This is the third of a series of blog posts that provide a deep-dive into different mobile money services who proved to be successful in increasing the mobile money penetration amongst women in their respective markets. This series builds upon the recently released report ‘Reaching half of the market: women and mobile money’. This post was co-written with Claire Scharwatt.
In spite of the 15 mobile money services and 85% people having access to a mobile phone, India still heavily relies on cash for financial transactions [1]. Over 50% of Indians have never accessed a bank, and more than 60% of the adult population operates outside of the formal financial system [2]: these numbers speak for a huge market opportunity for mobile money to promote financial inclusion in the country.
Beam Money was launched in December 2009 as a prepaid payment service [3] and with a mission to facilitate financial inclusion and offer convenience in making financial transactions.
The ease of KYC requirements to open a Beam Money account and a thorough analysis of gender data allowed Beam to reach 17 million customers, of which 40% are women – an impressive number, as it is higher than the country’s average female mobile phone ownership (31%). [4]
Relaxed KYC requirements to open a mobile wallet allowed Beam to expand its reach amongst women
Beam based its go-to-market strategy on convenience – opening a Beam Money account is quick and easy, and designed to avoid the complicacies of the KYC banking rigor. In fact, to open a bank account, an individual is required to provide an identity document and a proof of address, and needs to physically go to a local branch to complete the operation [5]. On the other hand, to open a Beam Money basic account the customer only needs to send an SMS; with the basic account, customers can spend Beam’s prepaid value at a set of utility providers, grocery stores, airtime and television cable providers, and to send it to other prepaid account holders. [6]
This strategy has allowed Beam to register 6.8 million women, who are less likely than men to own an identification document. Beam’s customers have the option to upgrade their account by submitting their KYC details – this tiered KYC allows them to transact in higher amounts. In addition, a year ago Beam became a Business Correspondent [7] with two banks (YES bank and ICICI bank) and was therefore enabled to offer its higher tier customers services such as savings packages and cash withdrawals, unavailable to those with the basic account, while contributing to increase financial inclusion. [8]
The fact that around 90% of Beam’s female customers have a basic account (compared to about 10% with a higher tier account) reveals that the ease of Beam’s KYC requirements really drives access to financial services for women.
Thanks to data analysis, Beam was able to understand that rural and urban women have different usage patterns when it comes to mobile money
Thanks to gender data collection and analysis, Beam was able to determine not only that women customers tend to have different mobile money usage patterns than men, but that there are differences in usage between women living in rural areas and those living in cities. Specifically, the data revealed that:
- On average women tend to be less active than men and they tend to hold less money on their mobile wallets (RS 559 for women and RS 1071 for men, corresponding to USD9 and USD17 respectively)
- Women tend to top up smaller amounts than men, but do it more frequently
- However, the difference in activity rates is higher between rural women and urban women than between men and women, revealing that urban women transact more often compared to those living in rural areas
As a result, Beam was able to adopt specific distribution and marketing strategies that ultimately allowed it to draw more women to the service.
Creating a network of homeworking ‘facilitators’ allowed Beam to recruit women agents
Beam created a network of ‘facilitators’ that not only allowed it to increase the reach and usage of its mobile money service amongst women in rural areas, but also to offer an employment opportunity to young educated women living in rural areas who wanted to contribute to the family income, but didn’t have any viable employment option. To date, of the 25,000 facilitators that to date build up Beam’s network, 9,500 are women. The ‘facilitators’ offer top up and bill payment services, in addition to registering new customers. Each franchisee serves an average of 500-2000 customers, and Beam has observed a trend of female facilitators registering more female customers.
A 360 degree approach enabled Beam to reach new customers, especially in rural areas
A comprehensive marketing approach allowed Beam to reach potential customers living in both urban and rural areas. In urban areas, Beam targets shopkeepers getting leads from their connections, and has telesales and telemarketing teams actively seeking out new customers. In rural areas, as part of their BTL marketing strategy, Beam’s facilitators have a plaque to hang outside of their house to identify themselves as Beam’s agents and spread the message about Beam Money. As Beam operates in areas of India where 28 different languages are spoken, in an effort to keep all the communication as effective and as harmonised as possible, all marketing materials and the instructions on how to use the service are in all the spoken languages. Beam has noticed this has allowed them to reach more customers with Beam Money and educate them about the benefits of mobile financial services.
To find out more on what operators can do to increase mobile money penetration among women, download our report “Reaching half of the market: women and mobile money”. The MMU and Connected Women teams will continue to gather insights on this topic, so please get in touch to share your stories and insights, either by posting comments below or by emailing the authors of the report: eminischetti@gsma.com and cpenicaud@gsma.com.
Notes:
[1] A recent survey by InterMedia reveals that only 0.3% of Indians have ever used mobile money http://finclusion.org/country-pages/india-country-page/
3 This means that an ID is not required to open a basic Beam Money account. Such license allows Beam to issue prepaid value electronically, which cannot be redeemed for cash, only for goods or services. For more information please visit http://www.cgap.org/blog/beam-india-demonstrates-power-convenience
4 http://www.cgap.org/blog/new-data-shows-only-6-india-aware-mobile-money
5 For more information about the requirements to open a bank account in India, please visit http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/FAQView.aspx?Id=82
6 http://www.cgap.org/blog/beam-india-demonstrates-power-convenience
7 Mobile money services include 1) non-bank semi-closed mobile money accounts/wallets and 2) full service mobile money bank accounts that allow for cash withdrawals. http://finclusion.org/fii-blog/moving-beyond-the-first-step-to-financial-inclusion-in-india/
8 For more information about the potential of the Business Correspondents (BC) model to facilitate financial inclusion in India please visit http://encludesolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Discussion-Papers-on-Operational-Challenges-of-BCs.pdf