The MMU team is pleased to share the proceedings from our last working group held on May 24th in Rio. We have attached the presentations and descriptions from the various sessions. Please note that sessions 5 and 7 were panels and did not use any presentations.
Session 1: Update on MMU Programme – Seema Desai, Sr. Programme Manager, MMU
The MMU Programme is at its midpoint and running at full speed; this session offers an overview of what the programme has accomplished to date and what we still need to do to achieve our goal of reaching 20 million unbanked consumers with mobile money services by 2012.
Session 2: Regulatory Update – Andrew Zerzan, Regulatory Projects Director, MMU
There have been two deliverables since the last update: (1) a Q&A for regulators which maps out common misconceptions about mobile money and provides the corresponding responses from the industry (bank, MNO or payment system); (2) one-page summaries of AML/CFT, e-money and non-bank regulation. We explain what they are and how they are relevant to regulators.
Session 3: MMU Fund Grantee update
Since the MMU Fund was launched in February 2009, we have built a strong portfolio of 20 mobile money projects across the globe; this presentation provides a snapshot of each project and what the industry can expect to learn from them. It will also provide an opportunity to present and discuss the key learnings which have emerged from the project portfolio so far.
Session 4: Key Lessons for Mobile Money – the Operators’ Perspective – Paul Leishman, Knowledge Manager, MMU
In the Annual Report from 2009, the MMU team issued a mobile money framework, mapping out the key elements of a successful mobile money deployment and highlighted some of the things which an operator would need to consider when building out each one. Over the last year, the MMU team has seen a number of deployments, and also a number of approaches to building each element, of which some have been successful and others less so. We will use this session to highlight the key things that we have seen operators get wrong with their mobile money service, and how to put them right.
Session 6: Four Lessons from the Gates’ Foundation’s Mobile Money Portfolio – Amolo Ng’weno and Dan Radcliffe, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The MMU Programme is entirely funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Financial Services for the Poor (FSP) division of the Foundation has allocated a number of grants to other organisations who are also looking at ways of increasing access to financial services, in particular savings, across developing markets. In this session, the Foundation will share their top insights, from across their portfolio, into what makes a mobile money deployment successful.
Session 8: Beyond p2p Transfers – Zahir Khoja, Roshan & Koji Ono – Robi (Formerly known as Aktel)
Mobile money used to be synonymous with domestic P2P transfers – the “killer app” that propelled Safaricom’s M-PESA to such extraordinary success. Yet a number of mobile money platforms that mainly offer P2P transfers have struggled to attract users over the course of the last year. Of course, it’s difficult to isolate why this has happened – one possible explanation is that Kenya is atypical in the volume of remittances that flow within its borders. However, on a more positive note, we have seen operators begin to explore more seriously other services that users might value on the mobile money platform, such as bill payments, salary disbursement and other services. In this Panel, we hear from operators how they developed their value proposition and how they have positioned these services within the market.
Session 9: Customer Insights into Mobile Phone Usage and Money – Dr Bill Maurer, Institute for Money, Tech. & Fin. Inclusion, University of California
Dr Bill Maurer provides a summary of his research into how customers at the base of the pyramid use their mobile phones to access financial services
Session 10: Customer Insights into Mobile Phone Usage in Ghana and Kenya – Peter Goldstein, Intermedia
InterMedia’s innovative AudienceScapes project, grant funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, uses detailed, original survey data to test key assumptions about cell phone access and use, particularly in rural areas. The nationally representative survey data provides development organizations with highly specific user information that can be sliced and diced by a range of demographic factors. It provides key insights about various uses of mobile phones, particularly for mobile money, from a ground-up perspective. It also helps explain who is likely to use mobile money services and why, and who is not likely to use them.