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USSD
ON GRAJ.

Ussd on the GRAJ protocol. One fee. 195 countries. Join the protocol.

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COMMERCE ON
A BASIC PHONE.

Being built

USSD is the menu system on every GSM handset — the technology behind mobile money for hundreds of millions of people. For a protocol that claims to reach anyone, anywhere, it is not a fallback for a poor connection; in several markets it is the primary way people already transact.

It needs nothing a phone does not already have

No data connection, no app, no storage, no smartphone. It works on a handset that costs very little and is already in the hand of the operator this protocol most wants to reach.

The constraints are useful

Sessions are short, menus shallow, input numeric. That forces a flow down to what a transaction genuinely needs, which turns out to be a good discipline for every other interface too.

Familiar, which matters more than elegant

Anybody who has used mobile money already knows the interaction. Meeting people inside a pattern they use daily beats teaching them a better one.

Status, and what actually blocks it

Not built, and the blocker is commercial rather than technical: USSD requires an arrangement with a telecoms aggregator in each market. That is a contract per country, which is why this is honest about being an intention.

Where to go next
/pos/sms-ussd/pos/universal/guides/africa/countries
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