as a side note...look at David Mugo's mail...he might be able to help you faster:-) seems they have worked out the kinks.... great stuff.. On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 11:25 AM, John Gitau <jgitau@gmail.com> wrote:
Theus,
Actually its an interesting debate you sort of re-started here. Guys tend to discuss this on and off - blow steam and Im beginning to think what is lacking is some direction.
Integrating Mpesa, ZAP and other mobile payment systems to a website is quite easy -IMHO, less cumbersome and definately cheaper than going the visa/mastercard and other colonial methods - start small, start with one then move on to the next one-... just look at the entire process end to end, reason it out...
To guide your thought process...lets take MPESA:
- you have a handset and an agent/sub-agent to make a successful transfer. - then you would have your site with your fancy code/application. - then you have content providers (this is not even necessary but I add it just in case you are well connected)
*Think of how the pesapoint ATM's work.
Now slowly think of what/how the entire ecosystem comes together and write the code to tie it together. Unfortunately I don't personally have time to do this. I have tested it with a colleague in the past, it was fun and probably have the code and some hardware lying around somewhere.
The only way I would be roped in on another debate of this kind (since I'm personally not interested) is if its done as some sort of community project and all code would be open for guys to integrate to their sites. I am a big believer in local content and solutions driving internet in Kenya, since the big guns are out chasing business, we can organically grow it from the ground up, even if its just to create awareness.
To this end we would require a simple server PC, nothing fancy, a place to host it - like I said start small, don't frustrate yourself. This would make up the test bed. We would give the product a name and take it from there.
Regards, JGitau
On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 10:54 AM, Theus Owicho <owichot@gmail.com> wrote:
Skunkers I am just wondering, what will it take to integrate M-pesa and Paypal? Dont you think that Safaricom should be talking to paypal now that Yu is working with Obopay and Zap has very many red tapes? I was talking to a senior Zain employee. I was asking them why they didn't have online account recharge like http://www.zantel.co.tz/ since sometimes when even the network fail in Nairobi and you want to send money to someone in Mombasa, it might go through since Mombasa might be up. They told me that the people who do the website is a third party and so adding functionality into the website will result in renegotiation of contracts. He said he pushed for that until he reached a wall. For those who use Paypal to actively buy software every month and pay hosting services and new phones, what do you think of the paypal system? Theus _______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks ------------ Skunkworks Server donations spreadsheet http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AopdHkqSqKL-dHlQVTMxU1VBdU1BSWJxdy1f... ------------ Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke Other lists ------------- Announce: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks-announce Science: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/science kazi: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/kazi/general
-- **Gitau
-- **Gitau