Financial Services

Akinola Dixon of Qrios Networks in Nigeria will simplify mobile money payments by building a platform incorporating a unique digital identity for all customer accounts and merchants, and leveraging a stable carrier signaling network using low-cost, automated communication technologies. When a merchant wishes to sell goods, the platform generates a unique payment code for the consumer to authorize on their mobile phone, and the money is transferred. They will research the requirements for their approach, design the required software, and test their platform.

Joshua Blumenstock of the University of Washington in the U.S. will combine data on mobile phone call details and mobile money use with photographs taken of local infrastructures such as electricity supply, to map access to and use of digital financial services in Ghana. They have access to vast anonymized datasets on phone and mobile money transactions in Ghana, and a technology platform developed by Premise that collects photographs and observations from local citizens to measure economic and social infrastructures.

Ronald Azairwe of Pegasus Technologies Ltd. in Uganda will develop an online portal coupled with attractive incentives to recruit merchants and train them to accept mobile money in Uganda. Current methods of recruitment are slow and require multiple in-person visits, which can be difficult in remote areas. The portal will enable merchants to register online and an incentive structure will be developed to reward merchants based on transaction volume.

Ross Anderson at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom will develop technology to enable secure offline phone-to-phone and card-to-phone payments between customers and merchants. The ability to use mobile phones to make and receive payments has expanded access to secure financial services in low-resource settings. However, the requirement of a network connection makes it particularly problematic in rural communities.

Christine Yee with Darpan Bohara and Yashna Sureka of Smith College in the U.S. will develop a fingerprint scanner that can link to phone networks and banks to enable merchants to easily and quickly accept mobile money payments in India. Fingerprint identification is relatively secure and will simplify the payment process so people with different levels of literacy can use it.

Curtis Vanderpuije, Kodjo Hesse and team from expressPay Ghana Ltd. in Ghana will develop a low-cost, contactless device for merchants in developing countries to more easily accept and process mobile money transactions. They will design the device so it can read identifying information from merchants and customers using radio-frequency identification, and use unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) to communicate with existing mobile money providers.

Lynne Thomson of TNS Global Research in the U.S. will use SMS to track digital and non-digital financial transactions in near real time to inform development agendas and boost uptake. Digital financial services help the poor lift themselves out of poverty, but measuring uptake is currently slow and expensive. SMS is widely used throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, and they will perform a proof-of-concept study in Kenya using SMS to send short surveys to a group of users to extract basic information on their recent financial transactions, such as type, date, and amount.

Iris Braun of IFMR LEAD in India will expand access to microloans for the poor in Bangladesh by piloting a simple credit-scoring test for rating individuals. Poor households are often in need of small, short-term loans to buffer fluctuations in income, but formally accessing these loans is problematic as most people have no credit score, and/or are unable to complete the application process.

Twahirwa Merab of PIVOT ACCESS Ltd. in Rwanda will improve access to credit for poor individuals in Rwanda by developing a credit scoring system so that digital financial service providers can better estimate risk. Their system will integrate data from a range of financial transactions such as utility bill payments and mobile phone top-up frequencies to produce a formal credit history for each individual. They will perform a pilot test involving a Rwandan mobile network operator and bank to assess the feasibility of their system and use the results to refine it.

Wilson Cusack from Trade Co. in the U.S. will develop an SMS-based platform to provide information on market prices and facilitate trade for small-scale farmers in developing countries. The platform will maintain user anonymity, and also handle payments thereby promoting the use of mobile money. It will also enable the arrangement of transportation of goods, and provide a database for monitoring agricultural production and markets. He will further develop the platform for pilot-testing by 100 farmers in Ghana.