Banks

In South-East Asia, Grab and Gojek bring banking to the masses

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…

Tech’s raid on the banks

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”…

Iraq’s financial inclusion drive boosted by homegrown fintech

Financial Times' special report discusses how the private sector, including Mastercard, and the government are joining forces to promote digital payments in the economy, especially by digiti…

Integrating Gender and Women's Financial Inclusion into the Central Bank of Egypt's (CBE) Framework

Central Bank of Egypt is promoting women’s financial inclusion through a set of different measures such as enabling the legal and regulatory framework conditions, modernizing the financial i…

Marks & Spencer Joins the Better Than Cash Alliance on International Women’s Day

This International Women’s Day, Marks & Spencer (M&S) is joining the Better Than Cash Alliance to help advance the Sustainable Development Goals.

Using digital tools to grow africulture and financial inclusion in Ethiopia

Ethiopia has a sole mobile network provider and a banking sector that is closed to foreign ownership. Does that make it easy for the government to take a rural-first approach to digitization? Learn about it more in this USAIDFeed The Future brief that also mentions the Alliance.

Mobile banking in the government-to-person payment sector for financial inclusion in Pakistan

Through an interpretive case study of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) in Pakistan, this paper critically examines mobile banking usage by women beneficiaries and technology’s effects on the institutional properties of their households.

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…

For whom the cash tolls

Transportation Series: Blog 2…

Truly mobile money – ride-sharing and mobile payments in South and Southeast Asia

Transportation Series: Blog 4…

Senegal: Digitizing payments could add FCFA 104 billion to GDP every year

Media release by the Government of Senegal, the Better Than Cash Alliance and MM4P…

Poverty and Migration in the Digital Age: Experimental Evidence on Mobile Banking in Bangladesh

This study traces the impact of mobile money transfers on rural poverty. Migrants actively using the technology increased remittances sent by 30% in value.

Factories paying workers digitally are five times more likely to provide good social and labor practices

New data gathered from the Higg Index from 3,000 factories in 58 countries

Uruguay impulsa pagos digitales con incentivos fiscales

El Gobierno de Uruguay albergó a otros países miembro de la Alianza Better Than Cash para compartir sus experiencias en cómo fomentar el uso de los pagos digitales a través de incentivos fiscales.

Saving by Default: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Rural India

Access to banks is rapidly increasing worldwide, and allows account-based instead of cash transfers. We conduct a randomized experiment documenting the impact of the payment method on saving…

Branchless banking: Evaluating the doorstep delivery of financial services in rural India

This paper evaluates the effect on household savings of India’s recent financial inclusion drive, a drive that generated an unprecedented increase in access to financial institutions by usin…

Sierra Leone: Digitizing revenue collection is the next frontier

By Alfred Akibo-Betts and Tenzin Keyzom Massally

How we banked a billion people and what to do next

Ethiopia: “Mobile money doubled my number of customers in just three years”

In Addis Ababa, the vibrant Ethiopian capital, lies a busy Somali community market where Bisharo runs a small shop.

Lessons from Rwanda: Harnessing public-private partnerships to drive payment digitization

By Oswell Kahonde and Juan Blanco