Global north america

Visa Streamlines Distribution of Child Support Payments in Nebraska

Distributing benefits, such as child support, unemployment and disability assistance, has been transformed by the use of prepaid cards. Instead of mailing paper checks, 40 states now use Vis…

Zap It to Me: The Short-Term Impacts of a Mobile Cash Transfer Program

Conditional and unconditional cash transfers have been effective in improving development outcomes in a variety of contexts, yet the costs of these programs to program recipients and impleme…

Kenya Case Studies in e-Payments

This document describes four case studies on the use of mobile money in Kenya, covering use by a government ministry (The Ministry of Lands), an NGO implementing partner of USAID (PACT), a g…

Bansefi Visa Debit and Prepaid Cards Create “Oportunidades” for Mexico ’s Financially Underserved

The largest social program in Mexico, Oportunidades, distributes benefits to 6.5 million people. The government-owned Bank of National Savings and Financial Services (Bansefi) was looking fo…

Banking with mobile phones in Haiti: A report on a T-cash pilot program

This report describes the experience of Catholic Relief Services Haiti in employing a new mobile phone–based banking service, T-Cash. This service was adopted on a pilot basis to improve CRS…

Plugging into Mobile Money Platforms: Early Experiences of NGOs in the Field

This focus note reviews early lessons for NGOs from the field. It explores three central questions: Does initial evidence support the notion that mobile money is a cheaper, faster, and more …

The Solidaridad Visa Prepaid Card Brings Relief to Dominican Citizens in Need

Millions of people in the Dominican Republic struggle with poverty and hunger. In the past, distributing food, fuel and medicine was slow, expensive and often didn’t reach the intended recip…

New Technologies in Cash Transfer Programming and Humanitarian Assistance

The research examines the constraints to the uptake of these technologies in humanitarian programming, and has identified barriers to wider adoption of new technology that can be broadly gr…

Visa Delivers the Benefits of Electronic Payments to the Trucking Industry in Brazil

In Brazil, the trucking industry has relied on a paper-based “freight letter” system for paying truck drivers’ salaries. Aside from operational inefficiencies, this method subjected cargo co…

Payment Cards and Economic Growth: The Positive Economic Impact of Digital Currency

Moody’s Economy.com recently completed a study to measure the economic impact of the shift from cash and checks to digital currency in 51 economies worldwide….

Incentives for the Introduction of Agents by Banca de las Oportunidades in Colombia

The Impact of Electronic Payments on Economic Growth (2013)

A study by Moody’s Analytics that looked at the impact of increased card penetration on the private consumption of 56 countries over five years.

M-Shwari: Market Reactions and Potential Improvements

This Microsave report examines initial market perceptions to M-Shwari, a mobile banking service that allows M-PESA customers to borrow money and apply for emergency loans directly through th…

Electronic G2P Payments: Evidence from Four Lower-Income Countries

This CGAP Focus Note presents the evidence gained from a comprehensive study of the experiences in developing and implementing e-payment schemes linked to financial inclusion in four lower-i…

The Financial Action Task Force cautions on the use of virtual currencies

IMF Fiscal Transparency Code aligns with BTCA goals

Every dollar spent on Syrian refugees generates $2.13 in local Lebanese markets

Small-scale Kenyan farmers use mobile money to turn remittances into farm profits

A study has found that Kenyan farmers who use mobile money have 35% higher profits per acre of banana production than non-users. Mobile money also increased household income by 40% and contr…

Authoritative guidance on “risk-based” banking

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is the global standard setter for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other threats to the financial system. Their [Risk-based Approach…

Faster, cheaper and better regional payment integration