SimonB

“Zoo officials have warned local South African bloggers that Rex the lion has escaped from the falconberg mental institution. Rex should be viewed as armed and dangerous especially towards bloggers and other web2.0 wannabes.  If you try to track him down, he will kill you.”

So reads the intro to a new online flash game, launched only hours after Rex the lion attacked “ZA Vrek Show” on his latest rexcast. If you beat the game you may be lucky enough to see who Rex is… or not

Rex the lion for those of you who don’t know, is a scary talking lion who pounced onto the local scene a few weeks back, he has been making waves ever since.

Many local bloggers are now trying to figure out who Rex is. What they seem to forget, which the game below very nicely highlights, is that if you track him down,  he will kill you! So lets give this lion his space and let him roar in peace!

Thanks to MR. Anonymous for leaking this game to me. Rex please don’t eat the messenger

South Africa has a population of roughly 48million, of the 48million almost 33million own a cellphone. The average cellphone spend of these 33million is about R140.00pm, thats in excess of R4.6billion per month, or roughly R55billion per year. Not bad considering the high unemployment rate in South Africa.

Of the 48million nearly half yes I said half, 50% are unbanked? Considering the fact that 33million have access to a cellphone this is shocking. Why are nearly half the people in our country unbanked?

The first thought that comes to mind is the high unemployment rate in South Africa, however keeping in mind that 30million South Africans are employed we start to wonder why so many people are still unbanked?

The second thought that comes to mind is lack of education when it comes to the adaption of new technology. Then again looking at the phenomenal growth in the cellphone market and the wide acceptance of such services as (please call me’s) and other such services, I don’t see this as a big problem.

The question thus arises, why are so many people still unbanked, surely this is a HUGE untapped market just waiting to be harvested. Isn’t it time to open the doors to these previously disadvantaged individuals and welcome them to the world of virtual mobile banking?

The biggest issue seems to be the confusing paperwork, long delays and far distances people have to travel just to open a bank account, then to access their own money they need to spend even more time traveling too and suffering with confusing machines called ATM’s.  To make matter worse long ques tend to build up at these machines and bad elements hang around near ATM’s and rob you shortly after making a withdrawal.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a system that allows for easy registration, safe and low cost money transfer and the ability to pay any person using only their cellphone number.

Imagine being able to pay your gardener cellphone2cellphone, imagine he could receive the payment on his cellphone and can then automatically send money to his family in the Transki with the push of a button, imagine large shopping retailers like Picknpay or Checkers welcoming mobile payment at their tills. Wouldn’t this type of system revolutionize the way South Africa does business?

Why is this market still untapped?