Tradition and Trust: Reflections on Barriers to Mobile Payments from the IMTFI Conference

What are the costs of dealing with cash, how can we cope with spotty service providers, and what about those pesky mice eating into your savings?

Laura Freschi blogs on her experiences of the IMTFI conference over at the NYU based Financial Access Initiative.

"This theme of trust came up again in the research of Lite Nartey and Olayinka David-West, who interviewed 4,500 urban dwellers in Accra, Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria earning less than $200 a month. The researchers found that "everybody has at least three phones" because each service provider is so spotty and unreliable that three are required to get full coverage. But even with people toting around multiple phones in their pockets, many still rely on “susu collectors,” local women who collect and hold people’s money in exchange for a fee, for their savings needs...."