LG Electronics, the world’s third largest handset maker is set to facilitate mobile banking in Rwanda through the supply of mobile phones that are compatible with mobile banking.

Warranted LG mobile phones have applications compatible to the mobile banking systems and come at an affordable price.

 "Some of the mobile phones have basic applications and are duplicated which don’t give a person the right to own the world on his handset,” Sam Alexander, the Managing Director of Beta world—LG’s partner in Rwanda, said in an interview with Business Times.

Alexander said that the company aims at investing in the country to provide genuine and affordable products.

Telecom companies and banks in the country are encouraging the use of mobile phones to execute financial transactions following a national policy to promote a cashless economy.

The move is, however, challenged by limited access to affordable and compatible phones.

Only Banque Populaire du Rwanda (BPR) has the latest Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) protocol that is applicable to basic phones which are affordable and owned by most Rwandans.

USSD is a friendly application that is able to communicate with the service provider’s computers and is used in mobile-money services location-based content services, prepaid callback service menu-based

information services, and as part of configuring the phone on the network.

Other banks are currently using downloadable applications that are compatible to only smart phones and I-phones.

According to Salma Ingabire, the mobile banking product manager at BPR, USSD applications help customers to easily and efficiently access financial services from their banker no matter the type of mobile phone they hold, a reason she said, that has boosted the bank’s mobile banking in rural areas.

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