Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Reflections: Carol Benson and FAI look back at IMTFI conference

Carol Benson reflects on the recent IMTFI conference, and one of her biggest takeaways: mobile money and payment systems are complicated.
Many of the surprises came from insight into how complicated financial management is, from a human dimension, for many of the subjects of these studies.  And “complicated” isn’t necessarily bad: sometimes, it is just a description of reality.  Money, after all, plays an important role in complex family relationships, employment situations, and community obligations. 
In developed countries, relatively affluent payments professionals may think that their estate planning, or mortgage financing, or college funding strategies are complicated, and that their “payment life” is simple.  (Although, for some rewards junkies, even that “payment life” is complicated, as they try to figure out which card gives them the most points!)  But all people, poor or not, have ways of dealing with the intersection of money and the complications of life.  Assuming that poverty makes this simple is just wrong.  The IMTFI researchers are doing a great job of illustrating this.
Read her entire post here.
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Financial Access Initiative's Timothy Ogden and Laura Freschi highlight the importance of mobile money on the FAI blog: "One of the issues we follow closely at FAI is the rapidly expanding use of mobile money in the developing world.....


1 comment:

  1. Indeed there is a lack of economical knowledge between people and I include myself too into this group. It is really easy to know how to spend or loose money but not about the best way to pay things and debt in general.

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