Another Kind of Horse Brand: Business Branding in Equine Marketing
It’s winter time, the breed inspection season has come and gone in North America, and along with it branding season.Branding season for horses–NOT for horse BUSINESSES.If you have any business or marketing background, or have done any reading on the subject, you have heard of branding in the business context. Let’s take a look at what that actually is.Brands on horses and other livestock in the Old West showed ownership. There was some level of claiming recognition for owning a quality animal, but primarily the point was to keep livestock from being stolen. Branding helped to legally retrieve stolen livestock.In Europe, brands on horses were not an indication of personal ownership, but rather indicated the horses’ affiliations with one of the regional registries.That idea, which is behind modern-day branding of horses in European-affiliated breeds and some of the other breeds in North America is closer to the concept of business branding. In fact, it IS business branding for the individual horse breed.So What is Branding Exactly?It isn’t a string of freeze-branded symbols or a set of moose antlers or other breed symbol. Those are likened to a business logo or trademark, but those things aren’t brands in the business sense, either.A brand on a horse signifies everything the breed represents: the quality, history, performance record, origin, and so on. A horse that carries a breed’s brand mark ostensibly possesses all of the attributes of the breed, and is theoretically capable of performing to the standard established by that breed association. For example, when you see a horse with a Holsteiner brand (assuming you have familiarity with the mark), you recognize the horse as a Holsteiner. You immediately know a little bit about the horse’s lineage, background, and the kinds of activities it might be good at.That is why some registries require a physical inspection and approval of the individual horse before giving it a brand–the branded horse is a representative of the breed’s identity, a walking advertisement. It makes sense for the breed organization to want to control the quality of those advertisements.Likewise, a brand is the embodiment of all the information connected with a product or service. A brand typically includes a name, logo, and other visual elements and encompasses the set of expectations associated with a product or service which typically arise in the minds of people. (reference: wikipedia.org).Logos and such–like brand marks–are a shorthand symbol for the brand. Those marks are meaningless until the brand is built.Build Your Brand from the Ground Up:As Chevy Chase’s character, Ty Webb, says in Caddyshack, “Be the ball.” Live the brand. Branding is everything you and your business represents. You establish a brand through the quality of your horses, your competitive record, the standard of service you provide to your clients, the manner of your business dealings, trust, your reputation. A brand is a business’ identity. Consistency in all of these elements builds a brand.Paradoxically, I am on the fence about whether to brand horses or not. Maybe just the bunny-hugger in my personality coming out, but I think branding hurts the animal.For your horse business, definitely, branding shouldn’t hurt. It might take a little mental stretching to grasp the concept, but the actual establishment and building of your brand need not be painful.But one thing is certain: There is no end to the branding season for businesses!
How to Create Good Web Design
There are many different types of web design, from those built using website templates and ‘build your own’ site building applications to complex content managed and e-commerce web designs such as those used by big brand names like Amazon, eBay and Tesco. Some companies, even some big name companies, have unprofessional looking and badly designed websites. Some have amazing looking websites but because of their high graphical content and minimal text content can take an age to load, are not user friendly and do not provide what the visitor wants.Good Website DesignThough many aspects of website design differ from site to site, many things remain the same throughout the majority of websites on the internet. Most notably is the navigation or menu. The way in which a website’s menu works and looks is very important, as ultimately, visitors to a website are looking for certain criteria that will make them either stay and interact or leave. This ability for a website to keep visitors interested is sometimes referred to as stickiness. Visitors want an attractive visually exciting experience, but perhaps more importantly, they want ‘ease of use’. Website usability is a key factor for websites that want their visitors to stick around, make an enquiry and ultimately complete a transaction and order a product or service.Easy to Use Web DesignInternet users tend to prefer easy to use websites, because they do not want to have to learn how to use a website every time they find a new one. They should be able to use a website after only a few seconds of looking around a homepage, any more and they will leave and browse elsewhere. The need for fast user interaction is vital and therefore having a fast loading website is also important for a website to succeed. Even with faster internet connections such as broadband, internet users don’t want to wait around.Just imagine, if you go to a shop on the high street and are totally ignored by shop assistants at the counter for 5 minutes, even after you have made it clear you want help. There is a correlation here to how an internet user may feel, when they arrive at a website that has been poorly designed, is difficult to use, unfriendly and slow to load. Making sure that a website has been well thought out and designed with the user in mind, displays a company’s unique selling points within easily recognizable eye catching calls for action and has a clear, easy to use menu is