Searching: Research & Analysis

Banking in the M-PESA Age

This Working Paper explores three approaches banks in Kenya have used to respond to mobile money. While nonbank mobile financial services can fundamentally reshape the financial sector in a developing market, as they have clearly done in Kenya, mobile services need not represent an existential threat to the traditional banking industry.

Merchant Payments: VAS Playbook

This playbook discusses the various potential Value Added Services that could increase uptake of mobile retail payments in Tanzania and similar emerging markets.

Paving the Way for Digital Financial Services in Jordan

As more customers turn to formal financial services, remittances will have an even stronger developmental impact, especially in countries with large numbers of people displaced by humanitarian crises. This report examines the financial ecosystem and regulations in Jordan for international remittances, domestic payments and mobile money.

Digital Rails

Get a more detailed introduction to open APIs — what they are and how they can unlock innovation in digital financial services ecosystems — in this e-book.

Financial Services Apps in India

Smartphone applications offer a powerful tool for financial service providers to offer services to their customers—if done right. CGAP reviewed six smartphone apps currently available in India to find out what design elements are essential to fully deliver on the promise of marrying a financial service with a smartphone interface.

Understanding Consumer Risks in Digital Social Payments

Digital social payments (DSPs) are a fast-growing, yet often overlooked, digital financial services (DFS) segment. Acknowledging and addressing the most common and consequential consumer risks should be a priority for any program or provider seeking to unlock the potentials of DSPs for the poor.

Promoting Competition in Mobile Payments: The Role of USSD

Unstructured supplementary service data (USSD), a communications service controlled by mobile network operators, is a critical piece of infrastructure used to provide mobile financial services on most phones, at low cost, and without requiring access to the user’s SIM card.

Mobile Payments Infrastructure Access and Its Regulation

This research shows USSD access is an important competition issue in many countries since there are no effective substitutes that have been proven at scale.

Electronic G2P Payments: Evidence from Four Lower-Income Countries

This Focus Note presents the evidence gained from a comprehensive study of the experiences in developing and implementing e-payment schemes linked to financial inclusion in Haiti, Kenya, the Philippines, and Uganda.

China: A New Paradigm in Branchless Banking

While many banked people already use mobile banking in China, the country also has the potential to emerge as an important success story for branchless banking and financial inclusion and potentially a new paradigm.