Innovation infrastructure

DLT: Keep Calm and Let the Evidence Speak

Blockchain Series: Blog 3…

Distributed Ledger Technology and Digital Identity: Prospects and Pitfalls Ahead

Blockchain Series: Blog 4

Distributing Production: Can Distributed Ledgers Fuel a New Wave of Supply-Chain Innovation?

Blockchain Series: Blog 5

Paying Across Borders: Can Distributed Ledgers Bring Us Closer Together?

Blockchain Series: Blog 6

In the IMF’s Fight Against Corruption, Digital Payments are a Powerful Weapon

IMF managing director Christine Lagarde is to be applauded for her recent leadership in the fight against corruption, and her recognition that there is an increasingly limited role for cash …

Capturing Our Impact: Harnessing Innovation for Financial Inclusion

This World Bank e-book features stories, videos, and pictures that illustrate how digital innovation not only enables access to financial services for low-income people but also serves as an enabler for delivering clean water, solar energy, education, and more.

A Regulatory Diagnostic Toolkit for Digital Financial Services in Emerging Markets Toolkit

This University of New South Wales paper proposes a framework – a Regulatory Diagnostic Toolkit (RDT) – designed to support financial regulators in emerging markets to advance their regulatory regimes for DFS.

A systematic literature review of blockchain-based applications: Current status, classification and open issues

This work provides a systematic literature review of blockchain-based applications across mul-tiple domains. The aim is to investigate the current state of blockchain technology and its appl…

The Mobile Gender Gap Report 2019

Is cash still relevant?

Cash Digitization: UN Collaboration, Coordination, and Harmonization Opportunities

Mobile Technology and Financial Service Bundling: A Structural Estimation of Mobile Money

The paper examines the effects of mobile money as financial technology and service innovation on consumer demand, connecting the effects to the fast evolving mobile technologies (from 1G to 4G).

Get in the fast lane through digital payments

In this 4-part blog series, we examine key aspects of the transportation sector: tolling, urban transit, and ride-sharing with a focus on emerging economies.

New Key to Help Unlock the Power of Digital Payments

Across the global policy community, the jury is now in about the power of digital payments to drive financial inclusion, particularly for women and the poor; improve efficiency and transpare…

An Introduction to Digital Financial Services (DFS)

Digital Financial Services (DFS) is a relatively new, low-cost means of digital access to transactional financial services. Often termed ‘mobile money’ or ‘mobile financial services,’ DFS is…

How cities will win – digital payments and the future of smart

Transportation Series: Blog 3

Global Microscope 2018: The Enabling Environment for Financial Inclusion

It sets a model for an enabling environment for financial inclusion across five domains: 1. Government and Policy Support; 2. Stability and Integrity; 3. Products and Outlets; 4. Consumer Pr…

Going Cashless: An Opportunity to Accelerate Progress on the 2030 SDGs

Harvard Center for International Development (CID) hosts Better Than Cash Alliance on the CID Speaker Series Podcast. …

Solutions for the Unbanked

MIT Technology Review Editor-in-Chief Gideon Lichfield talks with Wole Coaxum, MoCaFi founder and chief executive officer, Shamina Singh, Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth president; and Tidhar Wald, Better Than Cash Alliance head of government relations and public policy, at the Bloomberg Sooner Than You Think technology summit in Brooklyn.

Financial inclusion, a driver of state building in India and Mexico?

This article situates latest trends within the evolution of Indian and Mexican social policies and discusses how on one hand financial inclusion policies allow vulnerable populations to access new rights while resulting in new ways of controlling consumer behavior.