Masabi, Mi-Pay Tout Mobile Payments for Rural Areas

Secure mobile-app developer Masabi has teamed with mobile payments provider Mi-Pay to develop Street Vendor. Street Vendor is a mobile transaction system that allows mobile operators, banks and other retailers to offer their services in remote regions without additional investment in infrastructure or hardware, using their existing, installed mobile phone base.

Already in use by Saraf Mobile, one of the world's first mobile person-to-person, agent-based money transfer services, Street Vendor is now live in Sudan with other rollouts planned across the Middle East and North Africa.

Unlike mobile operator-led mobile payment services, which require new SIM cards to be issued and integration with local network infrastructure, the Street Vendor system can be rolled out internationally to any territory that has SMS reception. The companies say this reduces the time-to-market and economics of delivering micro and macro financial services to cities and rural areas. It can also be rapidly launched in response to natural disasters or business needs in any area that local agents, SMS and Banking regulations allow.

The Street Vendor mobile application enables a distributed workforce to take cash payments in return for mobile top-ups or money transfer services using standard mobile handsets. The mobile handset acts as an Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) terminal and communicates with a central server to authenticate and approve the transaction over encrypted SMS in areas where other data connections are unavailable.

The application is compatible with many standard handsets, up to seven years old, and doesn't rely on smartphones or 3G and GPRS connectivity, which are not always available in rural areas. It uses Masabi’s EncryptME system to ensure transactions are completely secure all the way from the phone to the bank, regardless of the mobile network used. It also and complies with all international money transfer regulations.

Street Vendor also complies with international anti-fraud and money-laundering guidelines. Future versions of the system will support utility payments, direct debit setup and micro loans. They will also allow end-users to install the service on their own handset and authorize payments through participating banks.