In Kenya, offline payment travels through the phone’s sound
In areas without coverage, two phones exchange a transaction by audio signal, settled later with the bank. The system already handles several thousand operations a day.
By The Platinium Post newsroom · 4 min read · 3 publications cited at the end of this article
The sound carries a short-lived encrypted token, which the merchant’s phone keeps until its next connection. Nothing magic about it: this is deferred payment, with an amount limit and a cap on offline operations.
The value shows where electricity and network are missing at the same time. The risk is double spending: the caps contain it, they do not remove it.
Countries covered
Sources
- Publication de démonstration 1 — example.org
- Publication de démonstration 2 — example.org
- Publication de démonstration 3 — example.org