key to its success.Flash Web DesignWith recent web design advancements, such as the introduction of Flash animation and high definition video content, impressive websites have been produced to take advantage of much higher levels of visual effects and interaction. However with this ‘high end’ web design, comes a price, more often than not, web designs which rely heavily upon Flash content are often ridiculously slow to load. They often have a progress bar, which slowly goes across the web browser to signify when the website will finish loading.This is much like the progress bars that you may be familiar with if you use video editing or 3D rendering software, or if you use games consoles where they are displayed whilst you wait for games to load. Internet users on the whole do not want to wait 3 – 5 minutes for a web page to load even if it does feature high resolution images, animation or video. They want fast informative content rich websites. If they wanted to watch an animation or video they would watch TV.Good Flash Web DesignThis is not to say that Flash animation is all bad news and shouldn’t be used in web design. If used subtly and in small amounts it can make a website more visually appealing without slowing the load time down too much. Suitable uses for Flash animation in web design are things such as; Flash banner advertisements, Flash video and interactive Flash forms for online questionnaires or business presentations.Using Flash for a whole website design however, is not such a good idea. It slows the user’s experience down because they have to wait for elements of it to load. Also, sites totally developed in Flash tend to use unfamiliar menu structures and features. This can confuse visitors who just want to quickly interact with the website and not be amazed by the way the menu animates. Just because you can do these things in Flash, it doesn’t mean they have any real working value in the real world. They may look pretty, but if they are not functional and only irritate the visitor then they have no real value.Flash Web Design & SEOAnother argument against using Flash to create a whole website is that it dramatically reduces the effectiveness of your websites’ Search Engine Optimisation. Flash web designs are made up of one main file within a web page which search engines find difficult to index. This is because the text within them is usually graphical text and therefore is not usually accessible by search engines. Some recent developments allow some text to be displayed for search engines in Flash websites, but this is nowhere near as effective as text content within traditional HTML based websites.Don’t Write Off Flash in Web DesignAlthough Flash does have its limitations it also has its good points if used correctly. For instance; Flash animation is usually smaller in file size than traditional gif animation and because of the way it is made the animation flows smoother than gif animation too. Having said this, I would recommend only using Flash in small areas within a site to compliment other imagery that makes up the overall design. Finding a balance between minimal graphical elements, imagery, Flash and good quality informative text is the key to a successful user friendly website. This isn’t to say that web design needs be boring. By working with quality web design companies there’s no reason why you couldn’t have a visually exciting, well designed, easy to use and successful website.Visually Stimulating Web DesignWhen visitors first arrive at a website, they want to be impressed and engaged with what the website has to offer. This will be determined by the ways in which the web designer has laid out the website’s content text, images and features. Arranging elements such as imagery, text, graphics, flash and video in such a way as to keep the visitor interested in the website is the key to good web design. If a website has poor design and doesn’t grab the attention of the visitor in the first few seconds, then it may well be dismissed as just another average website. This ultimately means the visitor will go elsewhere to spend their time and, more importantly, money.Good Web Design LayoutA lot of time and money is spent making sure that the right elements of websites are positioned in the right places. Companies spend large amounts of money conducting research into how internet users use their websites. This type of research shows where their visitors’ eyes concentrate the most, which elements of the website they click on first and generally how they interact and use their websites. Most internet users will look primarily from the top left either across the page, or down the left hand side of the web page through an internet browser via a computer, mobile phone or TV set.I would hazard a guess, that they are looking for the company’s name or logo, their main selling points or slogans and then what the website has to offer in terms of what is featured in the menu. After which their eyes are probably drawn across the page content and over to the right hand side. Successful web design usually takes this into consideration and will ultimately affect the way a website looks.There are of course rather famous exceptions to this rule for instance one rather well known search engine has a web design which is quite different. The main focus and core functionality in their web design is located right in the centre of the page. This however, isn’t any ordinary website with tens or even hundreds of pages of products and services to display, its main focus is its recognisable logo and of course its search box. It does however feature a small minimal menu across the top of the web design, which flows from left to right. So even they have taken onboard some of the research undertaken into internet users’ habits. If you go looking at websites after reading this article, I can guarantee that most of the web designs you’ll see, will have a left hand menu and a defined header bar with a company logo and slogan across it.
