May 17, 2012
iKasi Facts #7: Mobile Money

Our second installment of briefs on cellphone usage in South African townships, based on our April 2012 data, looks specifically at mobile banking and mobile money services.

25% of the 1008 surveyed township residents use their cellphones for accessing their bank accounts or sending money to other cellphone users via mobile money services. Accordingly, 84% of respondents have a bank account and 16% have a mobile money account with FNB eWallet, M-Pesa, MTN Mobile Money or WIZZIT. However, only 9% of those with a bank account have accessed it via cellphone in the last 2 weeks, and 8% of all respondents have ever sent money using one of the mobile money service providers.

Bank Account Access

The most active mobile banking users are among the better-off respondents (LSM 8-10, n=194), of which 43% claim to access their bank accounts via their cellphones or send money using one of the established mobile money service providers. In comparison 23% of members of the LSM 6-7 bracket (n=563) and 16% of the LSM 4-5 bracket (n=174) say that they are using mobile banking and mobile money services.

Mobile Banking by LSM

The levels of awareness of the individual mobile money services differ significantly. 58% of respondents have heard of FNB eWallet which was launched in 2009 by FNB. 57% know M-Pesa, offshoot of the Kenyan success story locally managed by Vodacom in partnership with Nedbank. 38% are aware of MTN Mobile Money which has recently been purchased by Standard Bank. 12% are familiar with WIZZIT which was launched already in 2004 as a division of the South African Bank of Athens and which has a partnership with ABSA and the South African Post Office. It is noteworthy that only FNB eWallet and M-Pesa do not require the recipients of money transfers to be members of the service prior to the transaction.

Awareness of Mobile Money Services

Subscription rates are generally low and mirror the variations in levels of awareness. 8% of respondents say that they have an account with FNB eWallet, 7% with M-Pesa, 2% with MTN Mobile Money and 1% with WIZZIT.

While traditional bank accounts are far more prevalent (84%), membership levels also differ significantly. The most popular bank is Standard Bank, where 31% of banked respondents (n=832) claim to have an account. This is followed by ABSA, Capitec and FNB, all at 24%. Nedbank comes in at the fifth spot with 14%.

Despite the low subscription rates to mobile money services, especially compared to other markets in Africa such as Kenya, there are signs for a positive trend in the future: 25% of respondents who do not have a mobile money account yet (n=820) are planning to subscribe to one in the next 3 months.

A full report with more data on cellphone usage and mobile banking can be obtained from ikapadata. Please find the full questionnaire below.

QUESTIONNAIRE

All our datasets come with full demographics of respondents including Gender, Age, LSM (including all individual LSM variables), Language, Residency, Education and Occupation.

Do you have a cellphone? (Yes/No)

What make of phone do you use?

  • Apple
  • BlackBerry (RIM)
  • HTC
  • Huawei
  • LG
  • Motorola
  • Nokia
  • Samsung
  • Sony Ericsson
  • Vodafone
  • Other…

What model is your phone?

What do you use your cellphone for?

  • Phone calls
  • SMS
  • Browsing the Web
  • Email
  • MXit
  • Facebook
  • Cellphone Banking
  • Sending Money (Mobile Money)
  • Prize Competitions (SMS)
  • SMS services (charged)
  • Other…

How much money do you spend on cellphone airtime per month? (Rand)

Have you ever heard of M-Pesa? (Yes/No)

Do you have a M-Pesa account? (Yes/No)

Have you ever used M-Pesa to send money to someone else’s cellphone? (Yes/No)

Have you ever used M-Pesa to buy airtime? (Yes/No)

Have you ever heard of FNB eWallet? (Yes/No)

Do you have a FNB eWallet account? (Yes/No)

Have you ever used your FNB eWallet to send money to someone else’s cellphone? (Yes/No)

Have you ever used your FNB eWallet to buy airtime? (Yes/No)

Have you ever used your FNB eWallet to pay at a PEP store? (Yes/No)

