Change of Money Technology from Tally Sticks to M-Pesa and Airtel Money

Money is not a feature; it’s a technology rather a tool that defines a way of doing things. In ancient times money was defined as exchangeable goods (gold, silver), now a day’s its paper cash and in future it will be e-cash. So it is clear that as technology is advancing the technology of money is also advancing.

 
In the earlier times “split tally”, a wooden stick is used to record royal taxes in England. Tallies came into existence in 1066 and were there till 1826, a long duration. The sheriff would collect the taxes based on tax assessments and then remit the collected cash to the king. To ensure that both the sheriff and the king knew where they stood, the tax assessment was recorded by cutting notches in a wooden twig. The twig was then split, so that the king and the sheriff each had a durable record of the assessment. When it was time to “tally up,” the sheriff would show up with the cash and his half of the tally to be reckoned against the king’s half
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Today’s tally sticks are Mobiles. Mobile phones are used for making payments for a decade in Japan and Korea. In March, one out of six Japanese users bought something in a shop using a mobile.

M-Pesa: Africa is doing wonders in this field. Kenya is the home to the development of such a system known as M- Pesa. It was launched in 2007—not by a bank but by the country’s biggest mobile operator, Safaricom, with support from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development. The system has around 15 million users who can use their mobiles for making the payment in near about 28000 shops around the country who has a tie up with the system. Users can make transactions from their mobiles using an application that is built on the top of text messaging function i.e. user has to just send a text message in order to make a transaction. A third of Kenya’s gross domestic product now flows through M-Pesa. M-Pesa is also being replicated in Tanzania, Uganda, and other countries.

 

Airtel Money: Bharti Airtel has launched mobile money in India which they named as Airtel Money. A user can have an account with Airtel i.e. Airtel Money account or Airtel Money Wallet in which user can load money from any of the bank accounts and then spend the money anywhere, paying bills, purchase of utilities etc. Airtel Money scheme is available in 300 cities all over the India and the user can spend money over 7,000+ merchant outlets.

In spite of this Airtel money can also be used to do recharge of any one from anywhere on the go. One can transfer funds from one Airtel Money account (wallet) to another Airtel Money account and bank accounts. Airtel money does not work on the principle of text messaging, rather user have to dial *400# from their Airtel mobiles and the Airtel money menu will appear.