Mobile Money Transfer and Mobile Financial Services Specialist 

Barney de Jongh has 8 years of experience in the money transfer and payment solutions space. He has been responsible for implementing and rolling out money transfer solutions throughout 18 territories across Africa. He has done so successfully for Western Union, Standard Bank of South Africa and MTN.

He started his career with the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1991 and as early in his career as 1994 was recognised for his entrepreneurial skill. This was emphasised by Foreign Affairs sending him on an expatriate posting to establish the South African High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya. During his four year posting abroad he ensured the implementation of an infrastructure from scratch in a foreign country by finding premises, recruiting a full staff contingent of 25 staff members, prepared and implemented the appropriate procedures and controls and being responsible for the allocated budget. He handed this operation over to his successor in 1998.

By early 2000, he completed his Master of Business Administration degree (Summa Cum Laude) through the California National University (distance education). Having done so, it created the platform for starting as Key Account Manager at Western Union in 2001. Here, he was responsible as a pioneer for selling and establishing international remittance solutions throughout 18 territories in East and Southern Africa with Western Union’s agent business partners. Barney gained extensive experience dealing with banks, postal organizations and retailers in doing needs analysis for money transfers in the respective environments, ensuring implementation of Western Union services and taking the remittance solution to market. During his tenure at Western Union, he was accountable for bringing new agents on board, managing the relationship with the agent base and ultimately growing transaction and revenue volumes and increasing the number of locations throughout the East and Southern Africa Region.

Barney joined Standard Bank in 2005 as a Product Manager for Money Transfer. He started the money transfer business for Standard Bank from scratch and was able to implement and roll out MoneyGram money transfer services in a very short space of time. Live environments in Standard Bank include:

·         MoneyGram services available throughout 220 locations in South Africa.

·         MoneyGram services throughout Stanbic Africa networks in Botswana, Mozambique,   Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

At the end of 2007, MoneyGram transactions made up 10% of the total number of transactions processed in the Retail Forex space for Standard Bank compared to a zero base when Barney started in his role as Product Manager for Money Transfer in October of 2005. MoneyGram transaction volumes have been increasing at double digit growth month over month since its launch.

MTN Mobile Money, a joint venture between MTN and Standard Bank, approached Barney, in September of 2007, to head up the money transfer space in both South Africa and the Group’s Africa operations. Again, he established a green field business and successfully implemented a money transfer pilot in South Africa. He has also been extensively involved in building the foundations for money transfer in MTN’s West African Operations: Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon & Ivory Coast. Barney’s involvement in MTN has gained him significant experience in the mobile payment and mobile remittance space. His involvement in preparing for the launch of the MTN mobile payment solution in Nigeria before year-end 2008 has put him in a very fortunate position to understand the intricacies of a very new and emerging, but exciting industry, that of mobile payments. 

Barney can confidently be seen as an expert on money remittances (both domestic and international), payment solutions to the emerging market and the implementation of mobile payment solutions, both on a country level and what it means to expand to become an international player.
 
STRENGTHS:

 Entering the Global Remittance Payment System Domestic and international remittance expertise. Implementation and roll-out of money transfer solutions. Developing and understanding Mobile Payment Solutions. Market assessment & understanding the impact of taking mobile payment and remittance solutions to market. Understanding of full implementation of mobile payment solutions for emerging markets and advice on tailored models to enhance speed to market.