Have you ever heard of MTN Mobile Money? (Yes/No)

Do you have a MTN Mobile Money account? (Yes/No)

Have you ever used MTN Mobile Money to send money to someone else’s cellphone? (Yes/No)

Have you ever used MTN Mobile Money to buy airtime? (Yes/No)

Have you ever heard of WIZZIT? (Yes/No)

Do you have a WIZZIT account? (Yes/No)

Have you ever used WIZZIT to send money to someone else’s cellphone? (Yes/No)

Have you ever used WIZZIT to buy airtime? (Yes/No)

Are you planning to subscribe to a mobile money service provider in the next three months? (Yes/No)

Have you ever heard of MXit Moola? (Yes/No)

Do you have a MXit account? (Yes/No)

Do you ever buy MXit Moola? (Yes/No)

How much money do you spend on MXit Moola per month? (Rand)

Do you have a bank account? (Yes/No)

With which bank(s) do you have a bank account?

  • Absa
  • Capitec
  • FNB
  • Nedbank
  • Standard Bank
  • Other…

Did you access your bank account(s) during the last two weeks? (Yes/No)

How did you access your bank account(s) during the last two weeks?

  • Teller
  • ATM
  • Mobile Phone
  • Internet
  • Telephone

8:53am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZXffhxLdp-M-
Filed under: survey statistics mobile banking mobile money south africa township mpesa fnb 
May 16, 2012
iKasi Facts #6: Cellphone Usage

A few months ago ikapadata made headlines by publishing survey data that showed that Facebook is overtaking MXit as the social network of choice among township residents. Our latest findings on cellphone usage support these results.

Cellphone Usage

This latest survey was conducted in April with 1008 participants in townships in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. It shows that 46% of surveyed township residents use their cellphones for browsing the internet, 43% for accessing Facebook and 32% for accessing MXit.

This is in line with the findings from the earlier ikapadata survey in November 2011, which showed that 55% of township residents aged 16-35 have a Facebook account compared to 50% who have a MXit account.

Comparing the characteristics of Facebook and MXit users shows that Facebook is more popular across all LSM groups, but especially among better-off township residents (LSM 8-10, n=194), of which 75% claim to use Facebook on their cellphones; 54% of the members of the same LSM groups say that they use MXit on their cellphones. Similar results apply to age: while the popularity of both Facebook (56%) and MXit (47%) is fairly high among township residents aged 16-30 (n=652), 40% of respondents aged 31-35 (n=96) use Facebook on their phones compared to 18% using MXit. Respondents older than 35 (n=232) are generally less likely to be accessing social networks with 9% using Facebook on their phones compared to 4% using MXit.

Social Networks by LSM

Social Networks by Age

The results also show that 30% of respondents use their phones for email services and 20% utitlise SMS services or take part in prize competitions via SMS. Apart from Facebook and MXit no other social networking or instant messaging services were included in the survey.

The popularity of mobile internet services among the surveyed population can be partly ascribed to the increasing prevalence of smartphones in townships. While 53% of respondents have a Nokia phone as their primary phone, Blackberry is in the third spot with 11% (following Samsung with 19%). At the same time 91% of Blackberry owners claim to browse the internet compared to 41% of owners of other brands’ cellphones. Moreover, Blackberry owners claim to spend an average of R170 per month on airtime opposed to R118 claimed to be spent by non-Blackberry cellphone users.

Cellphone Brands

A full report with more data on cellphone usage and mobile banking can be obtained from ikapadata.

11:38am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZXffhxLaHl8m
Filed under: social media mxit facebook nokia blackberry south africa cellphones iKasi Facts statistics survey 
May 14, 2012
iKasi Facts #5: Protection of State Information Bill

In January ikapadata made headlines by publishing survey data on township residents’ opinion of the Protection of State Information Bill. We never came around to publishing the respective blog post – until now.

