4 ms·

Congratulations America we just caught up with Kenya circa 2007!

takeda 11y ago
I guess it should be "Congratulations Google"? Banks (at least BofA) were offering such feature for quite a while now. PayPal did it for even longer.
- Animats 11y ago
  PayPal's original business was that you could "email money". Merchant processing came later. The "viral" feature was that you had to sign up for a PayPal account to receive money.
pbreit 11y ago
Or going very far backwards.
pbreit 11y ago
Help me understand the comment. Are we to be ashamed that some aspect of our country is supposedly behind a third world country somewhere? Is it giving props to Kenya? Is it pointing out how an underdeveloped country can skip ahead in some situations? Is it associating Google with America while knowing that "pay by text" has been around for quite awhile in the US?
notliketherest 11y ago
This is so wrong. Google Wallet is riding on the credit card rails. In Kenya, where the card networks are virtually non existent, the telecom companies stepped in as the network. And last time I checked, in Kenya, you can only send money to those on the same network as you.
- kordless 11y ago
  This is so wrong. The title was send money with a text message. Regardless of the limitations of M-Pesa, over $25B in value was transferred with it last year, which indicates to me that it's useful and functional, regardless of what you are saying about credit card "rails".
  - bduerst 11y ago
    >over $25B in value was transferred with it last year ...Which is attributed to being the first-to-market payment system for Kenya, as the person before you was describing. U.S. and Kenya merchant markets are still an apples to oranges comparison.
    - newjersey 11y ago
      Sending and receiving "money" within the same network is fairly trivial from a technological point of view but once you tell customers that it is "money" that they can technically convert to and from cash, I imagine there are significant bureaucratic hoops to jump through, at least in the US. I bet even something as seemingly simple as Chase QuickPay is actually pretty complicated to implement (step one probably being: be a bank)
sib 11y ago
And the Philippines in 2005... But, hey, we're getting there!

I guess it should be "Congratulations Google"? Banks (at least BofA) were offering such feature for quite a while now. PayPal did it for even longer.

Animats 11y ago
PayPal's original business was that you could "email money". Merchant processing came later. The "viral" feature was that you had to sign up for a PayPal account to receive money.

pbreit 11y ago

Or going very far backwards.

pbreit 11y ago

Help me understand the comment. Are we to be ashamed that some aspect of our country is supposedly behind a third world country somewhere? Is it giving props to Kenya? Is it pointing out how an underdeveloped country can skip ahead in some situations? Is it associating Google with America while knowing that "pay by text" has been around for quite awhile in the US?

notliketherest 11y ago

This is so wrong. Google Wallet is riding on the credit card rails. In Kenya, where the card networks are virtually non existent, the telecom companies stepped in as the network. And last time I checked, in Kenya, you can only send money to those on the same network as you.

kordless 11y ago
This is so wrong. The title was send money with a text message. Regardless of the limitations of M-Pesa, over $25B in value was transferred with it last year, which indicates to me that it's useful and functional, regardless of what you are saying about credit card "rails".
- bduerst 11y ago
  >over $25B in value was transferred with it last year ...Which is attributed to being the first-to-market payment system for Kenya, as the person before you was describing. U.S. and Kenya merchant markets are still an apples to oranges comparison.
  - newjersey 11y ago
    Sending and receiving "money" within the same network is fairly trivial from a technological point of view but once you tell customers that it is "money" that they can technically convert to and from cash, I imagine there are significant bureaucratic hoops to jump through, at least in the US. I bet even something as seemingly simple as Chase QuickPay is actually pretty complicated to implement (step one probably being: be a bank)

sib 11y ago

And the Philippines in 2005... But, hey, we're getting there!