Telecoms, banking sectors urged to develop mobile wallets

Western Bureau:

ECONOMIST DR Andre Haughton has called on the country’s telecommunications companies and the banking sector to create and facilitate the use of mobile wallets so that Jamaicans can send and receive money remotely through the use of the Internet.

A mobile wallet is a virtual wallet that stores payment card information on a mobile device. It’s a convenient way through which businesses and individuals can receive and send money and make payments for goods and services.

“Our telecoms companies, Digicel and FLOW, must now be in a position to create these mobile wallets so that people can send money remotely,” said Haughton, who lectures in the Department of Economics at The University of the West Indies (UWI).

He made the call during a virtual public forum on innovation and how to survive economically after the COVID-19 crisis, hosted by the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry and The University of the West Indies Western Jamaica Campus last Thursday.

“Banks must also look to participate in this process and give people the ability to transfer money using this mobile money platform,” Haughton said. “When we do this, we will be in a better position to integrate payment systems among ourselves as a country.”

He said while Jamaica has been speaking about mobile money, there have been several companies that have been setting up mobile money platforms that make no sense.

“In Africa, you can send a text message to your mother and send her $2,000, and she uses this $2,000 to go to the shop and purchase whatever goods she wants. Jamaica should be in a case to do so as well,” noted Haughton.

The university lecturer and senator said the world is changing and luckily the Internet, through globalisation, is allowing us to enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution where the computer, artificial intelligence, computer applications and data management, among other things, are making people’s lives easier.

“It’s not as if we were not heading in this trend. We were already heading in this trend, but what the COVID-19 crisis has done is that it has pushed us a little bit further in terms of reaching our goal,” he added.