Author: Neil Davidson
As I discussed in a recent blog post, what makes the economics of mobile money so different from the economics of traditional banking is the reduction in costs for cash in, cash out, and transaction processing. The lower these costs are, the lower fees for customers can be—making financial services affordable in a way that they never have been before.
The use of independent retail agents is what, in the first wave of mobile money, has dramatically reduced the cost of cash-in and cash-out compared to doing so in bank branches. Recently, TigoPesa in Tanzania has taken this one step further. They have begun to appoint roving agents, who aren’t confined to a single retail shop but who can, as the name implies, perform cash-in and cash-out transactions anywhere. They carry a handset with a merchant SIM that is loaded with e- float and cash, and they wear eye-catching aprons which distinguish them from the more common roving airtime resellers.
This is great for customers. Roving agents make “doorstep service” possible—serving customers where they live and work, rather than making them find the nearest retail agent. This makes it more convenient for customers to use the service. In Indonesia, several banks have introduced “smiling ATMs,” bank employees who are armed with a mobile POS device and who can process deposits and withdrawals. This level of service may also make it more likely that customers will take advantage of the ability to store value in their account as a simple way to save. Ghana is famous for its susu collectors, who visit clients regularly (typically daily) at their home or business to collect small amounts to save. Roving agents can allow customers to build up the same habit with mobile money.
Read More:
http://mmublog.org/blog/innovation-in-mobile-money-distribution-tigopesa%e2%80%99s-roving-agents/
About the author:
Neil Davidson is a Manager for the GSMA's Mobile Money for the Unbanked programme. His role is to support mobile network operators that have been awarded grants from the MMU Fund as they develop and deploy mobile money services. Neil has worked for Kenya's second-largest microfinance institution, K-Rep Bank and as a consultant for McKinsey & Co.