The 2012 Revised FATF Recommendations: Assessing and Mitigating Mobile Money Integrity Risks Within the New Standards Framework

Mobile money holds great financial inclusion promise, but also poses financial integrity challenges. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF)—the intergovernmental global anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) standard-setting body—expressed support for financial inclusion and mobile money as a means to decrease the use of non-transparent cash in many developing countries. In February 2012, FATF adopted a new revised set of standards. This Article considers the impact of these new standards on mobile money models in developing countries. It highlights aspects of the new standards that would facilitate innovative mobile money models, but also points to questions and challenges. The new standards are generally more facilitative of new financial services models for the unbanked and underbanked, but a number of key questions and implementation challenges remain. These include mobile money-related privacy and cyber-crime concerns.

M-PESA mobile money: a case study in Blue ocean strategy

The recent and widespread availability of affordable mobile phone technology in developing countries has paved the way for the development of a number of mobile money and electronic remittance services. One of the most successful of these services is Safaricom’s M-PESA program, launched in the East African nation of Kenya in March 2007. Since then, the program has successfully enrolled over 15.2 million users, transferred more than US$1.4 trillion in electronic funds, and contributed significantly to poverty alleviation and financial inclusion efforts in Kenya. M-Pesa is a mobile phone based money transfer system in Kenya which grew at a blistering pace following its inception in 2007. This case study will analyze the critical factors that make M-PESA such a unique success in Kenya specifically.

Mobile payment e o caso da Paggo no Brasil

Este trabalho tem por objetivo analisar o caso da Paggo, a iniciativa de maior destaque em Mobile Payment no Brasil. A escolha pelo tema de Mobile Payment se deu devido ao seu caráter de inovação e disruptura num mercado consolidado como o de meios de pagamento. Através de uma análise qualitativa, o autor se propõe a identificar e elucidar alguns dos atributos básicos fundamentais necessários a uma iniciativa de Mobile Payment. Um modelo teórico foi então desenvolvido com o intuito de aplica-lo à iniciativa da Paggo de forma a verificar a presença destes atributos e seu alinhamento com o direcionamento das ações estratégicas da companhia. Por tratar de um caso específico, limitamos nossa análise ao modelo de Mobile Payment adotado pela Paggo (B2C). Para tal, foram analisados diferentes estudos de autores acadêmicos especializados no tema de inovações tecnológicas e governança. Teorias relativas a inovações em meios de pagamento (CHAKRAVORTI e KOBOR, 2003), economia da informação (SHAPIRO e VARIAN, 1999), adequação das ferramentas organizacionais para a tarefa (CHRISTENSEN e OVERDORF, 2000) e evolução da plataforma de Serviços (TIWANA, KONSYNSKI e BUSH, 2010) compõe a base dos atributos selecionados para o modelo proposto pelo autor. Do ponto de vista prático, foram entrevistados presencialmente o antigo e o atual presidente da Paggo com a finalidade de se coletar dados relativos a aspectos de inovação tecnológica, estrutura organizacional e governança ao longo da história da companhia. Estas entrevistas, transcritas ao final do estudo, por si só já se revelaram como uma grande contribuição a estudiosos do tema, que muitas vezes carecem de perspectivas tão amplas como as apresentadas nestas entrevistas. O tema é ainda mais relevante não apenas pelos impactos diretos e indiretos que sua implementação poderá trazer, não apenas sobre toda a cadeia de valor atual de meios de pagamentos mas, principalmente, para toda a sociedade brasileira visto que o governo brasileiro anunciou recentemente que o Ministério das Comunicações em conjunto com o Banco Central e a Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações (ANATEL) trabalham para apresentar uma proposta de marco regulatório para serviços de pagamento por meio de telefonia móvel ainda em 2012 . Este estudo é portanto de interesse de todos os agentes envolvidos no ecossistema de meios de pagamento: bancos, adquirentes, bandeiras de aceitação, fabricantes de dispositivos, governo e agencias reguladoras, além das operadoras de telefonia celular e outros agentes indiretos. Também é relevante para a sociedade em geral, representada pelos varejistas, comerciantes e prestadores de serviço que poderão se utilizar de novos meios de pagamento móveis e dos usuários finais (compradores) os quais poderão contar com novos serviços e uma dinâmica alternativa de pagamento para efetuar suas transações.

