How Mobile Money steals my money

It is a good thing that we have mobile money in Nigeria and I don't hate the technology but what I hate rather is the inefficiency of the technology. In a way, I think mobile money actually makes use of people's funds without giving them any discount for it other than the convenience of carrying money on a mobile phone.

You may be asking, how does mobile money steal my money? Well, I'm going to mention a few ways which I've had some experience in.

The first issue is that of no interest for holding my money. Yes, if you have invested your money into a mobile money account, as far as I know for now, there is no interest payable on the money you put into the system. Once your money is inside the mobile money system in Nigeria, there are no interest on deposits and your money is just the face value that it is and so that makes it less attractive than a savings of fixed deposit account. If you put N100,000 of your money into mobile money, it will not earn any interest for you and so that in a way steals the value of my money.

Another way through which mobile money steals my money is through their inefficient service such as in non-delivery of airtime. I like the fact that one can buy airtime recharge with mobile money and without any extra fees but there has been many times when I purchased airtime that was not delivered to me. In some cases, I would even forget to make a complaint to interswitch or Mobile money provider and that ends up as a loss to me. I think mobile money providers should incorporate an auditing system in their software that actually checks to see if the service that has been paid for by users has actually been delivered. I'm sure not many people would remember to make complaints for non-delivery of service they've already paid for or know how to channel their complaints. Just yesterday, I bought airtime worth N200 using mobile money but it was not delivered even though I had already been charged for it. That is like the old post paid billing system used by NEPA to defradu people even though they didn't offer any service. Thank God for prepaid meter system. Anyway, I get robbed many times by mobile money when the network debits my account but doesn't delivery any airtime credit.

A third way through which Mobile money has been stealing my money is through their convenience fee for paying some bills such as PHCN bills. I should think that the main purpose of encouraging mobile money is to let people make use of computers to settle their bills and cashlessly too. So why charge them a convenience fee of N100 anytime they want to do so? I think the convenience fee should be scrapped and this would even encourage more people to use the service.

A fourth way through which Mobile money takes my money is through the channels through which one accesses the service. As we know, mobile money service operates using channels such as the internet or SMS both of which are not free and which shouldn't be so. I think mobile money operates should work with GSM networks so as to remove the cost of using the internet and SMS to access mobile money. People shouldn't be paying for data or sms as long as they are using mobile money. That in a way amounts to double charging. I think the GSM networks can do it if they want to, afterall, accessing portals belonging to GLO, MTN or Airtel is normally free as long as you are using their SIM card.

Will I continue using Mobile money? Well, I guess I would when you consider the convenience it offers, the fact that some GSM vendors have increased the price of recharge cards, there is a cost involved and time used when going to the PHCN and DSTV office for making payments.