Product Launch Formula – Don’t Make This Critical Mistake!
“Product Launch Formula” is the current hot topic in the
world of “internet marketing.” Jeff Walker is on the verge
of releasing his much awaited “Product Launch Formula 2.0.Those who own the original Product Launch Formula wonder
“what’s different in version 2.0″ and those who didn’t get
the original, wonder if it’s right for them. On March 25th,
the noise level will reach a peak, and thousands will decide
that the new Product Launch Formula is right for them.Strangely, it’s at that point that many will make a HUGE
mistake, when that mistake has never been easier to avoid.The mistake they’ll make is that they’ll buy Product Launch
Formula 2.0 on emotion rather than logic. They’ll buy it on
impulse rather than taking a few minutes to actually shop
around.I’ve known Jeff Walker for many years. I think that we first
met in 2003 at a Joel Christopher workshop. I use Jeff Walker’s
teachings almost every day. I’ve so steeped myself in his
tactics that I often use them without conscious thought.So, to me the decision of whether or not anyone launching or
relaunching a product over the internet can benefit
tremendously from getting and using a copy of Product Launch
Formula is a non-question.Since Product Launch Formula even teaches you to treat a major
affiliate product promotion like a product launch, I honestly
believe that serious affiliate marketers should consider
getting a copy. Many of Jeff’s case-studies are of affiliate
marketers who applied Jeff’s teaching to affiliate promotions
and easily earned high five-figure commissions. To me, that’s
impressive!I’m going to make the very big assumption that after careful
analysis, you’ve concluded that Product Launch Formula is
right for you.Your next logical question should be, “Who do you get a copy
from.” Product Launch Formula will be promoted by a lot of
affiliates, and many of them (including myself) will offer
bonuses as a way to differentiate THEIR offers.Since you’ll end up with the same basic product no matter who
you get it from, doesn’t it make sense to buy on the basis of
who offers the bonus most appropriate for you?That’s where that “critical mistake” that I warned you about
in the title comes in. That’s where that critical mistake can
so easily be avoided.You get the very best deal on Product Launch Formula by taking
your time (not reacting on emotion or impulse) and actually
comparing bonuses. I’d go as far as to jot them do on a sheet
of paper, with columns for comparing them. Just make a list
of affiliate offer which caught your attention, and list them in
one column. Then have other columns where you list major
benefits.
