Leading cellular network helps bring SMME`s into formal sector
Vodacom`s new world-first community phone recharge system, Sigi Autocharge, will enable its 1 176 community phoneshop franchisees operating in underserviced areas to buy bulk airtime from Vodacom using banking facilities for which they previously never qualified.
"The overall effect is that previously unbanked people are being brought into the formal economy with enormous benefits for the country`s economy," says Andrew Mthembu, Managing Director of Vodacom (Pty) Ltd.
People in previously underserviced areas are making over 35 million calls (65 million minutes) from Vodacom`s 2 135 community phoneshops and phoneshop owners are receiving sizeable commissions from the network operator every month. Each franchisee recently received an ABSA bank account and the Mastercard optional account to facilitate payment for airtime. For the majority, this is the first time they have ever operated a bank account. The optional account will allow them to build a credit profile which will enable them to upgrade to credit cards, apply successfully for home loans and other value-added banking services.
The new Autocharge system enables emerging phoneshop entrepreneurs to purchase airtime and recharge their public access phones with one call to 11301 (from a cellular phone). They simply follow the voice prompts and recharge using their new Mastercard optional accounts.
"Sigi Autocharge gives these emerging businesspeople, who supply much-needed telecommunications infrastructure to their communities, commercial credibility in the marketplace. It empowers them by encouraging business thinking and allows them the opportunity to expand their business," says Mr Mthembu.
The new recharge system, developed by Vodacom in conjunction with Cointel, replaces the previous procedure for re-charging airtime. Franchisees had to deposit cash into Vodacom`s bank account and fax the deposit voucher to the company before the required airtime could be allocated. Now franchisees can re-charge their airtime at any time of the day or night using their Mastercard optional account.
Says Ahmed Ayob, Cointel Managing Director, "Sigi Autocharge is mobile e-commerce in its purest sense. Everything from the ordering to the delivery of airtime happens electronically.
"It demonstrates the ability of cellular technology to break through the barriers of conventional infrastructure and give underserviced sectors of the population access to the new economy.
"At the same time, for ABSA and Mastercard, it offers low-risk access to an unbanked sector of the South African population that is nevertheless crying out for innovative banking alternatives".
Vodacom`s community phoneshop concept was developed to provide underserviced areas with access to telecommunications while also encouraging small business. Local entrepreneurs are provided with ready-made fully operational telephone bureaux on a franchise basis at subsidised rates, enabling members of the public to make calls. Vodacom provides refurbished six metre transportable steel containers fitted with five or 10 telephone booths and phones, a shop counter and cupboard space.
Mr Mthembu added that Vodacom was the first network in the world to launch prepaid on an Intelligent Network (IN) platform. "The prepaid market is an extremely important sector of Vodacom`s subscriber base, with some 90% of new connections being prepaid. This reflects international trends, where prepaid is the major engine for industry growth in developed world countries.
"Vodacom`s prepaid technology has made it possible for 20 million South Africans who live in communities where there are fewer than one telephone line per hundred people to access first world GSM technology through community phone shops.
"Providing previously disadvantaged individuals access to telecommunications via cellular is the best way to draw them into the formal economy," concludes Mthembu.
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