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Text messaging key in digitising financial services, says expert
Mr Mathias Kamugasho, the Service Corps chief executive officer
What you need to know:
- Mr Kamugasho says that whereas internet-based messaging has encroached on spaces formerly occupied by SMS platforms, SMSs remain a powerful tool in enhancing digital financial services
Short messaging services (SMSs) remain key in the drive to digitise financial services, according to Mr Mathias Kamugasho, the Service Corps chief executive officer, a financial technology, ICT and business process outsourcing firm.
In details contained in an SMS market analysis, Mr Kamugasho said that whereas internet-based messaging has encroached on spaces formerly occupied by SMS platforms, SMSs remain a powerful tool in enhancing digital financial services.
For instance, he said, about 11.8b SMSs sent in the three months to December 2022, 9.01b were application-to-person messages, while 2.76b were person-to-person, indicating a shift from being a mere communication tool to a foundation for digital financial services.
The trend is also supported by phone ownership, which, according to the UCC Market Report for the three months to December, indicates that out of the 38.1m phones, 25.8m were either feature phones (23.8m) or basic phones (two million), which mostly have no support software for internet-based messaging.
“By contrast, smartphones were only 12.2 million - even though smartphone owners are also an addressable audience via SMS,” Mr Kamugasho said, noting that companies have now moved away from random to targeted messaging, which guarantees visibility.
Mr Kamugasho also indicated that SMSs had become a cost-effective marketing solution that can easily be structured to target desired audiences and are less affected by technological changes such as algorithm.
