Foreign news
Chinese technology helps Kenya improve mobile payment service
Chinese technology has helped M-Pesa, an electronic mobile payment platform, to maintain smooth operations in Kenya.
Launched in 2007, M-Pesa has gained popularity because of a special function that allows users to transfer money and make payments using a phone service even when they do not have a smartphone or their phone cannot connect to the internet.
“I think M-Pesa has revolutionized payment in Kenya. It’s very easy for me to make payments,” Miller, a hotel manager, told China Media Group (CMG).
“I can pull money from bank and put it in my M-Pesa account and use it when I want – in a restaurant, in a supermarket, paying bills directly from my phone. For the same thing, at the mall and also for the hotel and apartments, it’s very easy for our guests to pay,” Miller said.
However, a rapidly growing users base has brought technical challenges to the service. In 2012, due to a large number of users and insufficient platform capacity, the withdrawal service often used to crash on Fridays.
Chinese technology helped the operator build a more stable and powerful second-generation M-Pesa mobile payment service.
“We worked with them to build up the platform which can support tens of millions of users to use the ‘mobile pocket.’ Its business success rate has greatly increased and the time for breakdown every year has been dramatically reduced,” Meng Wei, head of the Kenya representative office of a Chinese technology provider, told CMG.
The Chinese technology provider also makes efforts to improve user experience and develop more services.
“The M-Pesa has integrated a strong ecosystem in which users can book train tickets and flights on the platform. We hope to use Chinese technology to help people of Kenya to fully enjoy the development of digital economy. We believe that in the era of digital economy, no one should be left behind,” said Meng.
Foreign news
Nigerians lament over exorbitant UK visa application fees
Nigerians on Thursday expressed concern over the exorbitant charges for various UK visa application fees, calling on the Foreign Affairs Minister to look into that area.
This complaint was done in a vox-pop interviews by different UK applicants in the country.
Some of them, however, complained about not getting the value for money spent, and the service delivery is also not efficient.
Speaking on the matter, Mr. Ajayi Okon said that he feels they are beginning to make so much money out of Nigerians because most Nigerians love to go there based on proximity.
“I think it is high time the government intervenes; at times it looks like extortion to me. You will pay a priority visa, which is over a million naira, to get a response within 2 days.
“The next thing, you will get an email telling you because of high demand, it will take another 15 days, so what is the essence of the priority paid for?
“ If you are collecting money for a particular service, you should have factored in how you want to deliver efficient service.
However, Mrs. Sarah Mbah said that on the application portal, the self-service option, which is cheaper, is not accessible easily.
According to her, after paying so much on visa fees, you will still be denied without an option of appeal despite the money spent.
“I think the government needs to pay attention, especially in those areas of visa application to other countries.
“The fees are getting too high, and the service delivery is also not satisfactory. Nigerians will outright be denied without any right to appeal after paying so much.
“ I feel is not right; some cases should be allowed to appeal, especially looking at the resources involved, so people won’t feel cheated,“ she added.
Furthermore, Favor Adamu said that the perception is usually that it is people who have the resources that apply for UK visas, but the truth is, people save up for those fees.
She said that because of the high rate of migration, they usually suspect that everyone coming to their country won’t want to return, and based on that, they use that to denial people.
Adamu said based on this, the fees should not be too much, so such a person won’t feel cheated because they cannot even appeal the decision.
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