NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

When telecommunications companies MTN and Airtel Rwanda announced they were going to start cross-border mobile money transfers between the Northern Corridor states in November last year, subscribers were excited at the prospect.

This would make it easier for citizens in Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya to transfer money across the three East African Community (EAC) countries.

Presently, traders and ordinary people like parents with children studying Uganda or Kenya have to use more expensive options like Western Union and MoneyGram or commercial banks to send and receive money.

Others have to send the money through bus drivers plying the regional routes, an option that is not only risky, but time-consuming as well.

Some also use forex dealers at border points (who have mobile money telephone lines of both Rwanda and its bordering countries) in order to send and receive money, which is risky and unreliable.

All of these options clearly show the trouble people go through to carry out cross-border money transfer.