The 5C’s of Cashless
The Reserve Bank of India has unveiled their Vision 2018, an ambitious plan to shove the juggernaut into a cashless future. Here are their pithy yet to the point 5C’s, which focus the framework on a set of objectives. Coverage – by enabling wider access to a variety of electronic payment services Convenience – by […]
Cashless
Can digital currency earn trust in hyper-local rural economies?
One characteristic of rural and informal type micro-economies, is irregular patterns in cash flows and money supply. Mama biashara for instance, finds it hard to replenish stock if business is generally slow within her domain. Even if she could, there is still Mr. boda boda who has to be paid. When he doesn’t get paid, […]
Mobile Money Is Driving Africa’s Cashless Future
This article was written for HBR a few months ago. Here are some key snippets: Three distinct factors are driving this transformation. First and foremost is the desire for financial inclusion. Africa’s unbanked majority needs access to affordable tools for savings, loans, and credit. The second is the need to lower the costs and risk […]
Service design for the prepaid economy: Continuing the case of Google’s Bebapay in Nairobi
The previous post on the sluggish adoption of Google’s BebaPay, a cashless prepaid card introduced in Nairobi as a payment mechanism for public transportation, had me pondering the challenge of designing services for the informal sector. There are two main challenges that I see here, which don’t seem to have been taken into consideration during […]
