Today, we’re publishing a case study that compares Thailand’s True Money with the industry’s best known success story, M-PESA.
Launched in 2005, True Money is now used by 6 million customers. The system processes over USD$900 million in electronic payments and 120 million transactions per year. This doesn’t match the US$3.5 billion in P2P payments M-PESA processes per year, but it does suggest that the model has gained some traction…
The following case study offers a comprehensive view into the regulation, service, and ecosystem design that has led to the current state of play for mobile money in the Philippines. To be sure, the market is one of the most advanced in the world, but in recent months the limelight has gone mostly to the runaway hit that is M-PESA.
Mobile money success has materialized in the Philippines – but compared with Kenya it’s come more gradually and to a more measured degree. We won’t compare the two markets in this case study, but one point worth highlighting is the different approaches taken in each market to building a distribution network….
In mobile money, we spend a lot of time talking about innovative ways to deliver financial services to the unbanked poor in spite of their income, geographic and trust barriers to banking. But what about serving the banked? This post explores three ways that leading mobile money deployments use technology to serve the banked and/or those who are key sources of funds, including:
- Automating the cash-in step (video of SMART auto-reloader)
- Integrating with bank accounts
- Offering ATM access
The following is a partial transcript of a panel discussion held at the Mobile Money Summit in June 2009 featuring Jojo Malolos of SMART Money and Rizza Maniego from G-Xchange. Jojo and Rizza address timely issues surrounding mobile money, including:
- Their approaches used to understand the customer
- Approaches used to drive adoption
- Perspectives on interoperability
Our recent survey in the Philippines suggests that the early adopters of mobile money are unique in two important ways: the way that they use of voice and data services, and the frequency that they purchase load.
Earlier in the year, the GSMA and our friends at CGAP conducted a consumer survey in the Philippines, one of the most advanced markets for mobile money. To understand some of the factors that contribute to mobile money adoption, we spoke to over 1,000 unbanked Filipinos, including current mobile money users and those who do not use the service. One theme that emerged from the analysis is the importance of network reliability and signal strength.
In keeping with the theme established at the Barcelona MMU working group of ‘understanding the mobile money customer’, I’ve posted some suggested reading and viewing material.
1. Portfolios of the Poor
For those looking for more data-driven findings like the ones presented at the working group, this book will be a valuable resource.
2. Use of G-Cash in Cantilan, Philippines
This video profiles use of G-Cash in Cantilan, a Filipino farming and fishing community 5 hours away from the nearest operational airport. The video features interviews with customers (there are 8,900 in Cantilan) and agents from a few of the 60+ small businesses, including pharmacies, bakeries, restaurants, who accept G-Cash as a payment method.
3. Microfinance: From Manual to Mobile Enabled (SMART)
This video provides a glimpse into the role that mobile money can play in microfinance loan disbursement and cash collection.
This is the final post in our series on customer adoption leading up to the Mobile Money Summit in Barcelona. The previous posts mapped to the first two steps in the adoption framework that will be released in the Mobile Money for the Unbanked Annual Report: driving awareness and driving demand. The final post relates to the third step – optimizing trial. Specifically, this post addresses the importance of designing an efficient and effective registration process.
This is the second post in our series on customer adoption leading up to the Mobile Money Summit in Barcelona. The previous post introduced the importance of driving service awareness and understanding as enablers of adoption. This post addresses the importance of ‘driving demand’, which is the second step in the adoption framework that will be presented at the MMU working group and in the Mobile Money for the Unbanked Annual Report. Specifically, we will focus on one key element – the importance of positioning mobile money so that the unbanked perceive it to be a ‘service for people like me’.
Leading up to the Mobile Money Summit in Barcelona next week, I will be writing a series of posts on ‘adoption drivers’ that have emerged from the CGAP-GSMA Mobile Money Market Sizing Study. These drivers are part of an adoption framework that will be expanded on during my presentation at the MMU working group, and in the 2009 Mobile Money for the Unbanked Annual Report. The first post in this series examines two metrics that can be considered as basic enablers of mobile money adoption – service awareness and understanding.
