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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GSMA report estimates that mobile phone ecosystem contributes around $16.7 billion to the Pakistani economy. To enhance the impact of mobile-enabled digital transformation, it calls for improving digital financial inclusion and taking a whole of government approach to development.
Over the past five years, mobile money has gained traction in South Asia, which is experiencing an average annual growth rate of 46 percent in mobile money accounts—the highest across all regions. For more details check out IMF’s 2019 Financial Access Survey that was released last week
The top barriers to mobile ownership in Asia are literacy and skills and affordability, with family disapproval also featuring as a major barrier in parts of South Asia.
This paper explores economic informality and how it relates to digital financial inclusion. It focuses specifically on the potential role that digital financial services–including those accessed through mobile phones and the internet can play in encouraging businesses to formalize their operations.
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.
This paper, jointly released by the Better Than Cash Alliance and the World Bank, summarizes and analyzes the financial challenges faced by older adults.
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.
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