A major question to e- or m-payment gateway gurus....
This is not my cup nor project ( I'm more on silly things like games.... ) but I've been quite curious about a few questions. And I think for the sake of Mobile or Web developers, it would be nice to have this discussion. First, congrats again to David Mugo and his payment gateway. Since he is on the list, maybe he can share some experiences of the project. David or others on this list, I'd like to start with these questions and also present this thread questions as your payment gateway marketing to eg the list : - What has been the uptake of the payment gateways? - How many kenyan websites are using these? - What is the process for web developer to integrate the gateways into client sites, what have been the bonuses and pitfalls? - How about m-payment and are your systems fully capabale of this? - How many kenyan sites have created m-portals that allow for payments while how many have sms driven menus to allow for payments? You ladies and gents built the systems and gateways but has the market digested it and have Mobile/Web developers taken up the challenges to produce such? I've googled and have been unable to find ANY SITE that offers an m-portal nor sms-driven menu which is integrated to your gateways. Which then leads me to think that this payment sector is over even before it begun. What a sad story that would be if true. And please if 1-20 sites are using your systems that does not count. The target I assume was around at least a few thousand by now. Share you thots. :-)
If there are no takers on the discussion above, I'd like to create a " skunks virtual project " discussion on the matter and see if we are there on e- and m-payments as yet? *SKUNKS VIRTUAL PROJECT* - Kenya School Uniforms - Problem : Parents countrywide have to deal with the mess of queuing up, knowing where to, know sizes availability, prices and contact person. - Other Problems : Do the retailers have a website? Do they accept e- or m- payments? Do they have a site for parents to track or place their orders using a smartphone? Do they have a system that will provide a simple SMS based menu to start,pay and complete a transaction? Well gents/ladies, over to you. :-)
Good concept aki. -- Regards Martin
www.pewahewa.com On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 10:42 AM, Kariuki Martin <martinkariuki7@gmail.com>wrote:
Good concept aki.
-- Regards Martin _______________________________________________ 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
-- Sent from my Voice Recognition Watch© -------------------------------------------------------------------- God is not an excuse for lack of discipline -------------------------------------------------------------------- Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,but that we are powerful beyond measure.It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.As we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear,our presence automatically liberates others.
Joram, nice site thnks. :-) However, what e- or m-payment system is in use? 99% all payment gateways love to market their logos, I dont seen any kenyan one. I think we are starting to get somewhere, in a land of thousands of domain names and sites, we are starting the count down. So far the number count is ONE. This would be a catastrophic disaster and a wake up call for gateway designers. Me thots. Pls share more sites/applications. On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Joram Mwinamo <joram.mwinamo@gmail.com>wrote:
www.pewahewa.com
the mpayment solution is ipay which is Mpesa ZAP based the company behind it is www.intrepid.co.ke On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 2:34 PM, aki <aki275@googlemail.com> wrote:
Joram, nice site thnks. :-) However, what e- or m-payment system is in use? 99% all payment gateways love to market their logos, I dont seen any kenyan one. I think we are starting to get somewhere, in a land of thousands of domain names and sites, we are starting the count down. So far the number count is ONE. This would be a catastrophic disaster and a wake up call for gateway designers.
Me thots.
Pls share more sites/applications.
On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Joram Mwinamo <joram.mwinamo@gmail.com>wrote:
www.pewahewa.com
_______________________________________________ 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
-- Sent from my Voice Recognition Watch© -------------------------------------------------------------------- God is not an excuse for lack of discipline -------------------------------------------------------------------- Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,but that we are powerful beyond measure.It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.As we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear,our presence automatically liberates others.
