DEVELOPMENT OF MOBILE PAYMENT SYSTEM: AN IMPLEMENTATION OF CASHLESS ECONOMY

ABSTRACT
Cashless economy has ushered in the cashless banking framework across different countries of the world and this is made possible by the advances in information technology. Electronic cash is a term becoming more acceptable as the world makes a shift towards a cashless society. This research work presents the development of a mobile payment system which implements cashless economy. The main aim of this development is to reduce some cash-related crimes in our society such as: robberies, the risk of losing cash in the case of fire and flooding incidents, inefficiency and corruption associated with cash usage like leakages, money laundering, amongst other cash-related fraudulent activities. The mobile payment system developed produces services operated under financial regulation and performed from or via a mobile device. Instead of paying with cash or check, a consumer can use a mobile phone to pay for a wide range of services, digital or hard goods.  This payment system is a service system where the consumer sends a payment request via an SMS text message to a short code, the merchant involved is informed of the payment success and can then release the goods paid for. AT commands for VB.Net programming language is the tool used in the development of this mobile payment system with Mysql as the database.