This project designed two trainings on mobile money cash and voucher assistance (CVA) for humanitarian crises. They highlight key points from past research and guides both mobile money operators and humanitarian agencies to understand the opportunity for mobile money to improve CVA and the need for stronger strategic partnerships to scale its use.
Past Projects
Digital Platforms for Small Pacific Businesses
Medium small and micro enterprises (MSMEs) in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Fiji employ 80% and 60% of the work forces respectively. Digital platforms like Facebook and Alibaba are disrupting how MSMEs can be launched and managed, and this research investigated the opportunities and challenges for scaling these platforms in the Pacific.
Indonesia Fintech & Finclusion Intelligence
Indonesia has the 4th largest unbanked population and one of the most dynamic emerging fintech ecosystems in the world. I authored market intelligence report on how donors and policymakers can support fintech solutions to meaningfully contribute to financial inclusion in Indonesia.
Acumen Social Innovation Challenge Curriculum
One of the focal issues of the social innovation challenge is financial inclusion. I provided insights to their training curriculum on the major challenges the sector is facing and how social entrepreneurs can design solutions to them across the developing world. These include fintech solutions, digital/financial education efforts and products that offer more value than a bank account to low-income customers.
PAYG Solar for Refugees in Uganda
Mercy Corps wanted to better understand the opportunity for using Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) technologies to finance solar lighting systems for households in Ugandan refugee settlements. I also traveled to the West Nile region and conducted interviews, observations, and focus groups in Arua, Rhino Camp and Bidi Bidi Settlement.
Mobile Money CVA Operations Handbook
The core message of the research is that most humanitarian cash and voucher assistance (CVA) programs desire a payments system with greater geographic reach, higher-levels of customer service, and more advanced technology (like biometrics) than what is available, and partnerships with mobile money providers are needed to build more customized offerings.
Kiva Future of Finance Training
I prepared an hour long training session for Kiva interns on the future of financial inclusion, called Modern Microfinance, Mobile money and Fintech. The focus of the session was on how technology has lowered the cost of reaching customers through mobile money and agent banking systems, but has not yet led to very deep usage of digital finance systems.
Mobile Money Guidance for Humanitarians
The publication helps humanitarian practitioners understand the infrastructure needed for mobile money, the regulations which govern it, and the competitive advantages it has for delivering humanitarian cash and voucher assistance (CVA). However, it also points out that mobile money systems are not used by the vulnerable populations CVA targets, and rarely extend to rural areas like refugee settlements.
Fintech Investment in Finwego India
Finwego is putting the missing middle back in finance, by re-imagining the way salaried Indians can access credit. Finwego’s artificial intelligence-powered algorithm examines the relationship between employment-based data and credit discipline to create an alternative credit score for employees. In November 2018, Ulana Insights made a seed investment.
Humanitarian Cash Transfers Landscaping
Conducted a review of the status of humanitarian cash transfers for the GSMA Mobile for Humanitarian Innovation (M4H) team. We investigated the business case for mobile money providers, the challenges with digital finance solutions, and the circumstances under which mobile money is the best payments solution.
Rural Mobile Money for PAYG Solar in Ghana
As PAYG solar companies push into the rural frontiers of African countries they quickly expand beyond the mobile money infrastructure upon which their models rely. Working with the BFA FIBR project, we helped PEG Ghana develop a solution for rural payments.
National Financial Inclusion in Nigeria
I supported the Dalberg Advisors team to identify the most appropriate comparative ecosystems for Nigeria on key financial inclusion metrics, and then develop a matrix of indicators and targets for the The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) National Financial Inclusion Strategy.
Boulder Institute Course on Financial Innovation
Designed and delivered a week-long course on financial innovation at the Boulder Institute of Microfinance. The course covered the theory of innovation, market research techniques, new product development strategies, tools for digital channels and business intelligence analysis.
Digital Solutions for Analog Agents
Authored a systematic review of technologies that can dramatically increase agent network management effectiveness for digital finance providers for the Bankable Frontier Associates (BFA) FIBR Project.
Agent Network Innovation in Uganda & Zambia
Evaluated six projects being done by the United Nations MM4P programme with mobile money agent networks in Zambia and Uganda to advise them on how their work could best contribute to industry knowledge on agent network innovations.
Design Sprints for Fintech Start-Ups in Tanzania
Served as a faculty for the third DFS Labs Fintech Bootcamp in Dar es Saalam, Tanzania mentoring fintech start-ups to complete a Google Ventures Design Sprint to improve their product offerings for emerging markets.
Helix Agent Network Landmark Publications
Data from 26,000 agent network interviews, 21 consulting assignments, and 19 digital finance trainings was used to publish four landmark papers on agent network management for mobile money and agent banking systems for the Helix Institute of Digital Finance.