The problem here is the ability to seamlessly use these API's to get access to these gateways. Take for example iPay, there is nowhere I can go on the site, sign up for an account, Agree to the terms and conditions make a payment and I get an account and use it to on my clients website. So that to me is already a problem. This is the Internet, iPay is supposed to do online payments so I should also be able to make an online payment and start using the system arent I? Steve Obbayi SKYPE: sobbayi http://sobbayi.com http://blog.sobbayi.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "aki" <aki275@googlemail.com> To: "Skunkworks Mailing List" <skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 7:34:29 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] A major question to e- or m-payment gateway gurus.... Joram, nice site thnks. :-) However, what e- or m-payment system is in use? 99% all payment gateways love to market their logos, I dont seen any kenyan one. I think we are starting to get somewhere, in a land of thousands of domain names and sites, we are starting the count down. So far the number count is ONE. This would be a catastrophic disaster and a wake up call for gateway designers. Me thots. Pls share more sites/applications. On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Joram Mwinamo <joram.mwinamo@gmail.com>wrote:
www.pewahewa.com
_______________________________________________ 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
Gentlemen, let me add another factor here. (And I do apologise to listers If I sound critical many times but I cannot help it, it's the way I see things...). This scenario below is for the payment dev gurus. As you know, Safcom is slowly going to swallowup a lot it can in the ICT industry as it increases looking for markets to increase revenue. Not just Safcom but others too who are looking for newer avenues. Safcom has the resources. Consider that it does infrastructure, hosting, web, email, internet, computers etc. Now you get a smart Safcom business developer who is going to ask themselves this : " Hey, all these e- and m-payment sites use Mpesa, which we provide a platform between them and the client. Can we not do our own thing? " And bang, Safcom is able to provide e- and m- payment API for websites and Mobile use to site owners. It also developes WAP portals for such client sites, thus enabling WAP enabled devices to further do Mpesa. It then goes further and creates an item number tagged system where the inventory of a site is tagged with numbers, creating SMS based online shopping. If we don't find answers to the problems being experienced in the payment gateways industry or at least try and see what the solutions can be, then all the devs are going to face issues later.
Me thots.
@Aki Damn, sounds like you sold a viable business idea to them! Nevertheless, we really had this coming. You're not alone on that line of thought. Which brings us back to the worry most small dev units have - being swallowed by the big fish. One step forward is to have a patented software system. However, there usually are several ways to solve a single problem in the software domain. Given that it is the *method* of arriving at a solution to a problem that is patentable, it may not be so hard for anyone else to unleash a similar solution to yours without code plagiarism. When all is said and done, at the end of the day it is the early bird to the market who wins. Yours is critical but 100% true! On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 6:09 PM, aki <aki275@googlemail.com> wrote:
Gentlemen, let me add another factor here. (And I do apologise to
listers If I sound critical many times but I cannot help it, it's the way I see things...). This scenario below is for the payment dev gurus. As you know, Safcom is slowly going to swallowup a lot it can in the ICT industry as it increases looking for markets to increase revenue. Not just Safcom but others too who are looking for newer avenues. Safcom has the resources. Consider that it does infrastructure, hosting, web, email, internet, computers etc. Now you get a smart Safcom business developer who is going to ask themselves this : " Hey, all these e- and m-payment sites use Mpesa, which we provide a platform between them and the client. Can we not do our own thing? " And bang, Safcom is able to provide e- and m- payment API for websites and Mobile use to site owners. It also developes WAP portals for such client sites, thus enabling WAP enabled devices to further do Mpesa. It then goes further and creates an item number tagged system where the inventory of a site is tagged with numbers, creating SMS based online shopping. If we don't find answers to the problems being experienced in the payment gateways industry or at least try and see what the solutions can be, then all the devs are going to face issues later.
Me thots.
_______________________________________________ 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
@Haggai, you've said it all in that one line below. The need for devs to stay ahead of the game. There are many industries that are affected by the wholesaler becoming a retailer scenario, one of them being ICT thereby creating a tight fisted control on pricing or unfair trading methods. No one can fix this problem. Competition should not be a concern but a driving force. The payment devs or companies should be turning 100s of kenyan sites into e or m-commerce stores each month, working together with web or mobile devs and everyone generating business for each other, I think there's plenty to go around. Web devs can comeup with ready made modules or complete e-store designs while Mobile Devs should have apps ready to integrate mobile access to such sites. But we are not seeing this, what we are seeing is individual attempts to try and get into the market. There seems to be no passion, rush or drive to migrate thousands of kenyan businesses to become better at providing product and service access. Why do we lack the passion? Why are we so slow at moving with the times? These 3 groups need to get together, thrash it out and have a commom marketing strategy. E & M payment services to your doorstep! Take this concept to shops, stores, vegetable vendors, market vendors, anyone is a potential client. However, I'll stop here and awaiting David Mugo's insights. Maybe the sector is doing well and everyone is happy, just that google does not know about it. :-) On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 6:34 PM, Haggai Nyang <haggai.nyang@gmail.com>wrote:
....... When all is said and done, at the end of the day it is the early bird to the market who wins.
Hi, am travelling, will respond to this in the evening. On 3/19/10, Kariuki Martin <martinkariuki7@gmail.com> wrote:
Good concept aki.
-- Regards Martin _______________________________________________ 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
-- Sent from my mobile device ------------- http://blog.majibu.com
participants (6)
-
aki -
David Mugo -
Haggai Nyang -
Joram Mwinamo -
Kariuki Martin -
Steve Obbayi