UN: World Leader Africa Should Harmonise Mobile Money Laws
The East African Community (EAC) countries have been praised for their success in mobile money services but should make serious efforts to harmonise the different legal frameworks that cover the industry in the region, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has said.
UNCTAD has released a report titled Mobile Money for Business Development in the East Africa Community, which is a comparative study of existing mobile money platforms and regulation in the EAC countries, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. The Report stated that Africa ‘is a world leader in offering mobile money services…with about 60 mobile money services already in place.’
However, the UN Report also urged the EAC countries to introduce and implement harmonised regulation which should focus on ‘consumer protection, registration and transasaction limits, regulatory collaboration and interoperability between operators.’
Harmonisation is desired ‘as mobile money grows bigger and draws in more sectors, and new regulators will have to join the fold.’ UNCTAD noted that ‘dialogue is largely happening at a national level, with Kenya often leading the way, owing to the success of M-Pesa and the fact they have somewhat longer experience than the other EAC countries0.’ UNCTAD called for the EAC to prepare guidelines on electronic transactions, e-signatures and authentication, data protection and privacy, consumer protection, and computer crime.
Author: Michiel Willems
Dutchman Michiel Willems LLM MA is based in central London as an international journalist in broadcast and print, specialised in UK current affairs, e-commerce, finance, business and legal news.
Michiel studied law and journalism in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom and after gaining experience in Malaysia and India he returned to London in 2008 to embark on a career in writing and reporting.
With global study and work experience and an open mind, he currently works in central London as an associate editor, writer, voice over professional and radio reporter. Michiel has developed a great interest in the facts behind the headlines, the stories behind the statistics and the people behind the news.
His specialties are writing news stories, features, editorial comments, catchy standfirsts, drop quotes, captions, headers and headlines, commissioning, editing, conducting interviews, managing publications’ flatplans, radio reporting and gathering large amounts of information within a relatively small amount of time.
Michiel usually approaches a story from an original, relevant angle and likes to come up with fresh ideas for news stories and in-depth features. He speaks to a wide number of sources across the political, financial, business, legal and e-commerce sectors on a daily basis. Michiel has a broad network of contacts, in the UK as well as overseas, mainly consisting of bankers, lawyers, lobbyists, consultants, entrepreneurs, payment processors, regulators, trade associations, policymakers and politicians.
