South Africa – The Good News: A pioneering South African cellphone bank is changing the lives of South Africa’s “unbanked and underbanked”, tackling unemployment and leading the world’s emerging markets towards convenient, affordable banking.

South Africa has 16 million unbanked or “underbanked” citizens – a huge chunk of the nation that is largely excluded from meaningful and convenient access to economic participation. According to the FinMark Trust’s 2004 FinScope survey, the overwhelming majority of unbanked South Africans cite unemployment or a lack of sufficient money as the reason for not having a bank account. With no bank account, these South Africans are obliged to stash their cash in the proverbial cookie jar. Physical access to a bank is also a major issue, particularly for South Africa’s 8.1 million rural poor, only 5{a9f0d31f6175b3e4775e11a66c07db268fb74408d6095f6b46eeec420c0e9f62} of whom have a bank “nearby”. Unsurprisingly, it takes the average South Africa 58 minutes to access a financial services point. A trip, or rather an expedition, to the bank becomes a costly experience for the very people that can afford it the least.

Enter Wizzit, a division of the South African Bank of Athens, who in April launched South Africa’s first cellphone bank aimed at providing the South African unbanked and underbanked population with a fully functional bank account that would eliminate the risks of carrying cash and would enable these marginalised masses to interact financially and participate in the economy.

The vehicle that is making banking accessible to the unbanked masses is the cellphone, a tool that is revolutionising the developing world, opening up channels for communication and services that were unthinkable not so long ago. A startling 57{a9f0d31f6175b3e4775e11a66c07db268fb74408d6095f6b46eeec420c0e9f62} of all South Africans have a cellphone and a vast majority of the nation’s 26 million cellphone users are prepaid customers. Wizzit’s founding Director Brian Richardson and his partner Charles Rowlinson saw the potential in the cellphone as a banking channel and developed the world’s first pay-as-you-go cellphone bank.

“In terms of cell phone technology,” says Richardson, “South Africa has been acknowledged as a world leader. There has been so much interest in this bank from abroad that we are looking to take it to other parts of the world.”

“The cellphone opened up a whole new world of possibilities for those that were previously excluded from full banking services. We are all about making people’s lives easier and making banking as painless as possible.”

“There are no monthly fees on the Wizzit account. It is entirely transactions-based and we work on a pay-as-you-go basis. There is no minimum balance on the account and all we need to open the account is a copy of a client’s ID document – no salary slips, proof of employment, credit checks or anything else.”

Wizzit banking works on any cellphone, using any SIM card and across all networks.

The innovative banking upstart – or ‘disruptive innovators’ as they have been called – are also making a dent in unemployment, through their policy of only hiring unemployed South Africans – as the “Wizz Kids” who take the cellphone bank into the townships and rural banks and the call centre operators who can answer a query in all of South Africa’s eleven official languages. To date, Wizzit have created 1,100 jobs.

“When we started off four years ago, we were told we were mad,” says Richardson. “We were told that we were wasting our time, but we saw an enormous opportunity to provide an invaluable service in an untapped market.”

For more information, visit Wizzit’s website