The Trillion-Dollar Question

For years, digital financial services providers have tried and failed to seize a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity: the large-scale digitization of retail payments in emerging markets. What must providers do differently to make digital payments work better than cash for merchants and their customers? CGAP Senior Financial Sector Specialist Peter Zetterli’s search for an answer led him to a surprising question: What if trying to be better than cash is the wrong approach?

This is the first in CGAP's new podcast Financial Inclusion Frontiers

Recommended background reading: 

Digitizing Merchant Payments

Related Resources

Podcast

CGAP's privacy and consumer financial services expert David Medine discusses the risks that millions of low-income consumers face in developing countries as they start using digital financial services