The survey, which was conducted with 1108 South African township residents in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban in the first half of December 2011, shows that 40% of respondents never heard of the State Information Protection Bill. They were presented with the question “Do you think that the newly passed Protection of State Information Bill (called the Secrecy Bill by the media) will be good or bad for South Africa? South Africans have been divided on this issue. Where do you stand?”

21% said it will be good, 25% bad, 14% heard of it but had no opinion and 40% never heard of it.

However, the proportion of respondents with a high LSM score (LSM 8-10) who never heard of the bill is much smaller (27%) compared to respondents with a medium LSM score (LSM 6-7: 38%) or low LSM score (LSM 4-5: 61%). Accordingly, the proportion of respondents without matric who never heard of it is greater (51%) compared to respondents with matric or a higher qualification (33%).

Partly as a result of this in combination with different demographic characteristics of respondents in the three surveyed areas, the numbers differ significantly from metropole to metropole. In Cape Town respondents in general  had a lower living standard (living standard measure LSM 6.1) and were less educated (matric rate 50%) compared to respondents in Durban (LSM 6.6, matric 72%) and Johannesburg (LSM 7.1, matric 66%). Accordingly, in Cape Town (n=332) 15% said thought that the bill is good, 18% bad, 11% had no opinion and 56% never heard of it. In Johannesburg (n=442) 16% thought that it is good, 27% bad, 19% had no opinion and 38% never heard of it. In Durban (n=334) 34% thought that it is good, 30% bad, 11% had no opinion and 25% never heard of it.

The geographical disparity of the data notwithstanding, the general conclusions to be drawn from the results will satisfy neither supporters nor opponents of the bill. The lack of knowledge of one of the most important recent political debates is generally worrying and points to a deficit of political information and interest among semi-urban dwellers as well as highly uneven access to the media among South Africans. This point is reinforced by the observation that especially poor and uneducated South Africans are to a large part excluded from crucial national debates such as this one.

4:36pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZXffhxLT71YZ
December 7, 2011
iKasi Facts #4: Municipalities

Township Residents in Cape Town less concerned about Service Delivery and Jobs, more about Housing and Crime - compared to JHB and DUR

The results of the survey, which we conducted in November with 1077 participants in face-to-face interviews in townships in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, show that service delivery has first priority among township residents. Answering the question “What are the three most important issues that you feel your local municipality should address?” 24% of respondents answered either “Provide electricity” (5%), “Provide Water” (5%), “Keep the roads maintained” (4%), “Build parks or sports facilities” (4%), “Issue accurate billings and rates accounts” (3%), “Provide rubbish removal” (2%),  “Provide street lighting” (1%) or “Provide public transport” (1%) as the biggest issue (extra 1% due to rounding). Besides Service Delivery respondents mentioned “Support job creation” (22%), “Prevent Crime” (21%), “Provide Housing” (17%), and “Provide education and training” (16%).

Looking at all mentions of the top 3 issues regardless of priority the combined category for service delivery was mentioned by 69% of respondents, followed by Jobs (60%), Crime (51%), Education (46%) and Housing (45% - results do not add up to 100% due to multiple responses).

However, there were significant differences in the way respondents answered the question depending on their socio-economic background. The clearest difference concerns Housing which was mentioned as one of the three most important issues by about 6 out of 10 of the poorest respondents based on the living standard measure (LSM 4-5:  63%) and about 4 out of 10  (43%) of respondents with an average living standard (LSM 6-7) but only about 3 out of 10 (29%) with the highest living standard (LSM 8-10). In return, more affluent respondents (LSM 8-10: 53%) were concerned about Education compared to respondents with an average (LSM 6-7: 46%) or low living standard (LSM 4-5: 38%). Not surprisingly the proportion of respondents who see Jobs as the biggest single issue is significantly higher among the unemployed (29%) compared to those in employment (19%). 28% of the sample were unemployed.

