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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Digitizing Wage Payments in Bangladesh’s Garment Production Sector
Payday can be an ordeal for women garment workers in Bangladesh. Often, they must wait in long lines, carry wads of cash through crowded streets, or encounter a mother-in-law demanding money.
The Mexican government is saving an estimated US$ 1.27 billion per year, or 3.3 percent of its total expenditure, on wages, pensions and social transfers. How? By digitizing and centralizing its payments.
Leading brands call on other companies and suppliers in Bangladesh to grasp the opportunity to drive inclusion, efficiency, and transparency through wage digitization
Dhaka, November 20, 2019 - Media release by Government of Bangladesh: Building on what has been achieved so far, the government and the private sector have committed to working together to solve the challenges in ensuring all garment factories pay their workers digitally. The decision came from the Bangladesh Digital Wages Summit, which convened on 20 November in Dhaka.
New partnership will result in promoting digital payments as an important tool to increase security, financial inclusion and economic opportunities in the workplace.
On 19 August 2015, the Reserve Bank of India approved licenses for eleven institutions to set up payment banks. The purpose was to have these banks further financial inclusion by providing small savings accounts and payment / remittance services to, “migrant labour workforce, low income households, small businesses, other unorganised sector entities and other users.”
As the tragic human costs of COVID-19 mount, the need for practical, scalable, quick and effective solutions is urgent. Now more than ever, it’s time to put digital payments to work.
The paper examines the role NPCI played in transforming the way India manages financial transactions, as well as what lessons can be learned from India’s experience.
This blog was originally published on BSR.org
As part of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, governments are taking urgent measures to digitally pay health workers and vulnerable people. The Better Than Cash Alliance hosted a webinar to highlight key lessons from Sierra Leone's use of digital payments in their Ebola response, which shaped the outcome of the crisis in West Africa. The webinar outlined key takeaways on how governments could solve the challenges emerging from the COVID-19 crisis: - Keeping the digital payments ecosystem functioning and safe. - Delivering payments to health workers and, where possible, to affected families effectively. - Providing beneficiaries with the right information about these payments. For more information, please check out our case study “Saving Money, Saving Lives: A Case Study on the Benefits of Digitizing Payments to Ebola Response Workers in Sierra Leone.” http://ow.ly/SQAd30izODF
By using digital payments to pay Ebola response workers, Sierra Leone massively cut payment times, avoiding large-scale strikes and ensuring a stable workforce to defeat Ebola. Sierra Leone’s experience shows the critical importance of preparing early for digital payments before crises hit.
The Better Than Cash Alliance 'Responsible Digital Payments Guidelines' identify eight good practices for engaging with clients who are sending or receiving digital payments and who have previously been financially excluded or underserved.
The World Bank and the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) recently hosted the Third Meeting of the CPSS – World Bank Retail Payments Forum in Perugia, Italy.
It’s all at our fingertips. The possibility to make a payment. The delight of receiving one. From Peru to Rwanda to India, people, governments and businesses are increasingly making their payment transactions digitally, whether by mobile phone, by card or online.
At ACDI/VOCA we see firsthand how technological innovations are revolutionizing approaches to global economic development. This is particularly true for electronic payments. Around 2.5 billion people around the world are “unbanked.” Without access to financial services, they can’t save for the future, build assets or get credit. For those who do have access, the services are often rudimentary and inefficient. Electronic payments open doors and create lasting benefits for this underserved population by providing access to robust, modern financial services.
Kenya has been hailed as one of the developing world’s leaders in electronic payments. So it should come as no surprise that a sparsely populated, dusty village 500 kilometres from Nairobi is home to a pilot project testing whether an electronic delivery model for aid can be viable on a larger, commercial scale. Drought prone Merti is a small town in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), of northern Kenya where The World Food Programme, MasterCard and local partner Equity Bank have been running a pilot point-of-sale electronic payments programme. .
The purpose of this working paper is to set out the key components and stakeholders in a digital payments ecosystem (DPE); to show how inclusive DPEs are vital in the transition from cash to digital payments; and to describe the key conditions for successfully building an inclusive DPE.
By BTCA Communications Team