This is a guest post, from Amitabh Saxena. Amitabh started the Alternative Channels workstream at ACCION in 2006 after spending several years in developing credit card products for Capital One’s Innovation Center. He has worked in strategy and implementation of various channels, particularly prepaid cards and mobile, for ACCION’s partner microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Last week in this space was an insightful blog post on the intersection of Mobile Money and Microfinance. I spent a number of years at a leading microfinance network called ACCION International, managing a new workstream I started called Alternative Channels, and last month wrote a comprehensive paper on how microfinance institutions (MFIs) can be a more active stakeholder in the m-banking space. So why and how can mobile operators approach these entities?

I'm pleased to share an article recently written by Ignacio Mas, Deputy Director, Financial Services for the Poor at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation are supporters of the MMU Programme and similarly strong advocates for savings. That is, they see the immense social impact that could be realized by leveraging the consumer uptake of mobile money - and the supporting agent network infrastructure - to improve the savings landscape in developing markets. Read the article for an analysis of the four key elements that underpin the viability of formal micro-savings offerings: the competition from informal savings mechanisms, the importance of formal trust-building through branding and marketing, the problem of distribution, and the complementarity between savings and payment services.

Over the past three decades, microfinance has given millions of people access to financial services for the first time. As such, it's exciting to watch how mobile money providers and microfinance institutions are starting to work together to improve further the quality and range of financial services available to the poor. It's becoming increasingly clear that the assets and capabilities of microfinance institutions and mobile money service providers are complementary; we see three specific kinds of collaboration...

It used to be that mobile money was synonymous with domestic P2P transfers - the "killer app" that propelled Safaricom's M-PESA to such extraordinary success. It was clear that Safaricom had tapped a rich vein of latent demand for a safe and affordable way to remit money in-country, and this kicked off a rush to bring such services to market all over the world. Yet a number of mobile money platforms that mainly offer P2P transfers have struggled to attract users over the course of the last year...

Earlier this year, we discussed the potential of the intersection of microfinance and mobile money. Microfinance is the provision of financial services to the unbanked and can include access to credit and savings services as well as more advanced products such as microinsurance. Over the past couple of months, mobile money providers and microfinance institutions have continued to work together to improve further the range of financial services available despite the challenging times the industry is facing in certain parts of the world.