一批本土垄断企业。在世界努力实现无现金化之际,盖茨基金会(Gates Foundation)等机构希望有更多的企业在这一领域里出现。

M-Pesa Africa的总经理西托约·洛波科伊特表示,这种批评并不准确。他告诉《财富》杂志,M-Pesa如今是非洲金融科技界的一个重要孵化器。“这个平台已经成为了一个能量充足的飞轮”,有超过5.2万名第三方开发商在上面向M-Pesa客户销售产品,比如保险和太阳能电池板。

新冠肺炎疫情爆发

无论是加密货币的飞速发展,还是新冠肺炎疫情的蔓延,都没有拖慢M-Pesa的发展速度。

2021年新冠肺炎疫情最严重的时候,M-Pesa的交易额达到了一个惊人的数字。Safaricom发布的报告显示,M-Pesa平台的交易规模达到了肯尼亚GDP的一半。自那以后,这一数字一直在增加。

洛波科伊特说:“新冠肺炎疫情不仅是一场卫生危机,也是一场经济危机。它也是M-Pesa等数字服务商最大的发展催化剂。我坚信,如果社会成功,那么我们也会成功。所以推动社会发展是我们做所有事情的核心。”

根据洛波科伊特的说法,M-Pesa上有超过250万户与恩杰里类似的中小商家。以及15万家大型企业,包括饮料巨头可口可乐(Coca-Cola)和帝亚吉欧(Diageo)。它们在供应链的各个环节都会使用M-Pesa,包括配送以及用卡车把货运到酒吧或小商铺,全程都是无现金化和数字化。

肯尼亚和世界其他地方一样,在新冠肺炎疫情爆发之初,数字化为商家提供了一根救命稻草。2020年停业停课期间,肯尼亚的大多数小商铺几乎无法接触到居家隔离的顾客。为了应对这场危机,为其抗风险能力最弱的消费者和商户客户提供帮助,M-Pesa首先免除了10美元以下的交易费。然后在2021年第一季度,它针对像恩杰里这样的商户推出了扩展功能:The M-Pesa business,能够通过短信、WhatsApp和电子邮件等远程接收顾客的订单,将他们带入了电子商务时代。

洛波科伊特称:“这个应用程序现在每月有15万活跃商户,交易额占到了平台总额的47%,对于一个诞生于新冠肺炎疫情期间的新电子商务产品来说,这是一项非常了不起的成就。”他补充说,由于M-Pesa推出了这项电子商务新功能,它每天会处理6000万笔交易。

内罗毕的蔬菜摊主恩杰里也发现了这一点。她说,现在每三位顾客里面就有两位用M-Pesa买东西,这是自新冠肺炎疫情以来的一个大变化。她表示,生意总体上不错,最近她还买了一辆运货车,用来把东西运到市场。她正在一步步实现她的梦想:买栋新房子。

她说:“我的计划就是这些。”(财富中文网)

译者:Claire

Susan Njeri starts her workday at 4 a.m., leaving her home in Nairobi hours before her three children wake for school. In the predawn glow, she sets up her food stand for the first customers of the day.

Njeri’s humble stand, situated in the bustling Woodley Jamhuri open-air market in the Kenyan capital, is a sensory explosion. Bright red tomatoes are piled high alongside stacks of oranges and limes. Pineapples stand on end; corn and knobby root vegetables compete for customers’ attention. Loyal clients have been seeking out her goods for more than a decade, and they keep coming back.

“I run a small grocery business,” she tells Fortune. “But now it is growing. A lot.”

That’s no small boast.

Kenya, like most emerging economies, has been hard hit in the past two years by a one-two punch of COVID, followed by inflation. The latest government data from January showed consumer prices have jumped more than 8% from pre-pandemic levels, sapping the purchasing power of ordinary Kenyans—including Njeri’s customers. The damaging effects of rapidly rising prices can quickly domino on small businesses, too, particularly those that are unable to track and forecast input costs.

Still, Njeri’s business has been faring well, she contends. Despite the uncertainty in the wider economy, she’s hired an additional two women to keep the business operating through the late-evening hours, seven days a week.

She credits part of her success to an intuitive piece of payments-and-accounting software that she can pull up on her smartphone. The app, called M-Pesa for Business, tracks in real time the money flowing in and out of her business. She knows, for example, the moment she turns a profit for the day. That kind of data brings peace of mind in uncertain economic times, she says. With a few taps she can use the application to pay off her business suppliers, or transfer funds to her bank account. She can also use it to purchase something at a nearby stand to bring home to the family.