Then simply fill in your decision grid and make a logical
decision.Here are some of the tools that you SHOULD use in making the
best decision… in locating “The best Product Launch Formula
Bonus” …1) Use the search engines. There will be a LOT of people
talking about, and comparing bonuses, so just tap into their
discussion… to capitalize on their research. Go to Google
and “google” phrases such as “Product Launch Formula Bonus,”
“Best Product Launch Formula Bonuses,” “Jeff Walker’s
Product Launch Formula,” etc., and then check out leads that
seem promising.This approach may point you to a Product Launch Formula bonus
that is more appropriate for your needs that you would have
otherwise COMPLETELY missed.Take your time and actually look around. Since many affiliates
have already started promoting, this is something that you
can actually do now 
2) Use discussion forums. Many popular internet marketing
discussion forums will likely have threads where bonuses are
compared. There are even people who will start forums just
for that purpose.Other forums that you should check out include The Internet
Marketing Warriors, and for insiders, The Internet Marketing
Inner Circle.On these forums, caring people actually share what Product
Launch Formula Bonuses they have uncovered. Depending upon
how the forum is setup, you can join the discussion and discuss
the pros and cons of each bonus. Some forums restrict
discussion more than others, so find one that meets your needs.The search engines frequently spider popular forums, so you’ll
even be able to find forums discussing Product Launch Formula
Bonuses through the search engines.3) Ask for recommendations. Simply email, PM or Skype your
friends and ask them about bonuses that really caught their
attention.4) Ask if a given bonus is really right for you. No matter
how great a Product Launch Formula Bonus sounds, if you’re
not going to use it, it’s worthless to you.Look for bonuses that fit in with your plans in actually
using the product.Avoid bonuses that will side-track you from completing
important projects, and will just add clutter to your harddrive.A logical bonus, if you are actually on the verge of launching
a product, or relaunch a product, or doing a major affiliate
promotion would include things such as:- A mailing to a large list which could jumpstart your launch,
leading to direct sales, new affiliates, new JV partners, and
lots of buzz for your launch.- A live seminar where you could brainstorm with potential
launch or joint venture partners, where you could perhaps
put YOUR project on the hotseat, or where you could clarify
things that you need to understand to pull off a successful
product launch.- One-on-one consulting with someone who has actually done
product launches before. Be careful with consulting though,
since there are a lot of “pretend experts” out there. That’s
where you can use the search engines to actually check out
the consultant BEFORE entrusting your business to him or her.Ok, let wrap it up since this article is getting long 
Product Launch Formula 2.0 is a great product. Once you
realize that it meets your needs the only real decision that
you have is who to get it from. When you condense that
decision down to its very essence, the decision-maker should
be whoever offers “The Best Product Launch Formula Bonus.”You decide what “best” means to you, then you get the one
that matches up to your needs.Follow that simple formula and you can’t go wrong. You’ll
be acting on logic and intelligence rather than emotion
and being rushed into a decision. Since you’ll then make
a great decision, you’ll also be much happier with it
What are anti-ligature blinds?
Anti-ligature blinds are becoming increasingly popular in a range of different settings. The way these blinds differ from traditional blinds is that they are designed to prevent suicide by hanging.
Initially, uptake for this type of blind was largely restricted to high-risk environments such as psychiatric hospitals and prisons, where suicide is common. In mental health environments and detention centres, suicide via hanging is common and preventative measures must be implemented. A huge range of objects could be used to create a ligature point, meaning anti-ligature systems are highly important.
Over the years, anti-ligature blinds have been supplied to hospitals, schools, student accommodation and even hotels.
How do they work?
There are a range of different systems on the market, but the most reliable could well be the magnetic anti-ligature system. YewdaleKestrel® products utilise load release magnets which separate when a downward force is exerted on the product. This means that the product falls to the ground safely and prevents suicide via hanging.
The magnetic systems used in Yewdale’s products are highly reliable because magnets don’t lose their strength for hundreds of years, guaranteeing a lifetime of lifesaving functionality.
Anti-ligature blinds usually have a magnetic connection point above the blind’s barrel. The blind is easy to reconnect to the magnetic bracket after it has fallen to the floor.
If you are considering an anti-ligature blind, Yewdale is a highly recommended company. Based in the UK, Yewdale produce a wide range of anti-ligature products, commercial blinds, and healthcare products including hospital cubicle tracks and medical curtains.
Yewdale produce other anti-ligature products too including a soft, lightweight en-suite door and other accessories such as soap dispensers, toilet roll holder, shelves and artwork. You can see the full range on the website using the link below.
