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Part 2 of GSMA Handbook on Agent Networks: How to Incentivise a Network of Mobile Money Agents

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Today we are publishing the second section of the GSMA handbook on agent networks, entitled “How to Incentivise a Network of Mobile Money Agents”. In this section, we seek to answer a broad question: how can mobile network operators design a set of incentives?

GSMA Publishes Handbook on Agent Networks: How to Build, Incentivise and Manage a Network of Mobile Money Agents

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Over the last several years, distribution has proven one of the most difficult pieces of the mobile money business to get right.

Spotlight on Latin America: Colombia

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In spite of Colombia’s tumultuous political history, President Alvaro Uribe’s democratic security policy and pro-market reforms have resulted in an enhanced investment climate and burgeoning telecom market.

Pakistan’s Shared Platform: An Interview with MCB and Fundamo

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If you weren’t at Mobile World Congress, you would have missed a very interesting co-presentation from Qasif Shahid, EVP at MCB Bank and Aletha Ling, Executive Director at Fundamo. Qasif and Aletha provided an overview of MCB Mobile.

How Zain’s Zap is Improving Coke’s Distribution Model

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When you put mobile money enthusiasts in a room and ask them to talk about distribution, it’s only a matter of time before someone brings up Coca Cola. In this new story, we see Coca Cola leveraging Zain’s Zap to solve a major distribution challenge in Tanzania: dealing with cash.

Beyond P2P Transfers

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It used to be that mobile money was synonymous with domestic p2p transfers – the “killer app” that propelled Safaricom’s M-PESA to such extraordinary success.

Spotlight on Latin America: The Southern Cone

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In this second entry to our spotlight on Latin America series we will explore the southern cone. Comprised of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, this is a highly diverse group which overall exhibits the highest HDI (Human Development Index) of Latin America.

Spotlight on the Active User Rate: What Deployments are Seeing and How They’re Responding

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The mobile industry is a bit obsessed with metrics. We’ve got one for every phase of the customer lifecycle, from cost of acquisition (COA) to average revenue per user (ARPU) to cost of retention (COR) to name just a few

MMU Deployment Tracker Update

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It’s only been two months since the GSMA Mobile Money Deployment Tracker was launched and we are already seeing a noticeable increase in the number of live and planned deployments worldwide.

Q&A: 2010 Mobile Money Summit (May 24-27) in Rio de Janeiro

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With the Mobile Money Summit fast approaching, I’ve spent a few minutes addressing some of the questions that were posed to the GSMA team most frequently in Barcelona. If you have other questions beyond the ones below, feel free to post a comment.

Mobile Money Spotlight on Latin America

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In May 2010, the Mobile Money Summit will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. While the event has a global remit, it will provide a unique opportunity to highlight the coming of age of Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) in Latin America.

GSMA Hosts Central African Mobile Money Roundtable – Focus on Regional Regulation

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On Tuesday in Yaounde, we hosted the GSMA Central African Mobile Money Roundtable. This was the first regional event of its kind hosted by the GSMA, and it was designed to share information and experiences regulating mobile money with BEAC.

The Consumer Protections Built Into Branchless Banking

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The following is a guest post we’re pleased to share by A. Michael Tarazi, Senior Policy Specialist at CGAP. As regulators confront the challenges of regulating branchless banking, protecting the consumer is often their primary concern.

2010 Mobile World Congress: Day 2 of Mobile Money in Review

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Today was day number two of Mobile World Congress, and for me (and most readers of our blog), the highlight had to be the MMU Working Group. Mobile operators, vendors and other industry stakeholders convened to exchange learnings in our full-day session.

2010 Mobile World Congress: Day 1 of Mobile Money in Review

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The first day of the 2010 Mobile World Congress has officially come to a close. Today was an eventful day for anyone interested in mobile money: this year, we introduced ‘ Mobile Money Monday’, an action packed day filled with presentations and panels.

Mobile Money at the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2010

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Barcelona will take on a distinctly mobile flavour next week, as 50,000 people descend on the Catalan capital for GSMA Mobile World Congress. Monday will be devoted to mobile money, and our 4th MMU Working Group will take place on Tuesday.

New GSMA Case Study on Thailand’s True Money

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Today, we’re publishing a case study that compares Thailand’s True Money with the industry’s best known success story, M-PESA. Launched in 2005, True Money is now used by 6 million customers.

Why and How to Engage Microfinance Institutions for your Mobile Money Deployment

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This is a guest post, from Amitabh Saxena. Amitabh started the Alternative Channels workstream at ACCION in 2006 after spending several years in developing credit card products for Capital One’s Innovation Center.

Insights on Grameenphone’s BillPay: the Market, Model, and Agent Value Proposition

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Recently I caught up with Azad Delwar Hossain, Head of Financial Services for Grameenphone in Bangladesh. Grameenphone launched a service called ‘BillPay’ in 2006, which allows customers to pay utility bills over the counter, or through an e-wallet.

Globe Announces Big Change to GCASH Agent Network

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Globe recently announced that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has approved their request to use Globe Telecom Sub Distributors as GCASH outlets. Building on Globe’s announcement to launch BanKO in late 2009, this announcement marks the start to what will be a busy 2010 ...