Articles by Ignacio Mas
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Monday
February 3
2014NexThought Monday – Money Stories: What if financial products could accommodate the tales we tell ourselves?
We constantly create stories about ourselves and our experiences to help us make sense of the world. These stories even help us manage our finances. But by and large, financial institutions haven’t leveraged the power of users’ stories, and this contributes to some of the challenges they’ve faced in serving low-income customers.
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Wednesday
January 1
2014The Best of 2013: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Mobile money as a retail payment system
You may be tired of hearing about mobile money, but the world is not. For instance, the GSMA keeps ramping up its count of mobile money deployments across the world: today’s number is 191. Let me dig under the hype and give a personal assessment of where things are - be it good, bad or ugly.
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- Technology
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Tuesday
October 15
2013Friction and Flow: How innovation can put relevance back into formal savings
Do you realize to what extent formal savings services are irrelevant to many of the world’s poor?Ignacio Mas explores the challenges of making savings products both relevant and simple, in a thought-provoking addition to NextBillion Financial Innovation’s opening series.
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Monday
July 8
2013NexThought Monday : Why mobile money is conspicuously ahead of other mobile-for-development sectors
So what is it about mobile money—and in particular mobile payments — that sets it apart from the other mobile application areas? I’d highlight four intrinsic demand-side aspects, leaving aside all the business model and implementation stuff.
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- Technology
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Thursday
August 2
2012Don’t Touch Our M-PESA!: In Mobile Money, Why Even Sacred Cows Need Scrutiny
I was giving a presentation on the potential of branchless and in particular mobile banking at an international forum, and apparently I upset the Kenyans in attendance for not having lavished enough praise on M-PESA. When I talk about mobile banking I generally use the example of M-PESA because there are few others that are really worth talking about at this point (sadly), and I mostly get “enough with that already” kind of looks. So this was new.
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Monday
May 14
2012NexThought Monday: Putting M-PESA’s Success into Perspective, Why B2B Will be Slower than P2P
M-PESA is a shining, unusual, inspiring success. And while the service is wildly popular in person-to-person networks, surprisingly few businesses use it. If M-PESA is to penetrate the business-to-business market, it will need to avoid the pitfalls of other brands.
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- Technology
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Monday
February 27
2012The Big Idea: (UPDATED) Simple Truths About Mobile Money
Wow, the role of mobile money has been hotly discussed across the mainstream media in recent weeks - even in Slate. There is much that I agree with in that article, and in a related critique of technology-centered development by Kentaro Toyama in CNN. So let’s unpack some of the conclusions presented in these two articles. (UPDATED: The Slate authors respond to this post).
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- Technology
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Guest Articles
Wednesday
January 18
2012Mobile Money Payments: Why It’s Time to Move From P2P to Me2Me
Mobile money providers should embrace Me2Me systems, that is, easy-to-use commitment savings platforms that help map how people think about their long-term needs and money. In the customer’s mind, each date would be associated with a purpose, such as paying off school fees, rent, farm equipment or other long-term purchases and expenses.
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- Technology, Telecommunications