Michel Hanouch

Senior Financial Sector Specialist

Michel Hanouch currently leads CGAP´s work on climate adaptation and resilience for financial service providers (FSPs) and their customers. This work explores strategic considerations for FSPs across risk management and product innovation, as well as the operationalization thereof. Previously, Michel led CGAP´s work on open APIs in financial inclusion.  
 
Michel is an experienced leader with deep expertise on the use of technology to profitably deliver financial services to hard-to-reach customers at scale. He has 20 years of experience working across strategy consulting, technology (Amazon Web Services) and international development. He has a breadth of experience, delivering strategic projects spanning product, channel, and business model innovation; digital transformation; customer experience; data; fund raising; regulation; sustainability; pricing and more. Michel has worked with C-level executives at banks, telcos, fintechs, platforms, payment companies, and regulators across 20+ countries.  
 
Michel has a Master’s degree in Economics, and an Honour’s degree in Economic Science, both from the University of Witwatersrand. He is based in Madrid, Spain. 

By Michel Hanouch

Blog

What is USSD & Why Does it Matter for Mobile Financial Services?

USSD - unstructured supplementary service data - is currently the best available communications technology to deliver mobile financial services to low-income customers.
Research

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.
Blog

Can Voice Corridors be Used to Predict Mobile Money Hotspots?

Voice corridors aren't direct predictors of mobile money hotspots. But, this information can be valuable to mobile providers launching new services, since voice and mobile money corridors often overlap in new markets.
Blog

Mobile Money: 10 Things You Need to Know

Mobile money is a fast moving space and 2013 was a busy year. Read our list of 10 trends in the mobile money arena in 2013.
Blog

Can MFIs Leverage Mobile Banking to Serve Customers Better?

When given the choice of using a mobile payment platform - bKash - or a traditional bank branch, 42% of business borrowers in a BRAC pilot chose to use both options for making payments.