A Tale of Three Cedis, Mobile Money, and Fintech? User Experiences in Ghana’s Evolving Moneyscape

By Vivian Dzokoto, PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University and  IMTFI Fellow in the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) - Blog

A decade ago, I published “A Tale of Two Cedis”, a psychological perspective of user experiences of adjustment to a central bank-led disruption to payments in Ghana. In that and other papers, I explored how Ghanaians made sense of the old currency¹ (what became known as the Old Ghana Cedi), and its replacement, the New Ghana Cedi. The latter was a banknote and coin series more portable than its predecessor due to the elimination of 4 zeroes.

Thereafter, I published other papers, based largely on interviews with everyday consumers, examining how people made sense (or didn’t) of Mobile Money. I researched the public awareness of and reasons for the then slow uptake of Mobile Money in Ghana. (Uptake has increased dramatically since then).

My research in Ghana’s moneyscape had numerous takeaways. Here are two examples. First, the old currency remains an important part of sense-making for a seemingly large subset of Ghanaians. Currently, 10+ years post-redenomination, some Ghanaians routinely convert the cost of goods and services to the old currency to get a sense of just how pricey something is – to determine the “real value”. In technical terms, such users default to the phased-out scale rather than the rescaled calibration of the fiat currency to subjectively determine worth. Second, from the user perspective, the onboarding of mobile money was partly hampered by a focus on the tangibility of money. Simply put, at the time, people preferred money that they could touch and feel – and handle, hide, wave, toss, present, and on occasion, flaunt. Apart from initial distrust of Mobile Money in its early days, lack of a perceived distinction between Mobile Money and Ezwich (a biometric card-based payment option and financial inclusion strategy introduced by the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems Limited (GHIPSS)), low levels of awareness and understanding of this phone-based payment tool, many of my respondents at the time were of the view that money wasn’t quite a money devoid of a physical form.

The face of payments in Ghana has changed dramatically since my “Tale of Two Cedis” was published. Yet distinct patterns prevail in Ghana’s payment ecosystem. I discuss a few of these below.

What has changed?

Today, the payment ecosystem in Ghana, while not flawless, is decidedly much more complex. While not cashless, it is certainly cash-lite. A digitally literate, bank account holder has the option of paying for goods and services via mobile phone using Mobile Money through a Mobile Network Operator. This is done via e-value in the local currency previously loaded onto their Mobile Money Wallet by a push transaction from their online banking account2, processed by a third party financial technology company aka fintech (invisible to the consumer) linking the banking system to the mobile money platform on the rails of GHIPPS products. Alternatively, the shopper could pay by cash, card (assuming the vendor has a point of sale machine), a third-party payment app, or via QR code. Ghana is the first African country to launch a universal QR code enabling instant merchant payments from mobile money wallets (GSMA, 2021). A frequently heard question today is “ Don’t you have momo? “. This is the case particularly when a vendor is unable to make the change, a perennial local cash-related problem in some sectors of the market economy. Churches, a HUGE presence in this very religious country, particularly embraced mobile money payments during the COVID 19 lockdown period. By doing so, churches have expanded beyond their significant engagement with the formal banking sector to mirror the nation’s cash lite, mobile money dominated payment preference shift.

To read the full post please visit: https://miasa.hypotheses.org/429

Featured Image: By PDPics, Pixabay-Licence, https://pixabay.com/photos/currency-note-paper-money-ghana-166846/.

Footnotes

1. The term old “currency” sounds like an oxymoron. 
2. Note: There are other ways of loading money onto a mobile money wallet, such as a push payment from someone else’s bank account or mobile money account, or by depositing cash with a Mobile Money agent.

(Dis)Trust in Mobile Money in Ghana: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

By IMTFI Fellow Vivian Dzokoto, Virginia Commonwealth University and John Kojo Aggrey, Louisiana State University

Yesterday: The Struggle to Gain a Foothold

In the early days of our IMTFI-funded fieldwork on Mobile Money (MM) in Ghana, MTN Mobile Money ads and billboards were out there. Yet, many interviewees either hadn't heard of MM at all; confused it with the e-zwich platform (a biometric smart card); or just didn't feel comfortable about the notion of converting physical cash to electronic value and keeping it on a mobile wallet on a cell phone. What was the discomfort about? For some, the apprehension concerned the non-materiality of the value. If one rolled up one’s cash and kept it in a bra, tied it in the corner of a cloth, or kept it in a repurposed plastic or tin container, one knew where it was at all times, and could access it easily. Intangible e-value was just too…. Intangible. For others, the concerns varied from utter disbelief that such technology could exist (it just seemed too good to be true), to suspicion that politicians must somehow be involved (and therefore it was something to be avoided). Additionally, interviewees from middle to upper income brackets thought that the technology would be hampered by the unreliability of the phone network (with statements like “right now, you need a backup for the backup”). Would the e-value get lost if the transaction was interrupted due to a spotty network? The variety of reasons indicated curiosity and a degree of skepticism about how the technology worked. It just didn’t seem trustworthy from the get go.  But that was in 2009. And 2010. And 2011. And 2012.

