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Will G2P Recipients Use Financial Services if Offered to Them?

Our recently released Focus Note on Social Cash Transfers and Financial Inclusion looks at the evidence from four large and well established programs in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and South Africa to attempt to answer three broad questions that are relevant to different stakeholder groups.

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.

Using Data to Understand Customer Activity

For the last year CGAP has conducted quantitative research on the challenge of inactive customers. In culmination of this research, we are releasing a deck that helps providers understand and develop strategies to address low customer activity in their services.

Competition Gets a Pat on the Back

People who favor a commercial approach to microfinance and people who oppose interest rate caps have argued for years that competition would bring meaningful reductions in microcredit interest rates. Others have been skeptical about this prediction.

Variations on a Theme: Business Models in Branchless Banking

We’ve done a lot of thinking at CGAP about the different business models and partnerships that exist in branchless banking. What I find interesting is that rarely do you find two models that look exactly alike. Once you begin to really dig beneath the surface, you realize that even among those businesses that we might simplistically call “telco-led” or “bank-led”, there are significant differences.

Cash Really Is King

Cash is easy.” “Cash is what I know most.” “There are no charges when I use cash.”

Customer Level Interoperability: A Story of Two Mobile Handsets

In our work on interoperability, we find that there are some questions that we are unable to adequately address at the platform and agent levels alone. For instance, the opening of USSD gateways by mobile operators may allow customers of one operator to access services of another operator without either platform interconnection or agent sharing.

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.

The Next Step for Mobile Money Providers: Moving Toward Sustainability

To commemorate the 2nd anniversary of the Haitian earthquake, we are running a few blogs on the mobile money industry that has developed in Haiti over the past two years. The consulting firm Dalberg has recently completed three pieces of research on the Haitian market as part of Haiti Mobile Money Initiative (HMMI).

Can Mobile Money Transform a Country?

Over the past week, the world has been commemorating the 2nd anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. Today and tomorrow we will have two guest blog posts on the mobile money sector that has emerged over the last two years in Haiti. Today’s post is written by two colleagues at USAID.

Platform-level Interconnection in Branchless Banking

Platform-level interconnection is what most people have in mind when they think of interoperability in branchless banking. When we speak of interoperable platforms, we are referring to platforms that permit the transfer of funds from one mobile account to the mobile account of another service provider.

A LiFi World

A LiFi world is therefore one in which every person has an electronic store of value which they can easily use to make and receive payments in real time. Just like in places with reliable on-grid electricity, we can turn on a light on-demand, knowing that it will work and that the cost of flicking the switch will be small in relation to the benefits.

Interoperability in Branchless Banking and Mobile Money

At the end of the day, we suspect interoperable systems will accelerate financial inclusion by allowing customers to use the infrastructure of multiple service providers to access their accounts. The question is how best do we get there?

The Promises and Risks of Commercializing Microfinance

The performance of the industry has mitigated and obscured the tensions created by commercialization and accessing mainstream capital markets.

Top 10 Posts from the CGAP Technology Blog in 2011

One of the exciting and yet challenging aspects of the branchless banking industry is how fast things change. Topics discussed just 3 months ago can seem out of date today. That’s why it’s fun to look back over the topics we blogged about in 2011 starting from last January to see how the discussion has evolved over the last 12 months.

Technology Challenges Accompany Voluntary Savings

Our discussions on branchless banking on this blog do not often touch on the role of microfinance institutions (MFIs). The main actors in this space seem to be mobile network operators, commercial banks, larger microfinance banks and technology companies. We have done a bit of thinking on microfinance and mobile banking, notably in this Focus Note and at this Virtual Conference.

The Allure of A Cashless Society

I’ve been intrigued to see several recent new stories spouting off about the grandiose vision of a cashless society. To a certain extent I thought we had moved past this debate. While recognizing it as desirable, this high and mighty goal seems somewhat unattainable, at least in the short to medium term.

Gold Backed Loans: Unlocking Liquidity for the Poor?

In some parts of South Asia there is a long standing tradition of accumulating gold as a preferred form of saving. Acquiring gold allows small amounts to be accumulated at different intervals; it is not easily lost or destroyed; it is small and lightweight compared to its value; and it is easily divisible into small units which can be sold off as needed.