Women’s wants and needs for mobile financial services are very much in focus for the GSMA mWomen Programme, as we gear up for the forthcoming release of our latest research on the subject with our partners Visa, Inc and Bankable Frontiers. Today, we hear from guest blogger Julia Arnold, Program Associate for Grameen Foundation’s Microsavings initiative, on the lessons learned through the organisation’s latest research with female mobile money users in India. Julia writes:

I spent most of July in Varanasi, India, with Grameen Foundation’s Microsavings Initiative partner, Cashpor Microcredit, conducting research with its savings and credit clients. During this hot and sticky month, navigating over monsoon-flooded roads and vying for space among cattle, rickshaw drivers and pedi-cabs, I had the privilege of meeting dozens of female clients from the Varanasi region. The microfinance institution (MFI) targets the poorest women in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, providing them with access to credit and, starting in July 2011, a safe place to store their savings – something to which many of them previously did not have access. Cashpor provides these savings services via the mobile phone, with the mobile phone number being used as the account number.

Though we understood before the MFI began offering the savings services that a majority of Cashpor clients had some access to a mobile phone, we also know about global evidence that poor women have limited access to, and literacy with, mobile devices. We wanted to know if the mobile phone requirement in Cashpor’s program would limit the ability of its clients (all of whom are female) to access savings. To do this, I spoke with 65 randomly selected clients in the Varanasi region. Though the sample size was small, the study has provided us with some pretty big insights into how these women use their mobile phones.

The most important lesson from this study is that institutions must provide mobile phone training. Only 23 out of 65 women – including 13 women who own their own phone – reported that they could use the mobile phone independently (meaning they could make, answer or end a call). Though Cashpor teaches its savings clients how to check their savings balances using SMS syntax, none of the women could do this. In fact, none of the women reported using the SMS feature of their phone at all. Providing mobile phone training will increase users’ comfort with the technology and increase their confidence.

Another important lesson is that Cashpor – or any MFIs that want to offer mobile-based savings services – must promote mobile phone ownership, if the phone is to remain a requirement for delivering savings (and there are good reasons for this, including a lower cost of delivering services, which is important when serving the poor). Half the women who use a household phone to access their savings accounts reported limited access to the phone at times. In addition, the mobile phone requirement excludes customers without access to a phone.

Finally, we learned lessons about how mobile phone knowledge is transferred throughout the community. I asked if these women taught their children (both boys and girls) how to use the phone, or if their children had any exposure to mobile phone technology in school. Most of the children do not have classes in school with technology, nor did these women report teaching their children to use the phone. Despite this, nearly all the women reported that their children know how to use a phone, and in fact are teaching them how to use the phone!

This study provides a small glimpse into the lives of these women and their use of what is fast becoming one of the most important tools for delivering financial services, as well as livelihood and health information. There is still much we don’t know about how the world’s poorest women use the mobile phone, but because they have arguably the most to gain from these services, it’s vital that we continue to understand their needs and design products to meet them.