Older than the iPhone

The app Njeri relies on went live a year ago, but the mobile-money platform it sits on, M-Pesa, is hardly new to Kenyans: “Pesa” is Swahili for money, and “M” is a reference to mobile. Launched in 2007 by Vodafone and its African subsidiary Safaricom, M-Pesa just turned 15 years old this month, which makes it older than the iPhone and such fintech giants as Ant Group of China, Venmo, and Stripe. Its success is built on a simple proposition. Customers buy M-Pesa credits—or “air time”—on their mobile phone that they can then use to make purchases at the millions of businesses around Africa that accept the cashless payment system. Or you can use M-Pesa to pay bills, or settle a debt with a friend or family member. You just need the other party’s phone number. Unlike, say, Venmo, Kenyans can use M-Pesa to receive their monthly government-issued pension payment. Safaricom also recently launched a way for Kenyans to use M-Pesa to buy stocks and bonds on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, bringing a new generation into retail investing. For merchants like Njeri, the M-Pesa platform continues to expand, too, with, for example, bookkeeping and accounts-payable services for merchants via the M-Pesa for Business app.

M-Pesa operates in seven African countries—in addition to Kenya, it’s active in Tanzania, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Ghana, and South Africa—with over 52 million active users. If you’ve ever traveled in these countries, you have no doubt seen the distinctive M-Pesa signs—white lettering on a green background—dotting the streets, indicating where agents sell M-Pesa “air time” to anyone with an active mobile phone account. In 2020, M-Pesa’s telecom parents launched the holding company, M-Pesa Africa, to manage its multinational growth.

M-Pesa, and similar mobile money products by Orange and MTN Group in southern and west Africa, have long been credited with lifting families out of poverty by offering Africa’s unbanked a much needed line of credit, and helping grow a new entrepreneur class around the continent. The biggest criticism: The explosive growth of a few digital-payments giants in Africa has created a bunch of local monopolies that some, like the Gates Foundation, would like to see opened up to more competitors at a time when the world is trying to go cashless.

Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, managing director of M-Pesa Africa, thinks that criticism is misguided. He says the M-Pesa payments platform is now a major launchpad for Africa’s fintech community. “Our platform has become a powerful flywheel” for over 52,000 third-party developers who use it to sell to M-Pesa customers a wide range of products, from insurance to solar panels, he tells Fortune.

COVID growth spurt

Not even the surge in crypto or COVID has slowed M-Pesa down.

Last year, during the height of the pandemic, M-Pesa hit an astounding milestone. Safaricom reported to investors that half of Kenya’s GDP is transacted on the M-Pesa platform; the levels have grown since then.

“COVID has been an economic and a health crisis. It has been the biggest accelerant, too, to digital services such as M-Pesa,” Lopokoiyit says. “I strongly believe that if society is successful, then we will be successful. So we must put that at the heart of everything that we do.”

According to Lopokoiyit, there are over 2.5 million small and medium-size enterprises like Njeri’s that operate with M-Pesa. Another 150,000 large businesses, including beverage giants Coca-Cola and Diageo, use M-Pesa to make every part of the supply chain—from the distribution hub to the delivery truck to the bar or small business—cashless and digitized.

The business imperative to go digital was a lifesaver in Kenya, as elsewhere around the world, during the early days of COVID. When businesses and schools shut in the spring of 2020, most of Kenya’s small businesses had little to no way to reach locked-down customers. M-Pesa responded to the crisis by first waiving fees on all transactions below $10, a way to help out its most vulnerable consumer and merchant customers. And then in Q1 2021, it introduced expanded functionality for merchants like Njeri: The M-Pesa business app could now take customer orders remotely—typically, via text message, WhatsApp, and email—a move that ushered them into the e-commerce age.

“We now have 150,000 monthly active business users on that app, and 47% of the transactions now happen on that app,” Lopokoiyit says, “which is remarkable” for an e-commerce product that didn’t exist before COVID. He adds that the introduction of the new e-commerce capability on the M-Pesa for Business app now means M-Pesa fulfills 60 million transactions per day across its network.

Njeri, at her vegetable stand in Nairobi, sees the difference. She says for every customer who pays in cash, two pay with M-Pesa now, a big jump since the start of the pandemic. The business is on much better footing, she notes, so much so that she recently bought a car to help transport goods to the market. And she’s closing in on a dream: a new house.

“That’s what I’m planning for,” she says.

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