ScapeCat

The food section at a Meny outlet in Oslo Eating out in Oslo can be quite pricey, with a decent meal in a non-fancy place setting you back about $20 or in the range of 150 Norwegian Kronor. If travelling on a budget, then you may need a few tips beyond McDonalds or Burger King. You can try food trucks which tend to be less pricier. Supermarkets are a great choice if you're here for just a few days. For example, at Menu, you can get a variety of breads and sandwiches for breakfast from $10 or Nok 10, while lunch can be found in salads, lasagne pieces or pizza for about $5 to $7 (Nok 50 to Nok 70 or about 4 to 5 Euros) Oslo has many parks all over the city. In summer you can buy take out from the supermarket and enjoy your meal while also enjoying the park. A budget shouldn't keep you from enjoying Oslo.

In Budapest, credit and debit cards are largely accepted,  especially in tourist areas, though there's also a significant number of business that only accept cash.  It is however more advisable to pay in cash, especially if you're there for more than a day. When paying,  you will keep getting the question "cash or card"?  If paying in credit or debit cards, you will notice your bill often comes with a "service fee" which is often an extra 10% of your bill. This is pretty high and adds up fast.  To avoid overpaying, withdraw cash at an ATM and pay by it instead.  As for ATMs, there are lots of "Euronet" and other tourist targeted ATMs especially in areas frequented by tourists.  You're better off withdrawing from a Hungarian bank such as OTP ATMs which are also common.  The advantage of local bank ATMs is they do not offer to convert the currency for you but instead use the Visa/MasterCard rate. Euronet and other ATMs may o

NOTE: These charges do not reflect 10% excise duty on the transfer fee, which is levied on all transactions. Click for a larger image Equity Bank's money transfer subsidiary, Equitel, has released a tariff charge for transactions on the network. The bank is positioning Equitel more as a bank to bank money transfer service, and less as a bank to M-Pesa service. Equity's proposition is that it offers the most affordable means to send money between banks in Kenya. Charges between Equity Bank accounts remain free, while those to other banks are billed at a maximum of KSh. 60 (after tax) for a maximum of KSh 100,000. These compares with transfers to M-Pesa which are billed as high as KSh. 135 (exclusive 10% tax) for transfer of KSh. 35,000. Initially, transfers to M-Pesa were billed a maximum KSh. 33, before an increase in the termination rate that M-Pesa bills Equitel to accept transfers from the network. See story here. Users sending money between Equity accounts

Users transferring money from Equity Bank’s Equitel Mobile Money platform have been hit by a more than 100% increase in the cost of transferring money from the platform to Safaricom’s M-Pesa.  M-Pesa is Kenya’s largest mobile money platform, with over 11 million users compared with Equitel’s less than 1 million. The new charges appear to have been implemented at  the start of August, just as Equitel officially announced it’s transition from a pilot phase. No official communication on the new charges was relayed to Equitel users. Previously,  Equitel to M-Pesa transfers were charged a uniform KSh. 33 per transaction.  This meant that Equitel to M-Pesa transfers were cheaper than M-Pesa to M-Pesa transfers for amounts above KSh. 1,500. Below is a select sample of amounts and the new charges,  compared with the old charges. Amount (KSh) Equitel to M-Pesa Cost Old Equitel to M-Pesa fee M-Pesa to M-Pesa fee 2,000 66 33 40 3,000 88 33 55

Trust me sweetie, no one cares “I’m typing this with my middle finger,” once stated Idd Salim, a once fearless blogger, who we unfortunately lost to Tuberculosis. As much as I am pissed, I do not even have the luxury to type this with my middle finger. It’s the Labour Day weekend, which for long I shall remember as a weekend where my bank took the opportunity to show how laborious my relationship with them is. I have opened the mobile banking application for more than 20 times since yesterday morning. Every time it opens, a splash screen shows Equity Bank’s logo, with the phrase “Your Listening, Caring Partner.” Every time I see that phrase next to the Equity Bank logo, I fall down laughing. Listen that they might be doing, but caring? Ha ha ha, go tell that to the birds.

Safaricom Payment Services, the new banker in town?  M-Pesa is old news. Everyone in the world and their pet knows about M-Pesa. A number of business visitors check in annually just to study M-Pesa.  While the local tech community has been dusting PowerPoint Presentations stating how M-Pesa and Ushahidi put Kenya on the map, there has been some abrupt movement on the M-Pesa side. Or not.  For a while, Safaricom has publicly stated that, first, it wanted to move M-Pesa servers from Germany, and second, that it was in the process of moving the same to Kenya. See, while M-Pesa is mature in Kenya, it's still growing up in a number of countries. This means that Vodafone, M-Pesa's owner, is caught in nurturing M-Pesa elsewhere against attending to a grown up M-Pesa in Kenya.  The move to move (oh, wow, my mother will be so proud of this phrase!) M-Pesa to Kenya thus gives M-Pesa more lee way to expand it's payment services play.  Unknown to many, in 2014, S