MMU Programme

The GSMA Development Fund has initiated the mobile money for the unbanked (MMU) programme to accelerate the availability of mobile money services to the unbanked and those living on less than US$2 per day.

Bringing together mobile operators in developing countries, banks, microfinance institutions, governments, development organisations and the private sector, MMU has the goal of reaching 20 million previously unbanked people with mobile financial services by 2012.

MMU Fund

A US$5 million Fund is available over a period of two years to support commercially viable and sustainable mobile operator led projects that accelerate the speed at which mobile money services for the mass market in developing countries are deployed.

The focus of the Fund is upon:

• Supporting commercially viable projects
• Providing a quick response and straight forward grant process
• Ensuring that mobile services are targeted at base of the pyramid customers
• Knowledge sharing

MMU Team

Gavin Krugel

Gavin is a Director at the GSM Association where he is responsible for mobile money strategy development, as well as leading  the Mobile Money for the Unbanked initiative. Gavin also led the GSMA’s mobile money transfer initiative which involved 40  mobile operators representing more than 100 markets and 1 billion consumers globally.

As one of the forefathers of mobile financial services, Gavin has been behind some of the best known mobile banking implementations in the world, and founded the boutique consulting firm TroyTyla to serve this niche industry.

Gavin has twelve years of experience in global payment systems and banking products, and has helped develop, implement and manage several successful payment products and solutions. He has held positions at banks such as Standard Bank, Absa Bank and Investec Private Bank in South Africa, as well as global companies such as MasterCard and EDS.

He is currently completing his Masters Degree at GGSB (Grenoble Graduate School of Business),  France.

Seema Desai

Seema is Senior Programme Manager for the MMU Programme, responsible for defining the workplan and ensuring that all delivery is clearly aligned with MMU’s goal and objectives. Prior to joining the GSMA in March 2009, Seema managed a large portion of the Retail savings P&L for one of the UK’s largest retail banks. Seema has also been a Manager at Accenture, within their strategy consulting division, where she focused mainly on Financial Services and has worked with a number of FTSE 100 companies. Seema also completed two secondments to Accenture Development Partnerships, a non-profit arm of Accenture that provides business consulting to NGOs and donor organisations. Seema holds a 1st Class Honours degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University.

Marina Solin

Marina is Regulatory Director for the MMU programme and previously provided regulatory consultancy to the Mobile Money Transfer programme.

She has over ten years of experience in dealing with regulatory issues on behalf of the telecoms industry.

Prior to joining the GSMA, Marina worked  on a European Commission project providing the regulatory analysis for accession negotiations of Eastern European countries in the field of telecoms. She also worked for Deutsche Telekom in Brussels, where she was responsible for lobbying the European Community institutions on interconnection and unbundling of the local loop. As Chair of the GSM Europe M-Commerce Working Group, Marina was also involved in lobbying the European Community institutions on m-commerce related issues such as mobile payments, data protection and copyright.

Marina has completed the Sloan Fellowship Programme at the London Business School.

Paul Leishman

Paul is Knowledge Manager for the MMU programme. He is responsible for leading the development and dissemination of commercial content, including business strategy analyses focused on mobile money business models, and case studies profiling key success factors of deployments.

Prior to joining the GSMA, Paul was a Consultant at a Toronto-based firm, primarily supporting a mobile handset manufacturer during the opportunity assessment phase of a new service launch in developing and developed markets. Before this, Paul worked on the Strategic Planning & Execution team at Canadian operator, TELUS Mobility, and earned an HBA (honours business administration) with distinction from the Richard Ivey School of Business

Neil Davidson

Neil Davidson is the Business Development Manager for the Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) programme at the GSM Association. In this role he supports mobile network operators that have been awarded grants from the MMU Fund as they develop and deploy mobile money services. Neil’s background and professional interest is in businesses that benefit the poor. Prior to joining the MMU programme, Neil worked for Kenya’s second-largest microfinance institution, K-Rep Bank, and as a consultant at McKinsey & Co., where he advised a leading retail bank in Nigeria and to a logistics conglomerate in South Africa. Neil earned his bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Harvard University.

Camilo  Tellez

Camilo is the Programme Coordinator for the Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) Programme. Prior to joining the GSMA in October 2009, he worked  at the UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific  in Bangkok, and at Microsoft Labs in Bangalore where he conducted  ICT4D research in the technology for emerging markets team .  Camilo also completed a two year appointment as  junior professional associate in the area of aid effectiveness at the World Bank in Washington D.C. He holds  an MA in International Relations and Latin American studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies SAIS and an MSc  in Information Systems & Economic Development  from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Andrew Zerzan

Andrew is Regulatory Projects Director for MMU. He has authored a number of publications on the impact of new technology, financial, counter-terrorism and market integrity policies on economic development in emerging markets. His work advocates for regulatory regimes that proportionately link risk to controls. Before joining the MMU in 2010, Andrew worked at the World Bank where he was part of a Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) team for Honduras. He was Working Group Secretary for a United Nations counter-terrorism taskforce (2007-2009) where he engaged industry, regulators and international standard-setters to find consensus on how to reduce the threat of terrorist financing without hindering the poor. In 2004 he opened a grassroots consulting business in Japan that supported global companies to bridge their strategic communications. He studied economics at the University of Toronto and financial regulation at the London School of Economics.