Money in the Cultural Context

It’s important to think about the context in which this technology was being launched and relentlessly promoted due to its success in Kenya. Traditional Ghanaian culture puts value on the form in which some payments are made. Apology pacifications may require a sheep, for example, and wedding bride prices come in the form of cash AND a variety of other goods. Yet nowhere has the form of money been more of an issue in contemporary Ghana than in the introduction of money technologies such as Mobile Money (MM). In a largely cash-driven society such as Ghana, getting people to switch from cash to cash-lite means of payments has been an ultra-marathon. While a host of obstacles such as poor infrastructure have been implicated in the failures of different card-based payment options in the early 2000s, trust and the lack thereof has played an important role in Ghanaian adoption rates of money technologies- in particular cell-phone based ones. At the onset, trust was hard to come by.

Today: The Wobbly Foothold

Fast forward a few years and Mobile Money has taken a foothold in the Ghanaian marketplace.  People recognized the convenience of the technology that enabled them to change local currency into electronic value, load it onto an electronic wallet, and use for spending, bill payment, savings, insurance, and remittances. Due to the doggedness of  Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), banking partners, agent networks, regulators and other stakeholders, trust in and use of Mobile Money grew, and grew, and grew some more, ….and then, sadly, ran into a brick wall. Criminals figured out how to exploit Mobile Money, and it was estimated that 50% of customers had been targeted. The criminal network included people from the inside. The modus operandi of the insiders was found to include (i) accessing the MM database of merchants without authorization and altering customer information; (ii) resetting the phone number assigned to the MM account, and then granting access to the new number to change the PIN  and (iii) acquisition of new SIM cards using a false identity, register for MM services. These provided cash outs access to customer and merchant accounts.

Additionally, some merchants were found to have overcharged for their services. Scammers have also been involved in defrauding MM subscribers using several tactics. First, the you-have-won-send-money-to-claim-your-prize scam, a financial crime also perpetrated via email. Once the subscriber sends the money, it is cashed out and the SIM card destroyed. Second, the problem-when-there-is-no-problem scam in which MM subscribers are informed that an amount of money transferred to them has been wrongfully sent as airtime or that there is a general problem with their account. Under the guise of “fixing the problem”, the “customer service” person on the phone takes the subscriber through steps which result in a money transfers to a scammer’s phone or code generation for an ATM withdrawal. Third is the related please-send-back-the-money-sent-to-you-by-mistake scam in which subscribers receive a call about an erroneous transfer meant for someone else. The subscribers motivated to do the right thing end up sending money from their account to these fraudsters. The fraudsters are getting craftier by the day, and so in a new development, subscribers simply receive a notification on their phone that an amount of money has been withdrawn from the MM account. These are withdrawals not authorized or carried out by the subscriber.


Deconstructing Mobile Money Crimes: Technology or Humans?

An MNO representative noted that problematic fraud was not due to a breach in MM platform itself, but due to nefarious human activity. The MNO staff involved were able to do so due to their access to the MM technology by virtue of the work they do with the telcos, and not because they are able to bypass the security systems in place. The fraudsters on their part, used their knowledge of the use of the MM technology to outwit people who are less versed in it and then defraud them.

This framing of the problem is consistent with perspectives about the misappropriation of tools in general and technology in particular for criminal purposes. Cars are not considered bad because some users chose to drive drunk or drag race on public streets, cryptocurrencies are not generally considered evil because bitcoin became the currency of choice in Silk Road and other dark websites, and the internet has not been dispensed with because websites are routinely (it seems) hacked. The question is, will Ghanaians (in a market where mobile money has entered but not dominated the payment space) care about the difference, or will they throw out the baby with the bathwater? Will consumers care that as one MNO representative put it, it’s about the "gullible consumer" and not a “system vulnerability issue”?

Elsewhere in the world, challenges to trust in particular systems and platforms have resulted in shock, but not necessarily in long-term decreases in their patronage. For example, people did not stop investing in the stock market because of Bernie Madoff or after the 2008 financial crisis. People across the world have not stopped using email despite threats to internet security, and it does not appear that people have stopped using Wi-Fi since the recent announcement by a Belgian researcher that Wi-Fi networks using the WPA2 protocol are vulnerable to hacking. However, each of these threats to consumer confidence have occurred in the context of products and platforms that had already successfully penetrated the market - not ones that are in a crucial growth phase as seems to be the case in Ghana. So the question remains: to what extent is trust in Mobile Money in Ghana impacted, and how will this affect subscription, active use, and growth of the user base?

Tomorrow: Finding its feet again, or will the other shoe drop?

Trust in Mobile Money in Ghana and its future patronage will be contingent upon a variety of factors including perceptions of how well the current investigations are going, perceptions of product safety, and perception of future customer vulnerability vis-à -vis the perceived benefits of having a mobile phone-based payment medium.

