Quote from: StarfishPrime on November 25, 2012, 05:21:58 PM

More about mobile payment / digital currency in Kenya:

http://c251808.r8.cf3.rackcdn.com/86336_small_5.pdf

Comments?

Yes, ... M-PESA is not a "digital currency". It is a representative currency

Quote

In exchange for cash deposits, Safaricom issues a commodity known as e‐float, measured in the same units as money, which is held in an account under the users name.
[...]
The cash collected by M‐PESA in exchange for e‐float is deposited in bank accounts held by Safaricom.

- http://www.mit.edu/~tavneet/M-PESA.pdf (PDF)
- http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=www.mit.edu%2F~tavneet%2FM-PESA.pdf (Web view of PDF)

So even though this e-float money is referred to as being airtime (and can be redeemed for airtime), it is a current account, denominated in the nation's fiat currency and every unit purchased is held in deposit at a bank. M-PESA e-float is thus a representative currency and not a digital currency.

Also, there is further discussion about this interview here:

Quote from: Stephen Gornick on October 04, 2012, 04:09:31 AM

It took me just fifteen minutes of listening to Bill Gates on Charlie Rose to confirm that billionaires don't and won't like Bitcoin.

Mr. Gates throws around a lot of "we did this" type of statements, and what he really means is "we used our power and influence to get governments to do this". I'm not saying the accomplishments were bad, but anything that lessen's a billionaire's influence will not be something the billionaires will support.
[...]

A few takeaways from that:

1.) For government spending where there is the need for transparency, there's no reason why triple-entry accounting shouldn't be mandatory. Most of that can be done today, without the need for Bitcoin even.

2.) Mr. Gates might want to have someone explain to him the difference between a "digital currency" and "mobile banking", "electronic currency", "representative money", etc.

3.) ill Gates once said in an interview that he reads every page of The Economist. If he still does, then he'ld know that it is not just Kenya where mobile banking and mobile payments are widely used: