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Three Key Steps for Boosting Mobile Money in Nigeria: Grameen Foundation explores ways the struggling sector could reach its potential
As the largest of Africa’s fast-growing economies, Nigeria is a promising market for mobile finance. Yet though almost 57 percent of Nigerian adults have no access to formal financial services, only 0.1 percent actively use mobile money. Grameen Foundation explores the reasons for the stunted growth of mobile services, and outlines some key steps that could increase their adoption and continued use.
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NexThought Monday – 12/15/14 – The Over-The-Counter Paradox: Dependence on agent transactions is holding digital finance back – but could agents also move the sector forward?
Over-the-counter (OTC) transactions are mobile money transactions facilitated by a provider’s agent network - and they’re an integral part of most successful services. But while MicroSave founder Graham Wright argues that dependence on OTC transactions is hobbling the development of the digital finance ecosystem, he says these agents could also present a solution.
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MasterCard Sees Opportunity with Nigerian E-ID Cards
There’s a lot of untapped potential in the Nigerian commerce market — which is growing — and MasterCard has discovered a marketing niche with the country’s national high-tech e-ID card pilot project.
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Vodacom has big M-Pesa plans in South Africa
Vodacom aims to push the envelope with its revamped M-Pesa in 2015, a year in which it hopes it will emerge as the most disruptive player in the local mobile money space.
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- Sub-Saharan Africa
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NexThought Monday – 12/8/14: Safaricom, share your M-PESA data!: Why we need data philanthropy in Kenya
With 15 million users and 2 million transaction per day, Safaricom has achieved historic success with its M-PESA mobile money product in Kenya. It has also compiled a historic amount of data, and the granularity is electrifying. This data would be a treasure trove to financial inclusion actors, says James Schintz of MIX, in an impassioned plea for Safaricom to engage in "data philanthropy."
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- Education
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How Responsible Is Digital Finance?: 10 insights from CGAP’s Global Pulse Survey
How responsible is digital finance today? Though there’s broad agreement that this question deserves more attention, there are significant gaps in our knowledge of consumer risks with digital financial services globally. In response, CGAP conducted a survey among policy makers, financial service providers, consumer advocates and foundations involved in providing digital financial services. Here are the top ten survey insights.
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The Past and Future of Mobile Finance in Africa: Part two of our Q&A with Henry Maloba at Grameen Foundation’s Mobile Financial Services Accelerator
Henry Maloba leads Grameen Foundation’s Mobile Financial Services Accelerator in Uganda, which aims to bring financial services to rural Ugandans by forging collaboration between telcos and banks. In part two of our Q&A, Maloba discusses the tensions between these sectors and among telcos themselves, and shares his views on the recent past and future of mobile financial services in Africa.
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Strange Bedfellows: A Grameen Foundation initiative aims to bring telcos and banks together to deliver mobile financial services to rural Uganda
In many countries in the developing world, telcos and banks have clashed as they compete for the growing mobile finance market. But in Uganda, Grameen Foundation’s Mobile Financial Services Accelerator is promoting a different approach, facilitating collaboration between the two sectors in an effort to bring mobile financial services to rural communities. We spoke with Henry Maloba, who leads the initiative, in this two-part Q&A.
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