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.

The Upcoming form of money – e-money

Electronic money or e-cash is changing the way money is perceived as the paper cash had changed the way of buying the things. In the earlier times things were purchased on the basis of barter system or exchange of goods like gold and silver but then a revolution came first starting from coins moving onto paper cash. Paper cash has ruled a lot and now the time is coming when the paper cash may get replaced by the e-cash or e-money. However it is highly doubtful and not so easy to replace paper cash with e-cash.

 With the invent of technology and internet, the way things were purchased has changed drastically and that is happening because of e-commerce. The internet has created a new economic system – the ecommerce, which has become the virtual market place for everything. It has provided a platform where we can quickly and conveniently buy and exchange goods and services globally just sitting at our homes over the electronic systems such as internet. Ecommerce is identified as the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using the technologies such as EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer). EFT means transfer of funds from one account to another, either with single financial institution or with multiple financial institutions via computer based systems called the internet or any other computer network.

As per day by day technology is advancing and high-tech hand held devices are emerging which has converted e-commerce to m-commerce. M-commerce means doing any sort of commercial transactions with the help of any mobile device that can be a smart phone, PDA (personal digital assistant), or any other mobile device. According to comScore, upto November 2011 there were 38% of smart phone users who have used their phone to make a purchase at least once which means as smart phones are becoming more popular and is going from hands to hands, so does the mcommerce.

Global Internet penetration rates have an enormous impact on e-commerce and m-commerce growth rates. Currently, more than 30.2% of the world has access to the internet, and hence, e-commerce. Reduced Internet surfing charges, Internet technology development covering expanded bandwidth, and increased speeds & reliability could make e-commerce and m-commerce available to a large pool of emerging market consumers.

As e-commerce and m-commerce will increase, the value of e-money goes on increasing day by day. People will shop sitting at home or on the way using e-money. So, slowly and gradually the trend of e-money is increasing.

Moral Question and Access of Internet in Middle Class Families – part 2

The problem: How to make parents aware of Internet and how they should teach the moral aspects of internet to their children.

 The fact comes that many parents themselves are not interested in going to the cafes or anywhere for the internet coaching classes because they think that internet means chatting, watching videos, listening to songs, etc. but the fact that internet is much more than that and there should be a way out as to get the interest of parents regarding the internet.

The social, moral, cultural, religious and ethical value of internet must be known to the parents. The problem again the same how this should be achieved??

There is a lot off content over the internet which justifies all the values related to internet, but again how it should reach the common man? For that someone has to take initiative on a bigger scale that it reaches every mass in the world. For example Mark Zukerberg did, he touched the social value of the internet, creating facebook which results the involvement of one and all, and even those people have started using facebook who have never touched the internet. This kind of revolution is needed in the other values like moral values, cultural values, and religious values.

What the parents will do, who do not know internet and want their children to learn and access internet, but are worried because of social and moral values. They can’t wait for such a revolution in other sectors of social and moral values. Rather they should join or search for the ongoing revolutions which are unnoticed and can do wonders in the life of their children like what is done and is ongoing in education. There almost all the books related to any subjects are available on the internet. Hundreds and thousands of reference books are available related to almost all the subjects in the world. If parents have no time to study internet then also they can at least motivate their children to study such books and the reading experiences that many of the sites are giving is such that a student who does not like studding also starts doing so.

In spite of only education there is a lot of content related to children’s interest on the internet. If a child likes to play with clay and tries to make something out of it then there are lots and lots of videos and tutorials that parents can follow in order to create more talent out of the child. If a child has good dancing or singing skills then those can also be enhanced by the parents by motivating the children to do things related to their interest. Many children like story books, novels, creative writing, artistic creations, designing (textile, interior, etc.), etc. There is a lot of content related o all such things that if a child wants he can master all such things just sitting at home with internet. What needed is the vision of parents not considering internet as a bad thing and spoiling the moral values of the child, rather considering it as the new way to groom their children and making them multi talented on different platforms.

Moral Question and Access of Internet in Middle Class Families

Internet and the Moral issues have always been the two sides of a coin especially for the Indian middle class families. On one side the mind blowing features of the internet, providing knowledge, instantaneous, worldwide, interactive and the list goes on. On the other hand, the issues related to moral and social values like porn, chatting with strangers, cut out from the outer world, ruining the social life and again the list goes on….

In our middle class Indian families moral values are the assets and no one can beat them in the world. These moral values come into the way when it comes to the internet world. Parents in the middle class families are afraid that if they got internet at their home children will be spoiled by the negative effects of the internet. It’s the tendency in Indian middle class to protect the children from any bad things weather many good things associated with them also goes untouched. Fear of being addicted to porn, fear of being making strangers as friends, fear of being spoiling the social and childhood life and all these fears because a seed of evil will grow 100 times faster than a seed of goodness. Parents are absolutely right because the way kids are getting maturity is a matter of discussion for the parents as well as the society, but that does not mean that the children of middle class families should be deprived of internet just because of other fellow children who do ass such kinds of nonsense activities.

Now the question arises that how moral values be maintained and simultaneously access to internet has also be provided to the children especially of Indian middle class families. For this parents have to come on the front to take it as a challenge. They should take time from their busy schedule to give time to their children and tell them the pros and corns of the internet, give them certain assignments so that their interest related to internet gets built up, fixing their internet usage hours, giving them a platform to read on the internet and lots and lots of things that a parent can do in order to generate energy and good ideas in the mind of a child related to internet such that the other side of the internet remains away from the child. But what if the parents themselves are not aware of internet??? A big question to worry!!!! Children want internet, parents have no knowledge what it is?? But they know that it can harm children in many ways, so NO NO NO NO to internet. This is a major problem in Indian middle class families. This problem can also be eradicated but if parents want so.

Parents could join the internet classes and can have a look at both the sides of the coin before giving the access to children, so that their doubts can be cleared, moral values can be retained and children also gets the access to the internet.