Regional differences were also significant. Among respondents in DA-led Cape Town the single most important issues were Crime and Housing (both 24%), followed by Service Delivery (22%), Jobs and Education (both 15%). In Johannesburg Service Delivery ranked first (24%), followed by Jobs (23%), Education (20%), Crime (18%) and Housing (15%). In Durban the most pressing issue was also Service Delivery (26%), then Jobs (25%), Crime (21%), Housing (16%) and Education (12%).

5:11pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZXffhxCwzOHz
(Notes: 23)
  
Filed under: iKasi Facts data government 
December 7, 2011
iKasi Facts #3: Climate Change

With the COP17 currently underway in Durban we conducted a survey with 1071 participants in townships in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. One of the questions asked was whether respondents believe that they will be personally affected by climate change. 70% of respondents answered “Yes”, 16% “Don’t know” and only 13% “No” (missing 1% due to rounding of values).

The overall large percentage of respondents feeling vulnerable to climate change notwithstanding, there are significant differences in awareness among respondents dependent on their socio-economic background and also their location. For example, 4 out of 5 respondents (80%) in Durban, where COP17 is taking place, show a considerably higher awareness of the consequences of climate change, compared to two out of three (66%) respondents in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Respondents with matric or a higher qualification also demonstrate stronger awareness (74%) than respondents with incomplete schooling (65%). Accordingly, a higher proportion of respondents from higher income classes, based on the living standard measure (LSM), are critical of the effects of climate change (LSM 8-10: 78%; LSM 6-7: 68%; LSM 4-5: 66%).

5:03pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZXffhxCwybnm
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: iKasi Facts climate change cop17 
December 5, 2011
iKasi Facts #1: Julius Malema

In our last survey we asked the following question: “Some people feel that the ANC’s Disciplinary Committee sentence has been too harsh on Julius Malema but others feel it is justified. How about you?”

62% of surveyed township residents in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban think that the ANC’s decision to suspend ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema was justified. 38% are of the opinion that the sentence was too harsh.

Support for the verdict is only marginally higher among respondents above 40. However, a much larger proportion (74%) of township dwellers in Durban opposed to their counterparts in Johannesburg and Cape Town (57%) welcome the sentence. Accordingly, 71% of Zulu speakers favour the verdict opposed to 55% of members of other language groups. These numbers need to be seen in light of the disbandment of the KZN ANCYL committee in early October. Predictably, support for the sentence is lowest among Sepedi speakers with only 41%. Sepedi is the dominant language in Malema’s home province Limpopo.

Also, respondents from poorer backgrounds (LSM 4-5: 58%) are less supportive of the ANC’s decision. In contrast members of 63% of LSM groups 6-7 and 67% of LSM groups 8-10 agree with it. This corresponds to an approval rate of 55% among respondents without matric compared to 67% among respondents with matric or a higher qualification.

Sample characteristics: n=1071, Age: 16-81 (mean 30.2), LSM: 4-10 (mean 6.5), township residents in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.

6:08pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZXffhxCrS-Tb
Filed under: iKasi Facts Julius Malema survey 
November 24, 2011
iKasi Facts #2: Social Media Survey

Our latest survey was about social media usage among township residents. It was a bit of a detour from our usual survey routine as this time around we focussed on students (contact us if you are interested in that part of the dataset). The data presented here therefore only uses a fraction of the complete dataset and captures only township residents aged 16 to 35 but the sample is still large enough to be meaningful (n=715).

As usual we do not claim genuine representativity of our data as we are not using probability sampling for our regular survey routine. But the numbers presented here are arguably the closest approximation to social media usage patterns of township residents currently available as they are based on face-to-face interviews instead of online surveys which are usually the basis for this kind of data. And anyone familiar with South Africas social landscape can tell you that online surveys are not the way to capture the opinions of the South Africa’s low-income population.

