Safaricom, the biggest mobile provider in East Africa, is working with data gathering startup, mSurvey to launch a consumer wallet to map Africa’s cash economy.
The app has already being made available to a limited number of users in Kenya as well as potential clients and corporate partners including McKinsey Consulting.
Kenfield Griffith, the CEO of mSurvey said: “We are refining the product with a group of potential clients to design the pricing model. We are scaling it along Kenya, but also looking beyond because we are not just solving a Kenyan problem, we are solving an African problem.”
For the Consumer Wallet test, mSurvey will use daily SMS and text messages to track the cash-based spending of a 1000 person sample drawn from Safaricom mobile subscribers. This will feed into the Consumer Wallet database tracking preferences and expenditures on items such as food, transport, education, and housing.
This Consumer Wallet will help organizations and businesses to understand the spending trends of Africans. The Consumer Wallet will be available on a subscription and license basis as from August 2017.
