Prepaid & Pay-as-you-go Models for Asset Financing Analysis of Mobile-Money Business Models for Kickstart (irrigation pumps) and M-KOPA (solar panels) in Kenya
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Date
2013Author
Omwansa, Tonny K
Sullivan, Nicholas P.
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Acceptance of the prepaid airtime model-along with the emergence of mobile money-sets the
foundation for new business models that allow innovative financing for people living on irregular
incomes or with an aversion to credit.
The new pay-in-advance (prepaid) or pay-as-you-go models are electronic hybrids of oldfashioned
savings and credit plans-but mobile-money systems give sellers and lenders the
ability to collect millions of frequent micro-payments, which is impractical with manual or cash
systems.
The key to prepaid models is their flexibility-you buy (or pay down or pay forward) what you can
afford when you want, with no pressure to buy more or adhere to a fixed payment schedule. In all,
this nascent model suggests that it might be possible to scale new and innovative products much
faster, with a highly efficient system of financing, than has been possible before.
Citation
Prepaid Business Models/CEMEPublisher
School of Computing and Informatics, University of Nairobi