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China – The Future Leader in Branchless Banking for the Poor?

A look at the world's biggest market for branchless banking.

Enabling Data Driven Decisions for Expanding Financial Inclusion

The Financial Service for the Poor (FSP) team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its partners have developed an interactive web portal that aims to improve the way financial access is measured and tracked.

Indonesia Moves Towards a Cash Light Economy

In mid May 2013, the three leading mobile network operators in Indonesia surprised the financial services industry by announcing they will interoperate their wallets.

A New Wave of E-Money in Latin America

In Latin America, the banking sector is highly rooted in the economy, and to think about non-bank issued electronic money is almost heretic. But things are changing.

The Future of Provider Ecosystems for Financial Inclusion

CGAP’s five-year strategy recognizes that in most countries poor people are more likely to get financial services from a range of commercial and public sector actors.

Mobile Money Agents in Tanzania: How Busy, How Exclusive?

The Financial Sector Deepening Trust of Tanzania (FSDT) undertook a census of cash outlets in the country, and discovered that half of all agents do more than 30 transactions per month and nearly two-thirds of agents are exclusive to M-PESA.

Where’s The Cash? The Geography Of Cash Points In Tanzania

Places where one can exchange cash for transferable or storable electronic value is an essential component of financial access. Given the paucity of financial infrastructure in Tanzania, we wanted to know how deeply mobile money agents have penetrated rural areas.

Consumer Education and Mobile Money Adoption

Consumer education adds value not only for clients, but also for mobile money providers and for their financial institution partners. This post from Microfinance Opportunities shines a light on client behaviors and challenges, and identifies ways to address them: either through information to the consumer, or by helping providers to look inwardly for solutions which result in an improved consumer experience that can lead to greater uptake and use of mobile money products.

Cash Management Innovation in Latin America

An ongoing trend in Latin America is bringing forward an innovative solution to the problem of cash management through a far-reaching network of small retailers who process cash payments in real time. Could this be a way to forge a Latin American alternative path to address the problem of liquidity management?

Unlocking Barriers: Advances in Rural Mobile Banking in Mexico

Telecomm is a decentralized government agency that operates the telegraph services, bridges data connectivity across the territory, and offers financial services such as domestic and international remittances, as well as bill payments. It has decided to launch a pilot program which seeks to close the three most common gaps in financial inclusion: technological infrastructure, channels and products.

Are Retailers Better Positioned to Offer Financial Services?

In our first post in this series on the role of consumer goods retailers in financial inclusion, we discussed how retailers are similar to MNOs in their ability to reach unbanked customers. However, the opportunity for financial inclusion via organized retail, while significant, is not present in every country and not necessarily for every type of retailer.

Building India’s Model of Agent Banking

CGAP, in collaboration with the College of Agricultural Banking, just completed a national survey, which captured the big picture on agents across the country. In India, the term customer service point (CSP) is used to refer to individuals who act as agents on behalf of banks.

Unlocking the Potential of Mobile Money in New Guinea

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a country so complex it defies easy description. A place of such diversity it hosts 850 distinct languages for a population of about 7 million. The population figure, mind you, is only a guess as nobody really knows.

Can Third-Party Providers Lead to New Business Models?

Until recently, Zoona, formerly known as Mobile Transactions could have been considered the best kept secret in Africa. Operating in Zambia on a shoe-string budget, they have been developing their own unique business model for electronic financial services slowly and with little media attention. Now, as of February 2012, this small company has secured investments from three big investors, Omidyar Network, ACCION Frontier Investments, and Sarona Asset Management. All three are banking on the fact that Zoona’s experience and innovative approach to serving a range of consumers situates them to fill crucial gaps in the mobile money transactions and payments market in Africa.

Branchless Banking in India: More Reasons for Optimism

In keeping with this optimistic view of a still uncertain India venture, we conclude with three more positive items to highlight. Two reflect new changes by the government and one goes back to the fundamentals.

Eko’s Mobile Banking: A Basic Payments Product

Eko was the first company dedicated to a mobile phone-based basic savings account and payment service for the unbanked in India. Launched in 2007, Eko has carefully developed a mobile-based service usable on the most basic of handsets and continually revised and re-fashioned its approach.

Strong Customer Activity Should Begin on Day One

One of the keys to high levels of customer activity is getting it right from the very beginning – ensuring that the registration agent and first customer transactions are both focused on long-term customer activity.

CGAP Releases Paper on G2P Payments and Financial Inclusion

Branchless banking is, fundamentally, a business built on high-volume, low-value transactions.

Banking Services Transforming A Town in the Amazon

What do the inhabitants of this small town of 15,000 people (30,000 including surrounding communities) in the Amazon need banking services for?

Branchless Banking Interoperability and Agent Exclusivity

This is the third post in our series on interoperability and related issues in branchless banking and mobile money. Read the first post that presented the overall framework for the discussion and the second post that looked at the interconnection of mobile money platforms. Today, we discuss interoperability at the agent level as it relates to agent exclusivity. We include agent exclusivity in the topic of interoperability because it raises many of the same issues as platform interoperability.