Before we get started just some basic background info: township residents, n=715 (Johannesburg n=247, Cape Town n=221, Durban n=247), age 16 -35 (x̄=24.7, S=4.5), LSM 3-10 (x̄=6.7, S=1.4), language (Zulu n=278, Xhosa n=214, Northern Sotho n=48, Tsonga n=46, English n=31, Sotho n=28, Tswana n=20, Other n=50).

Okay, first a look at who has actually access to the internet and how it is being accessed.

Only 14% of respondents said that they never access the internet. But 26% use the internet only via cellphone, opposed to 20% which are using only computers (including laptops). This might be seen as a shift of the digital divide from users vs non-users towards full-users vs light-users. This is supported by the second graph showing the means of internet access among those using computers (exclusively or in combination with cellphones, multiple responses possible, hence numbers do not add up to 100%).

Only 28% of those using a computer to access the internet do it from a computer at home (assuming that these 28% of respondents actually have a computer at home which we can confirm using the respective LSM question). Almost the same proportion, 27%, uses a public library, followed by the workplace and school/university (21% each). But the majority (54%) is using computers at shops or internet cafes.

In a broader sense social media are not necessarily associated with the internet alone. Asking what instant messengers respondents are using we got the following results.

The good old SMS remains the most popular form of instant messaging (and form of social media in a broader sense) but MXit, which is actually not a true instant messaging service but often used as such, is used by a whopping 45% of the respondents. BlackBerry Messenger on the other hand is used by only 10%, a bit surprising given the aggressive marketing and pricing of BlackBerry phones in South Africa, and is even topped by the multi-platform WhatsApp with 12%. Skype, also not a real IM and on top of that requiring a relatively expensive kind of handset, is only used by 3% of respondents.

But outside of instant messaging MXit faces some real competition by Facebook as the following graph, depicting social network membership, shows.

A greater proportion of respondents has an account with Facebook (55%) than with MXit(50%). Now this is really big news as until now MXit has been considered the social media tool of choice among young South Africans from low-income backgrounds. Clearly this is changing rapidly with Facebook taking the lead and 20% of respondents being registered Twitter users (keeping in mind that these numbers account for all respondents, including those without internet access). To keep things tidy: another 13% have a YouTube account, 8% respectively have a Myspace (more than expected) or Google+ account, 2% are with LinkedIn, and almost one out of five is not part of any social network (again: these are multiple-choice responses, hence figures do not add up to 100%).

The dominance of Facebook is confirmed by the next two graphs. The first shows the results to the question how often respondents actually use certain social media tools (those which require registration, such as Facebook or MXit, were excluded from the questionnaire if the respondent does not have an account with them. Twitter and YouTube, which can be consumed without registration, were presented to all respondents who access the internet on a regular basis).

We see that 45% of respondents claimed to visit Facebook at least once a week on average but only 38% said the same thing about MXit. Whether casual MXit messaging has been accounted for by all respondents is questionable, but in any case the numbers certainly confirm the overall trend towards Facebook. An even stronger point in this respect is made by the last graph which shows the choice of favorite social media tool among respondents who are both Facebook and MXit account holders.

Almost two thirds of those who have both MXit and Facebook accounts prefer Facebookover any other social media service compared to one third preferring MXit.

Quick summary: While for a long time MXit could rely on the unique accessibility of its service due to economic constraints among its core constituency, the increasing affordability of more capable cellphones is causing a shift in the South African social media scene as more and more individuals can afford entry-level smartphones, thus gaining access to a wider range of services, and especially Facebook.

6:41pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZXffhxCrWaSg
Filed under: Social media iKasi Facts data market research 
November 21, 2011
Translation Pains

Survey translation is a solution to a problem not without problems of its own. Translation can be an art (with more problems) but luckily with survey research the aim is to communicate questions as simply as possible in order to get accurate answers. In a fieldworker administered questionnaire survey both fieldworker and respondent have the potential to misunderstand a question, compounded still by issues of translating on the spot. The result is that questionnaire translation is often seen to be quite valuable if there is room in the budget for it.