Regulating Digital Financial Services Agents in Developing Countries to Promote Financial Inclusion

Limited access to bank branches excludes over one billion people from accessing financial services in developing countries. Digital financial services offered by banks and mobile money providers through agents can solve this problem without the need for complex and costly physical banking infrastructures. Delivering digital financial services through agents requires a legal framework to regulate liability. This article analyses whether vicarious liability of the principal is a more efficient regulatory approach than personal liability of the agent. Agent liability in Kenya, Fiji, and Malawi is analysed to demonstrate that vicarious liability of the principal, coupled to an explicit agreement as to agent rewards and penalties, is the more efficient regulatory approach.

electronic payments in mozambique: A Baseline on their adoption in Maputo and Matola

This study analyses the access and use of financial services by small business owners in the cities of Mozambique, as an important tool for boosting economic growth and diminishing inequality. It correlates owners’ and business characteristics with the probability of adopting Points-of-Sale (POS), Mobile Banking and Mobile Money in everyday transactions. The main findings highlight that what mostly affects the use of POS is the size of business and the volume of transactions (positively correlated with POS adoption), while using mobile phone technologies for payments predominantly depends on the owner’s age and whether he/she is a frequent cellphone user. Moreover, to increase the use of electronic means of payment it is necessary to increase financial literacy and improve the banking services.

Econet wireless Zimbawe Limited: Building the future

In February 2015, when Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Limited, EWZL, the market leader of the telecommunications sector in Zimbabwe, published the financial results, the management team was worried about the shareholders’ reaction. With over 60% market share in its core business (the voice and SMS market), it has achieved remarkable results due to the great diversification strategy. However, the share price was continuously falling due to exogenous factors that were pressuring margins and threatening future sustainability of the company. EWZL was highly exposed to Zimbabwe’s specific risks and regulatory policies. This case explores both the business environment surrounding the company and the strategic decisions necessary to fight against the economic and political challenges. Students will step into Econet’s obstacles by analyzing the strategies and diagnosing the multiple risk factors affecting the profitability of the firm. Furthermore, they will have to compute the valuation of the firm, facing several challenges of a developing country.

Financial inclusion and financial integrity: aligned incentives?

The Financial Action Task Force embraces financial inclusion as complementary to anti-money laundering and counterterrorist financing, as it enhances transparency. This support is based on the premise that the increased use of formal financial services leads to a reduction of usage of informal services. We present evidence on eight African countries that both are not negatively associated. Moreover, informal employment and cash preference reduce the inclination to use mobile financial services. If an increase in transparency acts as disincentive to use formal services, the alignment of financial inclusion and integrity will fail.

Opportunities and risks associated with the advent of digital currency in the Caribbean

This report examines the usage of digital currency technology in the Caribbean subregion with a view to drawing attention to the opportunities and risks associated with this new phenomenon. It discusses the broader context of an emerging activity at the global level and considers how this technology could address subregional deficiencies in the electronic payment infrastructure. The report also discusses mobile money solutions, and the relationship of that technology to digital currency.

HTML5 no contexto de desenvolvimento e implementação de plataformas móveis com interfaces tácteis

Dissertação apresentada ao Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Desenvolvimento de Software e Sistemas Interativos, realizada sob a orientação científica do Doutor Pedro Nuno Moreira da Silva, Professor Adjunto da Unidade Técnico-Científica de Informática do Departamento da Escola Superior de Tecnologia do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco.

''Cashless'' transactions : perceptions of money in mobile payments

A limited number of ‘cashless transaction’ studies addressed the issue that the mode of payment affects perceptions of money and purchase behaviour, the majority of the research is in the area of the credit card payment mode. Credit card based research has shown that when a credit card based payment is used, the volume, value and type of products purchased increase. Whether this is due to the credit element or to the ‘cashless or mobile’ element of the transaction is not known. The notion that the tangibility of cash influences perceptions of money is not novel, but it is untested. This discussion paper suggests that under conditions of cash, there is awareness (conscious/unconscious) that a possession of value transferred and this perception may well have a direct impact on people’s perception of money and their spending behaviour.

KEITS Training Services: Moving to Mobile - assessment with Blackberry devices

Work-based learning provider, KEITS has improved efficiencies and institutional effectiveness with the introduction of Blackberry mobile devices to all their assessors. They have saved time and money on paper and travel, diversified evidence capture and improved their overall engagement with learners.

Generating context-aware recommendations using banking data in a mobile recommender system

The increasing adoption of smartphones by the society has created a new area of research in recommender systems. This new domain is based on using location and context-awareness to provide personalization. This paper describes a model to generate context-aware recommendations for mobile recommender systems using banking data in order to recommend places where the bank customers have previously spent their money. In this work we have used real data provided by a well know Spanish bank. The mobile prototype deployed in the bank Labs environment was evaluated in a survey among 100 users with good results regarding usefulness and effectiveness. The results also showed that test users had a high confidence in a recommender system based on real banking data.