Mobile Payments Offering Access to Solar Power in Africa

We know mobile payments can do a lot of things already, like paying our utility bills. Some are even starting to wonder if mobile payments can provide access to utilities to begin with. That’s the case in Africa, based on recent word sent our way, where the combination of Mastercard and M-KOPA is opening up access to solar panel systems for residents there.

The numbers in isolation are stark and more than a little disconcerting: 1.2 billion people, or about 16 percent of the planet, doesn’t have much if any access to electricity. Around half of that 1.2 billion in Sub-Saharan Africa are routinely turning to biomass and similar solutions on a regular basis like charcoal, kerosene and wood.

This is where the partnership between M-KOPA and Mastercard is coming into play; M-KOPA already offers solar and clean energy options for three million people in East Africa, and now, with its Mastercard partnership, is poised to offer this technology to many more. Using Mastercard’s quick response (QR) code payment system, M-KOPA is set to bring its pay-as-you-go solar program to Uganda, and potentially to several other African countries as well.

With the QR code system in place, it will offer up a payment channel for M-KOPA users to put the technology to work, and ultimately bring at least a modicum of electric power to the region. Using pay-as-you-go financing takes one of the biggest impediments out of the solar power concept: the substantial up-front investment.

Incorporating mobile payments technology into such a system makes sense; after all, we know how mobile payments technology has been catching on in Africa, particularly QR code-based systems that don’t necessarily require a lot of infrastructure to make them happen. Considering that we’re talking about a system of infrastructure that’s being brought in, being able to pay for it using a system that doesn’t take much infrastructure just follows naturally.

If it works, it could bring a whole new level of easily-accessible energy to the region, and improve economic development from there. That means new users getting in on the action, and more sales for M-KOPA and Mastercard, a virtuous cycle all around.