Insights on the psychology of cash money – Demonetization vs Financial Inclusion
The flurry of commentary on the Great Indian Demonetization of November 2016 has thrown up some nuggets of insight worth considering more deeply. Santosh Desai explores the psychology of cash money in the Times of India blog, linking the need for tangible evidence of income to physical labour, as opposed to those of us with […]
Design of Digital Financial Services for Inclusion Needs More Respect and Humility to Succeed
In the past week alone, I’ve seen three glaring cases of unquestioned assumptions around the design and implementation of Digital Financial Service (DFS) particularly for financial inclusion, but also otherwise. This gives rise to the question whether the industry is prepared to undertake the mission they have set for themselves. The first is that their […]
Rwanda launches cashless public transport payments – Will they succeed where Google failed in Kenya?
Public transport is going cashless in Kigali, Rwanda, with smart card payments and mobile money schemes being launched simultaneously with much fanfare. Can Kigali succeed where regional giant Kenya failed a couple of years ago? Nairobi’s attempt to impose cashless payment technologies in public transport (particularly the matatus, ubiquitous white mini buses that ply the […]
‘Mpesa si pesa’ – mobile money’s collision with informal sector’s cash culture
Ever since mobile money (MM) came along, ‘cashless’ is all the rage in East Africa. Money experts have a sack-full of reasons why mobile money is good for the economy. The truth is, however, making a case for MM is easy – no doubt, but, one perspective that is often left out in almost all […]
RIP Google BebaPay – Requiem for a cashless payment system
Less than a year after going live, Google is closing down the BebaPay smart card which was introduced as an NFC based cashless payment mechanism for Nairobi’s public transport. Last year, I’d analyzed the context and the operating environment in which they’d launched their service, on hearing the news that they’d been struggling to gain […]
The curious case of Google’s Beba Pay: a mobile payment app that users refuse to adopt
This week, news from Nairobi, that hotbed of mobile money innovation, opened up a Pandora’s box of reflections on payment plans, service design issues and the challenge of technology adoption in the mass markets of the African informal economy. None of these are ‘bad’ things in their own right, but taken together, they have resulted […]
Spain’s woes show behaviours reverting to patterns from pre-formal economies
This recent WSJ article on the emergence of coping mechanisms among the economically challenged in Spain caught my attention today for a couple of reasons. What struck me first was the fact that time (labour) was becoming a viable alternate to money (cash) and this made me come to this blog to look up the […]
The underlying principle of flexibility
The Economist writes about the proliferation of mobile money across the African continent, high lighting some aspects of its rapid adoption by the local population – 96% of whom are on prepaid or pay as you go mobile subscriptions. A new survey of global financial habits by the Gates Foundation, the World Bank and Gallup […]
Some concerns about ‘pay as you go’ lighting solutions in rural markets
Having just got back yesterday after immersion in an arid part of rural Kenya, it struck me after coming across yet another solar lighting solution with a pay as you go or prepaid business model that this may become a barrier for many subsistence farmers, most of whom are off the grid and so, are […]
