Financial Services

Tyler Radford from Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in the U.S. will partner with the local tech community in Uganda to develop web- and phone-based applications that enable individuals to locate their nearest financial services such as an ATM or mobile money provider, and help financial service providers identify the best locations to expand access across developing countries.

Travis Lybbert of the University of California, Davis, in the U.S. will develop a simple, low-cost approach that uses mobile phone records to track changes in living standards and use it to evaluate new mobile money saving products and services in Haiti. They will develop prediction algorithms for mobile phone records using in-person and phone surveys collected as part of a planned randomized control trial (RCT), which will be used to evaluate a new type of savings account they are developing with a leading mobile services provider.

Amy Smith of Human Network International in the U.S. will provide free financial services information to mobile phone users in Malawi, and collect data such as mobile call details to help design and deliver better financial services. They have an existing free information service on a range of topics that they will supplement with financial inclusion material so that customers can dial in for free and request information of interest to them.

Ralph Lin and Kathryn Vasilaky of Groundtruth, LLC in the U.S. will develop a new approach to more accurately measure rainfall across farming regions in developing countries so that insurers can make more informed and rapid decisions for paying out to small-scale farmers with insurance against seasonal crop loss. This will also help farmers decide the best time to plant their crops, which is critical for maximizing yield. Satellite data are not currently accurate or stable enough to measure rainfall over small areas.

James Goulding from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom will address the knowledge gap in developing countries that is hampering development particularly of financial services by accessing real-time mobile phone call records and mobile financial transactions and using them to locate and model financial behavior across Tanzania. This approach could be faster, lower cost and more reliable than existing approaches that use small sample sizes or are based on crowd-sourcing.

Julia Reichelstein of EFL Global Ltd in Bermuda will promote access to financial services for poor communities by producing a psychometric test for distribution by SMS that can identify dependable new customers and evaluate the risk of lending to them. Individuals in developing countries that would benefit from credit to break out of poverty and in turn boost economic growth are often unable to access financial services largely due to their lack of credit history.

Rupert Scofield from FINCA International, Inc. in the U.S. will promote financial inclusion in the Democratic Republic of Congo by partnering with First Access and mobile network operators to build a credit-scoring model for individuals based on mobile phone usage and financial data. The aim is to provide financial services and develop new products for the unbanked majority.