Montreal Tech Watch

Chezola Systems, an IT company based in Laval, has announced that it has developed a mobile payment system called Chezola Pay for GSM phones. They plan to make it avalaible in Nigeria later this year. Users load an account with a prepaid card, and can then pay small amounts directly to merchants with a SMS message.

The service in itself is not revolutionary as Chezola Systems described it. It’s common in Northern Europe and in some east-asian countries like Singapore or Japan, but it’s actually the first time that such a service is launched in Africa.

Nigeria is Africa’s biggest potential market, with a 133 million population. As you might know (… or not) , mobile phones adoption have outpaced fixed telephony, with urban africans getting a GSM phone in the same manner that getting a car is a “reflex” in North America. It tells a lot though that Chezola is choosing Nigeria as their testbed, instead of trying to launch the service in North America. Growth rates in mobile telecommunications are higher in Africa, with much more competition between providers and plans that are actually cheaper than what is avalaible in Canada.

Update: Erik Hersma, a specialist about the usage of technology in Africa, gives his thoughts about the service in White African.