Haiti - Technology : Voilà, awarded for its mobile payment service T-Cash

After the award last January of the price "first on the market" for its service Tchotcho Mobile [2.5 millions of dollars], Haiti Mobile Money Initiative (HMMI) created in June 2011, has handed last Friday to the phone operator Voilà, a check of 1, 5 million dollars for "Second on the market" for its mobile payment service "T-Cash" in Haiti.

This award is part of a program initiated by the USAID-HIFIVE, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which aims to encourage, up to 10 million dollars, the development of mobile payment services in Haiti, like the existing service M-PESA in Kenya.

One of the important criteria of selection, required to the companies to competition, had to have at least 100 independent agents across the country that have recorded at least 1,000 transactions each. "The dossier submitted by Voilàg reatly exceeded this minimum [...] More than 150,000 subscribers already use T-Cash" has noted satisfied, Robin Padberg, General Manager of the Comcel.

Launched in December 2010, in collaboration with Unibank, T-Cash allows "to hold on its own mobile phone, a balance of 2,500 gourds to make deposits, withdrawals, local transfers, and other financial transactions such as buying or selling of goods and services," said Robin Padberg.

"The launch of mobile payment services in Haiti in a period as short, in a difficult environment, is the result of extraordinary efforts by all concerned: the mobile network operators, financial institutions and the Haitian regulatory institutions," said for his part, Greta Greathouse, Director of HIFIVE.

According Comcel, the telephone company Voilà, will invest all of these 1.5 million dollars in its distribution network T-Cash, in order to improve the accessibility of this service to the customers in Haiti.