Ronald Leonard Egesa

I would like to thank Mr Mwambutsya Ndebesa for his analysis of the Mengo-Central government ties that appeared in the Sunday Monitor. It was well founded and educative.

Mr Ndebesa pointed out that the problem between the kingdom and the central will exist until such a time when the two stop ‘cutting the deal behind closed doors’ and address the issue using institutions. He also said the government should address the issue as a national matter which also applies to the relationship between the central government and other regions.

I commend Mr Ndebesa for the thorough analysis and I would love to see more of such commendable writings showing up in our media instead of printing pictures of naked women as we often see in some media.

Ronald Egesa, Kampala
This was published in the letters section of the Daily Monitor Newspaper 2008

By Davis Weddi

FINALLY, Uganda’s first mobile-phone banking is set to roll out its services. Ronald Egesa, a software developer, is putting final touches on the new service which will be available on all mobile phone networks in the country.

The mobile banking service is to be managed by a software branded “Smart Cash” developed by Mobitrix Uganda, a company owned by Egesa.

“Realising the surge in the banking and telecom sectors for the last five years, we felt that there could not be a better time to introduce mobile banking in the country,” Egesa explained

Targeting the six million mobile phone subscribers the service is expected to usher in a new model of managing personal finances in Uganda.

“After two years of thorough research and consultations, we have decided to roll out a three-pronged mobile banking platform. We are out to pioneer state-of-the-art mobile banking technology in Uganda,” Mobitrix said in a statement issued on Thursday.

Smart Cash is comparable to a Kenyan version called M-Pesa, but according to Egesa, his mobile bank will be able to offer services on an international scale. It will enable customers who have accounts to access the bank for transactions even when abroad.

The statement explained that Smart Cash “Is cashless, it enables banking from anywhere there are mobile phone services, users can pay for utilities, you can save as little as sh5,000, you can send money to your relatives or friends in any part of the country, Smart cash service will be accessed on all the mobile networks, Smart cash works on a wide variety of cell phone types.”

Asked about how to open a mobile phone bank account, Egesa said, “Mobile phone users will buy scratch cards from airtime dealers, login into the easy-to use smart cash system using their handsets and then load the money on to their account. Once the money gets on the account, it can be used to make payments, transferred to another account or just left there for future use.”

Opening a bank account has been made simple. “It costs next to nothing,” Egesa said and explained that all one has to do is to send an sms to a short code that the company will soon unveil to the public.

The services customers will get include: Transfer of funds from their Smart Cash account to another Smart Cash account using the recipient’s phone number, save money as little as sh5,000 and pay for utilities such as electricity and water, Pay TV, view and check their accounts with organisations such as NSSF and Microfinance institutions.

Egesa also noted that deposits and transfers will be charged a small fee of sh200 making mobile banking very conveniently cheap. He said that in the case of transfer or payments, the sender or payer will incur the same small charge on his/her account. All balance check transactions are free of charge. Users will not incur charges of sms received.

Earlier this year, we reported that Ronald Egesa had developed school management system and was distributing it free of charge to interested schools. So far hundreds of head teachers have expressed interest in the system.

Published on: Sunday, 16th November, 2008 in The Sunday Vision