Complete weight loss strategy
For those who want to lose weight
Research on the causes of obesity, knowledge about weight loss, and various diets for weight loss are updated every year. However, with the update of knowledge and the release of diet pills one after another, the obesity rate continues to rise every year, and there is no sign of wanting to decline. I used to be very, very fat, and I am also a person who is prone to obesity.
So I understand the voices of fat people, I really want to lose weight, but I tried many ways to lose weight at that time without success.
I have tried the common boiled meals on the market, eating less and moving more, but it was not until I tried other diets that I managed to lose weight. After I lost weight, I began to study the essence and method of losing weight, and wrote him in this weight loss strategy article, hoping to help you.
A few key myths about losing weight
The weight loss myth of eating less and moving more
The phrase “eat less and move more” is actually true, but most people do it wrong. Many people think that they should eat less of everything, so they limit their calories to a very low level, and it feels a bit like eating an ultra-low-calorie fairy meal. Then, for the hyperactive part, the first thing that everyone thinks of is aerobic exercise such as running, cycling, etc., but in fact, this is a very short-term and easy way to regain weight, mainly because eating too little is an easy way to lose weight. The reason for the loss of muscle mass, coupled with the fact that aerobic training is not helpful for muscle mass growth, causes the metabolism to drop too much.
Maybe you can lose 5 kilograms in this way, but if your metabolism declines, you will easily regain the weight. And it’s all the fat that gets back up, not the muscle you lose that makes you look fatter than before. This is what we call the yo-yo effect, lose weight, get fat back, get fatter than before, lose weight, get back on Fat, get fatter than before.
Stop taking diet pills and meal replacements
At this time, you may start to seek other ways, eat weight loss meal replacements, taking diet pills, and so on. But believe me, most diet pills will inevitably hurt the body, especially the gastrointestinal tract. You may actually lose weight in the moment, but when your gastrointestinal tract is damaged, you will be fatter than before.
The key to understanding how to lose weight
You must have thought, why some people will not gain weight no matter what they eat, while some people will gain a kilogram the next day after eating a little bread? What is the cause of obesity? This is not a simple answer that can be solved!
You can see the link to the picture below, mainly talking about the influencing factors of obesity, which are very, very complicated.
Image source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/296290/obesity-map-full-hi-res.pdf
In the middle of this picture is the heat balance
So we can know that calorie balance is very important
But this article doesn’t keep preaching that calorie balance is the key to losing weight like other sites
If you don’t know what calorie balance is, you can probably imagine that our body has calorie consumption (exercise, thermogenesis, basal metabolism), and calorie intake (eating).
When calorie consumption exceeds calorie intake, the weight will drop, so the truth of weight loss is to eat less and move more, very simple. In the short term, it is really possible to simply achieve weight loss by eating less and moving more, but simplicity is not simple, because the operation of the body is very complicated. Many people think that they can control their calorie consumption, that they can achieve a lot of calorie expenditure by running all the time, and that eating fairy meals (low-calorie meals) can reduce calorie intake and then easily lose it.
However, according to research, 90% of people who use calorie control, eat less and move more to lose weight will fail or regain the weight.
Because eating less and moving more for too long, metabolism will easily drop, hormones will easily become imbalanced, and muscle mass will easily be lost. Even if you lose 10 kilograms, you will easily regain weight.
When losing weight, the body is like a factory
For me, the key to long-term weight loss and maintaining good posture is the environment in the body, such as hormones, the level of inflammation in the body, and the gastrointestinal system.
Think of the body as a factory
-Your hormones are the managers and workers of factory operations
-Inflamed condition is how good factory machinery and hardware are
-Calorie intake is wages for factories as well as fuel
If the manager of this factory is an idiot, or if the hardware in your factory is completely rotten, then no matter how it works, it will create a pile of waste. Just as our hormones are already out of balance and the level of inflammation in the body is very high, no matter how much you eat, if you don’t solve the existing problems, it will easily accumulate into fat. It may be easier to understand with a few examples.