This is the conventional logic ikapadata has been working on in its pursuit of questionnaire translation but with some interesting complications worth remarking on. A fairly commonplace issue with translations is the level at which phrasing and language is pitched. It can go without saying that the language a government or large corporate entity might address the public with will be in stark contrast to the language one might address one another in everyday speech. This is an experience remarked on by our fieldworkers frequently, that they find professional translations into their first languages unwieldy, awkward and overly formal.

While translators can of course learn to translate into different levels of language execution, something we did not anticipate was that in some cases, people are sometimes less comfortable and familiar with their own first language in written form than with written English. This is understandable in a context like South Africa where there may not be a great deal of print publications in previously marginalised languages, and possibly even fewer print publications of genuine interest for reading in those languages. The resulting conclusion in this case is that for members of minority language groups, the majority of their experience with written language involves the lingua franca (English).

A related factor is that topics of conversation have a home in the minds of multi-lingual South Africans in English. This is sometimes because the vocabulary does not exist in African languages, as you will often overhear from conversations where African first language speakers will switch into English for a phrase or a word and then continue. While translators may painstakingly attempt to translate modern activities into languages which have no history with, and therefore no native terms for those activities, it is typically an elaborate workaround. In contrast a common language practitioner would simply substitute with the English word and be better understood most of the time. In some contexts (e.g. discussing information and communication technology), some are more comfortable conversing in English entirely.

In practice at ikapadata, we have found that translations of questionnaires has been of limited value in practice. When interviewing respondents our fieldworkers have had the option of five different language options and across the board, English has been the choice around 95% of the time. Upon probing, expecting that fieldworkers were translating on the spot (which is partly what we sought to avoid), many fieldworkers informed us they were mostly interviewing respondents in English. Something we can more strongly confirm through anecdotal evidence is that South Africans living in the urban periphery often speak very functional (or better) English. This is especially true in Tembisa as in Johannesburg generally, the common language between cultures is often English. What this means for survey research in a South African township setting is that translation is not strictly necessary. This is however assuming that the questions are relatively straightforward and that fieldworkers are properly briefed on questionnaire content.

This is however in strong contrast to rural South African where African language monolingualism is still common. In such a setting, translation is more necessary.

It is a great mistake to conflate rural and township South Africa as they are distinct. In as much as the majority of Khayelitsha is from rural parts of the Eastern Cape, it is a different environment producing different people. Without going into too much detail, the important distinction for us is that a functional command of English is more common in townships than one might otherwise believe.

Foregoing translation is not however something one should not think about after making the decision. In the future we will consider translation’s value and relevance to the project and proceed accordingly. It is simply noteworthy that what may be commonly assumed as a necessity is not quite as essential as it seems.

4:31pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZXffhxCDVZvQ
Filed under: MRX ikapadata methodology survey translation south africa township language 
October 3, 2011
Three tools that help us share the wealth

Respondent incentives are a thorny issue in survey research circles. Purists from the academic end of the spectrum will tell you that any tangible incentive for respondents to take part in a survey will bias the sample and therefore spoil the purity of the data as it will encourage different parts of the population to varying degrees – a R5 Shoprite voucher, for example, usually represents a far more compelling incentive for the regular Shoprite customer than the average Woolworths shopper. More pragmatic researchers would maintain that it is just too difficult to get strangers to answer questions about their habits and preferences without offering some form of incentive. The challenge then is to find something of fairly equal value to everyone. The most universally compelling incentive is of course plain, hard cash. But unless you want to put your fieldworkers deliberately into harm’s way as they walk the streets lugging a big bag of R5 coins around with them, cash is not really an option.

