Mobile airtime as currency. Free market ftw.

[Nielsio]

Mobile telephony appears to have supplied a convenient form of currency that can outcompete national fiat (and hyperinflationary) money.


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A few years ago Vermaas, whose payment processing company, Ventury, acts as an intermediary service provider between GSM networks, banks and end-consumers in Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania by providing technological applications for airtime transactions, observed something unusual, purely by chance. More and more people were purchasing large amounts of airtime in Nigeria where Ventury has a contract with mobile phone operator Celtel to transact top-ups on prepaid phones.

[..]

“So instead of buying airtime off me, I would say I want to buy a can of Coke. You would say that costs 200 Naira. I would say would you take airtime, so instead of giving you 200 Naira in cash I would pay you with airtime.”

In other words, airtime had become another means of exchange for goods and services, a ‘wallet in your phone’ (or second currency) based on the stored value of prepaid vouchers.

http://business.iafrica.com/features/649690.htm


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