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Responsible Digital Finance for Kenyan Merchants: Five Priorities

Kopo Kopo enables more than 10,000 merchants to accept mobile payments from their customers. As Kopo Kopo considers consumer protection risk areas, they identified key concerns and questions in each which they are working on addressing.

Digital Currencies and Financial Inclusion: Revisited

Digital currencies are evolving fast, and so is their link with financial inclusion.

Merchant Incentives in the Shift to Cashless Food Aid

Shifting social support benefits through electronic payments instead of cash or in-kind contributions offers many benefits, but evidence from existing programs suggests that the link between these payments and financial inclusion is is challenging to make.

Understanding our Smallholder Clients, Serving them Better

Smallholder farmers are among the most financially excluded of all client segments. Understanding their particular needs is an important step in helping financial service providers to develop appropriate and effective products that serve them effectively.

10 Myths About M-PESA: 2014 Update

M-PESA and its 12.6 million active customers have fundamentally altered the landscape of financial services in Kenya. Despite its popularity, there are still some misconceptions about how it works.

Price Sensitivity and the New M-Pesa Tariffs

M-Pesa recently reduced its fees on person-to-person mobile money transfers. How will these price changes affect usage?

When Saving for Tomorrow Necessitates Borrowing for Today

The Kenyan Financial Diaries project found that many poor households prioritized savings over liquidity when it came to their household budgets. Many viewed this as the way to get out of poverty and secure a longer term future.

The Kenya Financial Diaries: 4 Flaws in the Social Network

The Kenya Financial Diaries project tracked the detailed cash flows of 300 low-income families over the course of a year, shedding light on how the poor manage their money.

Educational Transparency through Digital Finance Plus

A chain of primary and pre-primary schools in Kenya offers parents the ability to pay and track school fees with their mobile phones. The service is aimed at increased efficiency and transparency.

Is Kenya Ready for an MVNO?

Kenya recently granted MVNO licenses to several new companies, allowing them to provide mobile money services without building new cellular infrastructure. This could shake up the mobile money market in Kenya, which has been dominated by Safaricom.

Can Mobile Money Extend Financial Services To Smallholder Farmers

On paper, digital financial services can sound like a silver bullet to reach millions of rural, underserved smallholder farmers. In reality, the challenges can be greater than the deployment of a low-tech solution.

Why Equity Bank Felt It Had to Become a Telco – Reluctantly

Ignacio Mas and John Staley explain Equity Bank's decision to become a Mobile Virtual Network Operator in Kenya.

Using Phones to Engage Customers with Insurance Products

As part of CGAP's Applied Product Innovation project with MicroEnsure and design firm Continuum, several different ways were tested to see how insurance could take advantage of the mobile phone’s capabilities to engage with people more powerfully and effectively.

Increasing the Immediate Value of Microinsurance for the Poor

CGAP has recently concluded an Applied Product Innovation project with insurance intermediary MicroEnsure and design firm Continuum. The challenge: using human centered design techniques to figure out how to deliver relevant insurance products to the mass market, leveraging mobile phones.

Don’t Forget the Value Proposition for G2P E-Payment Recipients

Theory indicates that G2P payments can be a gateway to financial inclusion, but behavior on the ground suggests that receiving social cash transfers electronically has not influenced recipients to become e-payment users in general.

Infrastructure, Consistency are the Backbone of G2P E-Payments

A new Focus Note examines the opportunities and challenges involved in implementing social cash transfer schemes in Uganda, Haiti, the Philippines, and Kenya

China and Kenya: Different Models for Scaling Branchless Banking

In China, branchless banking initiatives are starting to reach scale, but the story has different foundations from other country success stories, such as Kenya.

M-Shwari in Kenya: How is it Really Being used?

In recent years, Safaricom has launched a number of value-added services through its M-PESA product in Kenya, aiming to move its customer base beyond basic money transfers. M-Shwari is by far the most popular of the offerings.

Water by Phone: Transforming Utilities in the Developing World

As World Water Day is being recognized around the globe this Saturday, we take a look at how mobile money is making clean water more affordable and accessible in Kenya.

E-Payments in Low-Income Settings: Cutting-Edge or High Risk?

Seen as having great potential for advancing the effectiveness of social and foreign assistance, e-payments can increase efficiency in a variety of ways. Four case studies take a closer look at programs in Haiti, Kenya, The Philippines and Uganda.