Julie Zollmann

Julie Zollmann is a Nairobi-based researcher who works both independently and with BFA to understand the demand side of retail financial service markets. As a senior associate at BFA, she worked on research to better understand consumer responses to electronic government transfer payments, consumer needs and preferences in savings devices, and financial capability in the context of branchless banking. 

By Julie Zollmann

Blog

What Is Keeping Kenya From Becoming More “Cash Lite”?

A couple of weeks ago, Daryl Collins and her team at BFA introduced granular, intra-day transaction data collected in the summer of 2011 across a sample of 61 urban and rural retail merchants in Kenya. The results starkly showed that cash still dominates the payment transactions in these areas, with mobile money representing being used for not even 1% of transactions. In this blog, they ask the question “What would move more customers and merchants to more cash-lite payment behavior?”
Blog

Is M-PESA Replacing Cash in Kenya?

How far away is Kenya from the goal of cash-lite? Between July and August 2011, Bankable Frontier Associates (BFA) conducted an intensive field study within an urban and a rural pilot area to study the mode and size of intra-day cash flows at the customer-to-merchant interface and the merchant-to-supplier interface. This research finds that despite Kenya’s reputation for being a leader in mobile money, cash is still king.
Blog

Financial Safety: In the Eyes of the User and Regulator

The perception that a financial institution is “safe” is perhaps not only a matter of whether it is regulated or solvent, but also whether it offers consumers a consistent, reliable experience.