Hormones vs Weight Loss
This study looked at the effects of sleep and weight loss
Research source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20921542
Both groups of humans were calorie-restricted, but one group slept 5.5 hours a night and the other 8.5 hours. Both groups lost weight, but the group that slept less lost 55 percent less body fat and 65 percent more muscle mass than the group that slept more. It is equivalent to losing weight, but most of the loss is muscle mass, which reduces metabolism and makes it easy to regain weight later.
There is such a big difference mainly because poor sleep has a negative impact. The imbalance of the secretion of these things will easily increase fat and reduce muscle.
This next study looks at the effect of insulin sensitivity on body composition!
Research source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19471290
Basically, many chronic metabolic diseases, obesity, and poor muscle-building effects are closely related to low insulin sensitivity. Insulin is an anti-catabolic hormone whose main function is to store nutrients in cells. For example, after heavy training, our muscles will be more sensitive to insulin, and the nutrients we eat will be more easily absorbed into the muscles. When insulin sensitivity is low, the nutrients we eat are more likely to be stored as fat rather than absorbed into muscles.
We can simply say that the nutrients in the food eaten by people who are insulin insensitive are more likely to be stored as fat, and the relative fat mass will be much higher than the muscle mass.
To put it simply, the key to losing weight is actually to improve hormones, improve inflammation in the body, and add an appropriate calorie deficit. It is not difficult to achieve a calorie deficit. What is more difficult is how to choose the type of food that suits your body to improve hormones and achieve a long-term good body.
If you only pursue short-term weight loss and rely on a lot of calorie deficits to achieve the effect of weight loss, and then the hormones are still the same after the loss, then I can guarantee that you will gain weight very easily.
With so many ways to eat on the internet, which diet should I try?
When talking about losing weight in Taiwan 30 years ago, everyone would definitely want to use boiled meals
When it came to losing weight five years ago, everyone might think of using a low-sugar diet. When it came to losing weight in the past two or three years, everyone might directly think of the ketogenic diet.
I lost 30kg in 3 months on a low-sugar diet myself for the first time, so I used to believe that a low-sugar diet was the best way to lose weight
But after my long-term understanding of weight loss-related research, genetic cognition, and observation of students, there is no diet that is most suitable for everyone! Although it is said that high-carbohydrate foods will most stimulate insulin secretion, which in turn promotes the storage of nutrients into fat, some people are naturally good at metabolizing carbohydrates, so they can still be healthy and strong after eating high-carbohydrate throughout their lives.
For example, this study compared the responses of people with high and low insulin sensitivity to high- and low-carb diets.
Research source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2005.79
The study concluded:
-For people with high insulin sensitivity, eating high-carb and low-fat to lose weight is very helpful
-However, people who are insulin insensitive use a high-carb low-fat diet to lose fat, but the weight loss effect is not so good.
But on the contrary, studies have also shown that people with low insulin sensitivity have a very good weight loss effect on a low-carb high-fat diet, which shows that improving insulin is very important for weight loss, and it also shows that people with insulin insensitivity are more suitable
Lose weight with a high-carb diet.
So if you have been obese for a long time, you know that you eat carbohydrates easily, or you know that you have diabetes in your family and want to lose fat, then I would suggest that you can start by reducing carbohydrates, which is what we call low carb diet!
The Negative Impact of E-Levy on Mobile Banking.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
Mobile Banking is a service provided by a bank or other financial institution that allows its customers to conduct financial transactions remotely using a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet.
Electronic Transaction Levy or “E-Levy” is a tax applied on transactions made on electronic or digital platforms.
