Consumers struggling with Covid-19 shutdowns across sub-Saharan Africa have found a new place to get cash to make ends meet: their cellphones.
Tidahy Jacquot, 65 years old, a retired ministry of transport worker who lives in Madagascar’s capital city Antananarivo, hasn’t received any government grants or assistance and has been unable to make his normal income doing odd jobs. But he did get a loan of 60,000 ariary, equivalent to about $16, via his account with French telecom giant Orange SA .
By depositing more money into his mobile money wallet, he qualified for a loan and got an answer to his request for cash in about 10 seconds. He used the digital cash to stock up on rice.
“I am thankful…it was helpful in a critical moment,” he said.
African consumers have long been paying each other for goods and services on cellphones, making them among the earliest adopters of mobile money services in the world. The pandemic has turbocharged the usage of digital cash. It has also hastened the use of cellphones not just to transfer money, but also to take out loans and deliver government assistance.
