Introduction
Liquidity is a cornerstone of successful mobile money services. Getting cash into and out of a mobile money service is the obvious first step to start using the service. This applies to both mobile money agents and customers.
Many of the more successful services have multiple ways of ensuring that agents remain liquid; the use of super-agents, master-agents and various tools such as online bank account access or agent-to-agent transfer are common.
In turn these agents then ensure (or not) that customers can access cash or eMoney.
A common complaint from customers, who have not become regular mobile money users and also some frustrated active customers, is that the agent was not liquid and so their adoption of the service stalled. These customers are unlikely to retry the service if their first experience was negative.
Some technology vendors are exploring ways in which to ease this consistent issue.
Problem
Many mobile money services use ATMs to provide a cash-out facility for their customers. This is a clear method to convert eMoney into cash. Not all ATMs however, provide the facility to customers of converting cash into eMoney.
Likewise for agents, apart from a trip to a super-agent or via master-agent intervention, there is not always a solution for an agent to purchase eMoney.
For either customers or agents, the opportunity to do this is not generally available 24/7, since banks and mobile money agents observe business hours.
Solution
Technology can be used to provide a solution and Sicap have a development which meets the needs of both agents and customers, not to mention the mobile money service provider. The Sicap Kiosk has both a cash-in and a cash-out facility. The Kiosk can be extended with further functionalities such as managing international remittance, airtime top-ups and bill payment. This solution is always available 24/7 and is easily technically scalable.
While not designed to replace the human-face of an agent network the Kiosk can easily exist alongside and complement the existing agent network. An important benefit of this for agents (or other retailers) is that the Kiosk can work as a cash recycler where the agent loads in cash at the end of the business day and receives the corresponding value in eMoney. This innovation has helped ensure security and liquidity of agents themselves. Following on from this is the fact that agents or customers can then cash-out using the money that was cashed-in, more easily and frequently.
There is real-time tracking of the cash status in each kiosk and agent and master-agents will be notified when cash levels get low. For a network of kiosks in a geographical area, a refilling or maintenance route can be created in the software, allowing field engineers to attend the network in a prioritised fashion
Results
As mentioned above, the majority of unsuccessful mobile money withdrawals are due to lack of liquidity, with M-Pesa reporting this as the chief reason for 69% of withdrawal failures in 2010. (1) Orange Money in the Ivory Coast was among the first services to adopt the Sicap Kiosk as an additional liquidity channel. Since its integration, 100% of users (agents and customers alike) who tried the kiosk have returned for further transactions, showing that users have built confidence in the system. In addition, Orange Money Ivory Coast report that long waiting times to access an agent have been dramatically reduced thanks to the kiosks, from two hours in some cases to a matter of minutes.
Orange Money Ivory Coast has chosen to use technology alongside the human face of their agent network and the roll-out of kiosks will continue in the first half of 2013. The use of technology to aid mobile money service liquidity and stability in this fashion is to be encouraged.