ADVANTAGES OF MOBILE BANKING
Mobile banking offers numerous benefits such as ease of transaction, convenience, time-saving, managing your finances, and budgeting. Some advantages of Mobile Banking in remote areas include:
Financial Inclusion — mobile banking offers convenient and easy banking services to people in remote areas. Thus, it allows banking on the go and offers all benefits of a banking system to rural areas without the presence of a financial institution.
Accessing the bank 24/7 — Mobile banking provides ubiquitous banking services without the need to visit the bank to have access to services. This offers time to benefit and ease of transacting at a distance.
Cost-benefit — Mobile banking saves the banks the cost of building physical infrastructures (branches) and maintaining branches and staff. Also, reduced costs on the customer side since the burden of visiting the bank for services is eliminated.
Improving resilience in the face of poverty — Mobile money acts as both a savings vehicle and a means of transferring funds during times of economic or environmental shocks.
Strengthening the formal economy — For many micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), opening a mobile money account can facilitate access to formal financial services. Mobile money is well placed to address the issue of informality that blights many developing economies and hampers domestic resource mobilization efforts. Mobile Money enables ease of transacting, thus increasing business profits for MSMEs.
Facilitating economic growth — Mobile money has been shown to contribute to economic growth by increasing both productivity and per capita incomes
DISADVANTAGES OF E-LEVY ON MOBILE BANKING
The design of mobile money taxation policy appears to be the antithesis of a well-designed tax system. The disadvantages include:
Inequity — Mobile money taxes as currently structured to create inequity in the tax system. As the tax is mostly borne by the poor and users of the services are subject to additional taxation (unlike bank or cash transactions), the principles of both horizontal and vertical equity in the tax system are contravened.
Uncertainty -. Uncertainty and lack of transparency over taxation systems can have a direct impact on the operations of the tax authority, increasing enforcement costs, as well as discouraging investment.
Inconvenience — The administration of mobile money transaction taxes creates an inconvenience for MMPs who must calculate and collect the tax on the revenue authority’s behalf. There is an additional inconvenience for users of the service for whom remote digital transactions become more expensive or out of reach if they revert back to cash.
Inefficiency — Badly designed mobile money taxes have been shown to have a distortionary impact on demand for mobile money services. This in turn has had negative impacts on overall tax takes, as well as impacting the attainment of national economic and development goals.
EFFECT OF MOBILE BANKING — CASE STUDIES
The decision to impose taxes on mobile bank transactions will trigger so many problems.
Ghana — According to The Fourth Estate Ghana; Although the government projects a 24% decline in transactions when the levy is finally implemented, preliminary findings published by the bank of Ghana indicate the value of mobile money transactions had dropped by 3.2 billion in December 2021, less than 2 months after the proposal to introduce E-levy.
Uganda — An e-levy of 1% introduced in 2018 has led to an overall drop in the person-to-person transaction by more than 50%, and a 24% drop in industry transactions within the same year the tax was introduced according to a report by Global system for mobile communication (GSMA).
Congo — An e-levy of 1% was introduced in 2019. The government had to reverse the tax on cash outs only due to negative results of the levy on Mobile money users such as a decline in mobile money agents (unemployment) and high-value withdrawals by people.
Other countries include Benin (5%) and Cameroun (0.2%). In all these countries, the e-levy has imposed a negative effect on the economy and people. If we want to ensure the financial inclusion of people in rural areas, we need to ensure that we encourage mobile banking by withdrawing the e-levy tax.
Reference:
https://thefourthestategh.com/2022/03/16/e-levy-this-is-what-happened-when-other-african-countries-passed-it/
Purohit, S., & Arora, R. (2021). The benefits and challenges of mobile banking at the Bottom of the pyramid. Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol, 27(1).
Charles G. Kpan, Jr. is an Information Technologist with over 5 years of experience in the provision of Information Technology Services and an emphasis on Web Development and Visual Branding. He’s the managing Director of CYGEC IT SOLUTIONS INC. and holds a bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology from Blue Crest University, Liberia.