The Better Than Cash Alliance is a partnership of governments, companies, and international organizations that accelerates the transition from cash to digital payments in order to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
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This study discusses the emergence of bKash as the m-banking pioneer in Bangladesh. It focuses on the services provided by bKash and its current operating scenario in Bangladesh. bKash’s str…
New IMF paper outlines policy strategies to help promote financial inclusion through fintechs in the Pacific Island countries. It calls on governments to close regulatory gaps and enhance digital and financial literacy while urging fintechs to take a regional approach to overcome scalability constraints.
This Brookings policy paper, by Prof. Njuguna Ndung'u, argues that instead of increasing the tax base, taxation on mobile phone transactions may end up reversing the adoption of digital payments in Kenya. It says these lessons are also relevant for other African countries considering similar taxes.
When digital services are designed to only be accessed by more powerful devices, the poor and marginalized are left out. This Institute of Development Studies report discusses barriers in accessing technology-related services in Bangladesh and how they can be removed.
This paper aims at investigating the driving factors for mobile money adoption in the WAEMU region. It identifies literacy rate, mobile infrastructure, and banking infrastructure (ATMs\100,000 people) as the main macroeconomic determinants for adoption.
The latest Financial Access 2019 survey shows that around 83% of Kenyans now have a formal account. Cost remains the main barrier for uptake. More Kenyans now save on their mobile phones (54%) than informally.
This report by GSMA and UNHCR looks at the ways in which refugees are using mobile phones to help guide digital interventions by humanitarian organizations and mobile network operators.
New GSMA and UNHCR report looks at the ways in which refugees are using their mobile phones to help guide digital interventions by humanitarian organizations and mobile network operators. It identifies affordability, literacy, digital skills, and charging as the main barriers to mobile phone ownership and mobile internet usage.
This IMF brief takes a first stab at tackling the questions surrounding the rise of new forms of digital money.
Unregistered SMEs account for 65% of Nigeria’s GDP. Most of them often struggle to demonstrate their personal and business credentials to service providers and customers. This GSMA research finds that there is a need for new approaches to identity and mobile-delivered ‘economic ID’ solution holds promise.
Does access to mobile money help improve livelihood in remote settings? This paper shows that rolling out mobile money agents in Northern Uganda led to cost-savings for remittance transactions. It also shows that access to digital payments doubled the nonfarm self-employment rate and reduced the fraction of households with very low food security.
This IDRC and SIDA-funded policy paper looks at the state of Information and Communications Technologies in Uganda. Apart from other policy recommendations, it calls for addressing the issue of affordability of devices and data and revisiting the issue of social media and mobile money taxes.
Government of Bangladesh shifted to digital payments to transfer education stipends directly to mobile phone accounts of nearly 13 million mothers. In this report, CGDev takes stock of how t…
CGAP worked with 18 fintech pilots across Africa and Asia. This set of case studies describes for each pilot the service that was piloted, the nature of its testing, and emerging lessons. Th…
Why should retailers shift to digital payments? An average digital payments user of Grab, a ride-hailing service, makes twice as many transactions than those who use cash and is 30% more lik…
Technology is shaking up the banking industry and The Economist is taking notice. This week's cover story discusses the potential risks and benefits of the “smartphone revolution in finance”…
This report offers guidance for humanitarian practitioners considering mobile money enabled cash and voucher assistance (CVA) programmes
World Bank joined hands with IFC on a project for digitizing and modernizing Côte d’Ivoire’s social protection payments. Results show a reduction in administrative costs and better targeting of beneficiaries.
Section 1 of this handbook provides essential background on the humanitarian sector and cash and voucher assistance (CVA) programmes. Section 2 outlines the operational steps involved in delivering CVA
What four factors determine the digital money readiness of an economy? What measures can our member governments take to improve their ability to adopt digital payments widely? Read the lates…