Thankfully, over the last years a new virtual currency has established itself as the best next thing to cash: mobile airtime. As the majority of township residents calls a mobile phone on a prepaid account its own, every respondent has use for a R5 airtime voucher, either for her or his own use or for a friend or family member. Of course, having to carry a bag of vouchers is not really any different to carrying a bag full of coins, but thanks to the myriad wonders of mobile data collection this is also unnecessary. And here is how it works:

We get our airtime vouchers from PrepaidAPI. Using a small application from their website we (that is our in-house database) order new vouchers by dropping a simple text file into a Request folder. The order is then uploaded to their server, processed and a text file with the vouchers is sent back to a Result folder on our server and imported into our database. The database stores the vouchers until they are sent to survey participants. In the meantime our fieldworkers are collecting data in the field, asking each respondent for their or a friend’s/family member’s prepaid cellphone number (of course only after they have obtained informed consent – we do not use the number for anything but sending the voucher and internal data verification). Once they have uploaded the completed questionnaire, our database makes sure that it is actually a valid number, pairs the record with a voucher and sends out a SMS with instructions and the voucher code to the respective number.

The automated sending of SMS is made possible by a separate service called BulkSMS. Its main purpose is in its name: it lets one buy SMS credits in bulk at a low rate. But its real usefulness lies in its various APIs (application programming interfaces) as it allows, for example, the sending SMS by email. So what our database application actually does when it sends a SMS is sending an email to the respondent’s phone number via BulkSMS. The service also offers many other ways of sending SMS messages (Desktop application, website, iPhone app as well as a proper API with all the bells and whistles) but what we like about the email method is that it is a) transparent, b) easy to set up and maintain, and c) opens up a channel of communication with respondents as they can simply reply to the SMS they received from us with questions or complaints and so on - the reply arriving again as an email on our side. In fact, we are using the same service (besides MXit, email and plain old phone calls) to stay in touch with our fieldworkers.

The last service we would like to mention has nothing to do with respondent incentives, but fits quite well with the other two. M-Pesa is a mobile-phone based money transfer service that made waves by gaining huge popularity in Kenya (6.5 million subscribers in 2009) where it was originally developed. It was introduced into the South African market in 2010 by Nedbank and Vodacom, where, despite experiencing a far slower acceptance rate than in its country of origin, it is starting to gain traction among the millions of South African consumers without a regular bank account. We are using it to pay our fieldworkers’ salaries as it not only allows for a large degree of automation for transactions, but also comes with zero banking fees for our employees while giving them access to their salaries at any Vodacom outlet, many supermarkets as well as spazas in their vicinity.

So with all this automation, what do we do at the ikapadata office? This is just one of the ways we try and keep our eyes on the bigger picture, as well as the important details rather than day to day repetitive admin. Simple is good and simple is faster. That is why we’re happy to have great services like PrepaidAPI, BulkSMS and M-Pesa working as one inside our infrastructure.

3:35pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZXffhxAEPfAJ
(Notes: 33)
  
Filed under: surveys fieldwork mobile methodology market research ikapadata 
September 9, 2011
ikapadata + IkamvaYouth = ☺

In light of the recent finalisation of ikapadata’s agreement with IkamvaYouth, it made sense for us to commemorate the moment here in the blog. We are very pleased to have finalised our agreement with IkamvaYouth and pleased to call them partners.

 IkamvaYouth is a non-profit organisation established in 2003 with five branches in townships in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. Its focus is on improving high school pupil performance and helping matriculants enter tertiary education. Its impact has been phenomenal, with learner performance rates in stark contrast to typical township education figures. This is principally achieved through a volunteer tutor program primarily driven by former IkamvaYouth programme graduates (‘Ikamvites’). The linchpin of ikapadata’s relationship with IkamvaYouth is that fieldworker employment is offered to the best and most dedicated volunteer tutors as an incentive and reward for their dedication.

We at ikapadata are very happy to be able to contribute to the great work done by IkamvaYouth. We strongly believe that both organisations have strong potential to benefit from and grow through this partnership.

11:15am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZXffhx9JQmmp
(Notes: 12)
  
Filed under: IkamvaYouth ikapadata partnership mrx non-profit social social business township education 
Liked posts on Tumblr: More liked posts »