Here is this weekend’s collection of links on articles from around the web. Enjoy!
As Africa’s consumers rise, so does inequality
But the wealth on show at the mall has a flip side. The consumption boom has been fueled by fast-growing credit. In Kenya and elsewhere that has sucked in imports – cars, shoes, clothes, wines and whiskies – and swelled the current account deficit. Inflation in Kenya is now nearing 20 percent. As always, high inflation hurts the poorest most.
If you didn’t know, some short codes use your air-time
With a bit of ingenuity, a quiet communication regulator, and mobile network operators (MNOs) who don’t mind boosting their margins, short codes are turning into mobile communication nightmares for Kenyans
Don’t Punish Yourself Every Time You Spend
What if we focus instead on making sure the way we use our money is aligned with what we say is important to us? In other words, shouldn’t we be happy about spending money on things we value and are within our budget?
Why Hands-On Regulation of Mobile Money Could Be Dangerous
Where M-PESA falls short, I expect that other mobile money systems in Kenya or elsewhere in Africa will eventually succeed and demonstrate how to serve progressively poorer income segments. How this will be done, who will do it, and how it will be sustained, remains to be seen and represents the next chapter in mobile money.
Kenya’s Smart Agropreneurs Earn More Than Counterparts In Stock Exchange And Real Estate
A new class of entrepreneurs is emerging in Kenya – the new age farmer – buying land and planting high-yield crops, putting in water infrastructure to break dependency on rains, and even renting farms to cash in on returns often as high as a double payback in a single season and whose returns have now outstripped those in the stock exchange, bonds and even property.