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Accelerating Digital Payments in Latin America and the Caribbean

The World Economic Forum and IDB Lab explore how digital payments in Latin America & the Caribbean can continue to evolve in an open, inclusive and safe manner.

Open Finance in Latin America and the Caribbean: Great Opportunities, Large Challenges

Lists the benefits of open finance: increased competition, transparency, inclusion; and the challenges of ensuring privacy, security, and consumer rights.

Investing In Girls: Opportunities for Innovation in Girl-Centered Cash Transfers

This paper suggests policymakers and other stakeholders should leverage trends toward financially-inclusive e-payments as a means to achieve multiple potential objectives for bringing financial inlcusion to adolescent girls.

Accelerating winds of change in global payments

The COVID-19 crisis is having a significant and widespread effect on global payments across sectors. The most striking and potentially lasting impact is an accelerating pace of change in the industry.

Mobile payments and financial inclusion: Kenya, Brazil, and India as Case Studies

This paper considers the impact of the regulatory environment on mobile payments as a channel for delivering inclusive financial services using Kenya, Brazil and India as case studies.

Should graduation programmes replace the more conventional cash transfers? 

What comes after unconditional cash transfers? Does the inclusion of some form of graduation programs offer a more sustainable solution to poverty? Read this blog to learn more about the deb…

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…

How one platform connects cities and boosts small businesses

How can platform approaches drive the digitization of cities? Learn how CIVICO and Accion are helping customers and small businesses, in Bogota, Mexico City, and Santiago, connect and transact.

Leveraging Digital Financial Solutions to Promote Formal Business Participation

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.

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…

Barriers to transforming government in Jamaica: challenges to implementing initiatives to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and service delivery of government through ICTs (e-Government)

It can be argued from the data analyzed that the factors which undermine the use of ICTs to improve government efficiency, effectiveness and public service delivery in Jamaica include: techn…

DaviPlata: Taking Mobile G2P Payments to Scale in Colombia

This CGAP research paper describes the key challenges Davivienda, a Colombian bank faced through the journey to delivery G2P payments over mobile: how the service delivery model had to be ad…

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…

Digital Payments Adoption and the Demand for Cash: New International Evidence

Cash remains in high demand despite measures by governments to keep funds digital. This Central Bank of Colombia study finds that economic growth and lower interest rates have a role to play.

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 …

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…

Covid-19 G2P Cash-Transfer Payments

This brief highlights the role of cash transfers and digital distribution as a part of COVID-19 response in Colombia.

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

Accelerating Financial Inclusion in South-East Asia with Digital Finance

Focussing on women, and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), the paper highlights that digital financial solutions could play a significant part in closing gaps in financial inclusion and povides insights from Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia, and Myanmar.

Balancing financial inclusion and data protection in South Africa: Black Sash Trust v Minister of Social Development

The participation of many underprivileged social clusters in the financial services sector has invariably been problematic in South Africa. This may be attributed to the country’s laws and p…