Headline Jan 16, 2015/

''' CASH : THE LOSERS DISEASE '''

THE FUTURE OF MOBILE TRANSACTIONS has already arrived  -in Africa. In a market with few banks and even fewer ATMs......but, but....

With cell-phone network that makes the US's LAUGHABLE by comparison.

Mobile banking is the standard. In Kenya,  18 million M-Pesa users now move 20%  of the country's GDP via simple text messages. Pretty impressive for a program that started in 2007.  

But in the  economic development of the world and society, one very soon discovers, that like !WOW!   -it is a long game. And that has me to  dog-leg to the ''what-if''  for Pakistan.

Every Time I Have  Visited A Pakistani University In Recent Years, things have seemed the same in at least one great and simple respect:

I always ask, if they have ever accomplished something in class? If so what exactly is that?

I leave their answers, retorts, their attitude of  ''Storms Ahead''  to your imagination.

***Just as I (privately)  know that they are all proclaiming that I am a complete idiot and that !WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless is on the verge of coming to an ignominious end.

!WOW!  -belongs to every single student in the world. '' One share-piece-peace''. 

The World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless is naturally students, comfortably with the idea of building the greatest organisation mankind has known.

!WOW!  is no fantasy good and kind sires. It is a strategy. 

!WOW! doesn't need a lift from anybody. It has its own thrusters. We have gone about and survived, and  done with just about zero marketing. 

There is no magic. And !WOW!  is not even Weather Beaten!

Those days are gone,  and gone really to bye-bye,  when a government would put a chocolate on every pillow and tuck you in for the night.

Hello, my name is !WOW!

The Christmas Season is a window on the mobile wallet's development. Salvation Army Santas used mobile phones to take payments, there were  500%  daily jumps in mobile sales on PayPal.

And customers pulled out their cell-phones to check reviews and compare prices in stores in never-before-seen numbers. Amazon even offered $5 off to customers who scanned a bar-code in a store  -so Amazon could offer a lower price on the same item.

This  ''scan and scram''  behaviour infuriates brick-and-mortar retailers, who fear they are simply being used as a showroom for online retailers. They maybe right -but consumers now have:

A price discovery tool that gives them more power, and they aren't going to give it up.

Our comfort and routine with cash and credit cards have barriers of a sort. But mobile payments could jump the fence and move faster than anyone expects.

When Haiti was hit by an earthquake in 2010, the Red Cross raised  $ 32 million,  $ 10 at a time, via text. Ultimately, mobile payments made up 7% of the money raised for Haiti.

''We call it the game changer,'' says Roger Lowe,the charity's spokesperson. ''If they say people aren't  already using their phone for payments, I have 32 million reasons to believe that they are.''

Mobile payment platforms could power social movements too. WePay  an online payment system that helped the Occupy movement raise  $680,000, will launch mobile capabilities.

The mobile wallet, predicted to be worth  $12.5 billion in 2012.   

But on a everyday level, the mobile-wallet's big promise may lie in the little problems it can solve. ''If it's a busy lunch time I can preorder and prepay at Chipotle, skipping that long line,'' says Charles Wilson-

Who helps companies with social-media strategies, ''then it's a godsend''. Or as Ed McLaughlin, head of emerging payments at MasterCard, says,  cash will never go away but will only become less useful:

''Cash is going to be like the postage stamp. If you aren't used to using it, it won't make a whole lot of sense why one would.'' 

With respectful dedication to the Students of the world. See Ya all on !WOW! -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

''' Reinventing The Mouse '''

'''Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless