The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A CABLE Bahamas executive yesterday suggested that commercial banking practices are an obstacle to the faster uptake of mobile money, adding: “We need to get on it right now.”

Delmaro Duncombe, the BISX-listed communications provider’s director of B2B (business to business) sales and innovation, told the Exuma Business Outlook conference: “Mobile money… You really have to think about it and how you can implement it into your business because this was the future of business like three years ago.

“I talked about Airbnb, and this was the new thing three years ago. Get involved with mobile money because this is going to change the game. It’s already changed the world, it is already huge in Africa, particularly Nigeria, huge in South America and is growing in the Caribbean.

“We need to get on it right now, but I know what the problem is. We’ve got a banking system that’s big and strong and knows a lot of people, and we have some other people who may want to do some other things. But we have an opportunity to make the transfer of money, and the way of doing business, so much more easier and so much more seamless just by being able to use and leverage this technology.”

Mobile money, such as the Central Bank-backed digital currency, the Sand Dollar, is designed to make all payments and their settlement much cheaper and more efficient to conduct. “We have other players in the market. We have Island Pay, we have Kanoo, SunCash, you have Mobile Assist. We partner with all of those, we support all of them,” Mr Duncombe added.

“So you have all these different platforms that you can use to transfer funds. I know Cash n’ Go has an app. If you can find a way to get this implemented into your business, where people can come with their phone and pay you without having to dig in their pocket for cash or a plastic credit card, then do it.”

Mr Duncombe continued: “The success rate of messaging to mobile phones is way above 90 percent. You can bet whatever you have in your pocket that person will look at the message when you send it to them.

“Right off the bat we have a number of our customers that use it. Some of the banks would use it for notifications - you made a deposit or you just need to verify something, so banks will use it. Some insurance companies use it as well.

“So we have some small businesses that take advantage of it by again promoting some specials that they would run from time to time. So think about it. But, like I said, more importantly, you want to start collecting data from customers - the phone numbers in particular.”