NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Market analysts have predicted that cross-border payments are the next frontier where innovative technologies will challenge the existing expensive, clunky business models.

Mobile phone technology, mobile money, digital currencies, distributed ledgers, electronic identification and cloud technology together have the capacity to technically make cross-border payments cost negligible, instant, auditable and accessible to everyone.

In view of this, Financial Services Development Africa (FSD Africa) commissioned a research to assess whether the appropriate application of new technologies could be leveraged to increase formal remittance flows into Africa and cut the cost of sending money home.