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A crash course in changing the world.
E-money for the unbanked?
In a previous blog, I wrote that I thought someone (like Paypal) should create a service that does something like this:
You bring money to a convenience store, like 7-11, and deposit it into your account.
You then use that money online for purchases, or alternatively, use your cell phone to make purchases from live retailers electronically.
This gives people without bank accounts (which is 1 in 13 American families) access to the electronic transaction world those of us with such accounts take for granted. Meanwhile, a whopping 1 in 4 US households rely primarily on services like Payday lenders and Pawn Shops for financial services.
It turns out, there's a company doing most of this already, called Kwedit. The stealthy (?) thing about this, at the moment, is that it's exclusively operating in the world of online game payments. They've gotten press in places like the the Colbert Report and GeekDad, as a way of teaching kids about credit (for good or ill). I suspect, though, that once you get this model in place virtually, it's just a hop, skip and a jump to extending it to other online transactions. Could this be a very big thing down the road?
Views: 121
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Comment by DGCmagazine Editor on April 19, 2010 at 2:47pm
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In the U.S. because of regulations and lack of demand for such a service, there really is NO conversion of cash into digital units by any kind of regular business. That includes units that travel over cell phone or the Net. These systems develop out of a need for the product and in the U.S. there is no 'recognized' need, everyone just uses their bank or plastic. Across Africa there is a huge need because no one has a plastic card and more people have cell phones than have bank accounts, thus the development of a wide variety of businesses that act as cashiers for this service. You can walk up with cash, and either deposit it to your cell account or buy a voucher that will add it to your account. This type of cash to digital process is in huge demand there, but does not exist in the U.S. That is what Dr. Pete was referring to in the original post here, providing services that offer cash to digital for the unbanked crowd. I happen to agree with him, it's a great idea and a big market. There is an issue with the business handling and reporting cash transactions (Patriot Act) and then there is money transmitting side of the equation. If you accept the cash and add the digital unit are you a money transmitter requiring licensing in each State you have clients? Yes. These are rather large hurdles for any small business to get over. If there was a big market for this, I would think that we would see Prepaid PalPal cards hanging in 7-11.
Mark
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Comment by KingofthePaupers on April 20, 2010 at 3:34am
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DrPete: "King: here's an example... I babysat for 2 hours, and I would like a laptop (or maybe just a DVD). How do I acquire one from the timebank? I don't see how that would work."
Jct: Let's say you join or start a Local Employment-Trading System, Timebank, Ithaca Hours network. You start with 4 Ithaca Hours = $40 and can just pay for your DVD with them. Then you did your babysitting and got some Ithaca Hours back. Or you open a LETS account, look in the Directory of Goods and Services, find what you need and then cut a check or, if you have an online account, transfer a credit for Hours owed. http://johnturmel.com/unilets.htm is my rudimentary but still functional first and oldest personal online LETS timebank account on the planet.
DrPete: "Among the issues timebanks seem to have is the notion that some people's services are more valuable than other people's services. It may not be fair, but 2 hours of a doctors time are probably worth more/more in demand than 2 hours of babysitting, and it doesn't make much sense for a doctor to offer his time in exchange for the same amount of babysitting.
Jct: Absolutely, that is the greatest flaw in the "everybody-gets-the-same" Timedollar system! They tested time-tokens at their King City convention a few years ago and I pulled out my accordion and busked as delegates went by and earned 4.1 Hours per hour proving that the minute you are using physical tokens, the market becomes free. So of course, they never adopted tokens so they could control everyone's earning rate and keep the fatal flaw in their system. Remember, it was taken over by saboteurs years ago which explains the constant rejection of free market time-tokens allowing more valuable time to win more in a fair game that has been the death of every other labor timebank run that way in past history! They're not the first "equal time" bank to fail but they will be the last as social databases now offer credit swapping that only need to be linked to time to offer the free market the Timedollar crowd have kept controlled all these years. Why do you think Timedollars keeps showing no growth? Sabotage by high expense and low efficiency (velocity)!
DrPete: "If you want an idea numeraire, perhaps "energy" or "energy cost" would be more useful."
Jct: Correct. Energy-based collateral for chips, except both energies, E=m*c^2 and E=P*t
Power of Man times time is also energy. So timebanking is energy banking.
"As to why we can't do this stuff with phones, it seems to be the result of our regulatory environment, which is not very friendly towards electronic currencies. We've got online banking services but no electronic cash here."
Jct: But every third-world village in Kenya that doesn't have any banks bleeding them dry for using national interest-bearing cash they can't borrow does transfer minutes by phone! You tell me why nations that have banks still bleeding them dry can't transfer minutes by phone.
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Comment by Jon Matonis on April 20, 2010 at 3:17pm
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Dr. Pete,
This is primarily an issue of jurisdiction. Solutions will gravitate to those jurisdictions with the least barriers of resistance. Also, regarding your money laundering question, the largest facilitator of this anonymous, untraceable activity is the Federal Reserve, which prints the $100 bills used in suitcases today. I am sure you would not advocate eliminating paper cash because it is used for activities that you may disapprove of. Likewise, we should not advocate losing any anonymity simply because of a move to digital units. Resist digital money.....UNLESS IT'S ANONYMOUS!
http://themonetaryfuture.blogspot.com
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