On the one hand, the fact that MNOs eventually went public to discuss the issue is encouraging, and a testament to their commitment to dealing with the problem. Hopefully it will warrant a few trust points. These “trust points” may further soar with MTN’s publicized sanctioning of a whopping 3,000 members of its agent network in a bid to curb their fraudulent activities, and release of information that contrasted targeted subscribers (up to 50%) with those successfully defrauded (less than 0.1%). Other concerted efforts to curtail the problem that have been discussed in recent weeks include a re-registration of SIM cards, changes in procedures related to agent activities to enhance privacy, industry-wide agent blacklisting, better and more accessible agent identification by consumers, and changes to features in the user interface to provide the consumer with additional control over cash outs, and text filtering to block out identified scam messages. In addition, MM subscribers have been reminded via text, automated messages and via the media to protect their PINs, and change them regularly. In other words, there have been movements at the levels of regulators, MNOs, and the consumer (education efforts) to minimize the likelihood of recurrence of such crimes. Will these corrections and structures boost or repair consumer confidence?

On the other hand, several challenges have been identified in the execution of investigations of crimes involving Mobile Money. In addition to the fact that some scammers have covered their tracks well enough to avoid being identified, there have been some reports of less-than-ideal cooperation from some MNOs. For example, representatives of the Ghana Police Service “expressed worry that managers of some mobile telecom operators do not give the necessary information to the police concerning suspects in mobile money fraud who work in the telcos”.  Additionally, some people who crossed paths with fraudsters are calling for a boycott of specific MNOs altogether in order to regain a sense of agency and the recognition that consumers need to protect themselves. Such calls emanate from the recognition that that there is limited recourse for a defrauded consumer since there is no guarantee of a refund from the MNOs.

So what will happen to Mobile Money in Ghana? Time - and the consumer – will tell. No matter the outcome, it will undoubtedly revolve around consumer trust.

Read their first blogpost, "Yet Another Cashlite Stumbling Block: 'Alarming' Fraud and Mobile Money Uptake in Ghana"

Can financial inclusion be synonymous with financial justice and equity?

In IMTFI's PERSPECTIVES blog series, IMTFI’s International Board members and affiliated researchers take on the definition of financial inclusion. This series aims to foster an open dialogue on issues around money, technology, and financial inclusion for the world’s poor. Individual contributions reflect contributors' own reflections on recent events based on their research and areas of expertise. The topic of financial inclusion will conclude with a capstone white paper by IMTFI titled "Mobile Money: The First Decade."

By Stephen C. Rea, IMTFI Assistant Researcher

“In theory, every theory is great, but in practice, not every theory works.”
– Marcel Kitissou, University of Albany

From April 21st to the 22nd, Cornell University’s Institute for African Development and the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development sponsored a symposium titled “Mobile Money, Financial Inclusion, and Development in Africa.” IMTFI researcher Ndunge Kiiti was one of the event’s organizers, and IMTFI was a co-sponsor. The symposium presented an opportunity for academics and development experts to come together and discuss the current state of mobile money in Africa, its effects on the continent’s financial development thus far, and some of the obstacles and tensions that have arisen around financial inclusion. It also afforded a reunion of sorts for a number of IMTFI-affiliated researchers. In this blog post, I will focus on their presentations and the concluding discussion, both of which produced some sobering critiques of financial inclusion as an agenda for international development.

Sibel Kusimba, Rahel Diro, Belete Temesgen
Social and Economic Impact of Mobile Technology panel

Social networks and mobile money in Kenya

I arrived on the 22nd just in time to catch IMTFI researcher Sibel Kusimba’s presentation, titled “Digital Fundraising and Mobile Finance in Kenya,” on the Social and Economic Impact of Mobile Technology panel. Kusimba’s research has time and again reaffirmed an important lesson that often gets lost in the hype about subscription rates and transaction volumes: Mobile money services are most successful when they complement preexisting networks of social obligation. M-Pesa, which has become the “gold standard” for mobile money in its first decade of existence, has succeeded in large part because it operates through a densely intertwined social infrastructure that predates its deployment. However, as Kusimba pointed out,

Kenyan social networks are also variable, with some more persistent over the long term than others. Age, gender, and kinship are all contributing factors to the warp and woof of these networks, as money circulates through matrilineal sibling ties and women often act as arbiters of distribution. But personality and charisma are also crucial elements, especially for becoming a node or “hub” in a social network. Kusimba noted that maintaining one’s status as a hub requires considerable “relational work,” which in turn opens up additional opportunities for more relational work. Moreover, different network ties are useful for different sorts of transactions (e.g. emergency loans vs. money transfer), and so individual nodes in a network are vehicles not only for payments, but also can become small lenders themselves. Kusimba’s research demonstrates how M-Shwari and M-Changa— microcredit and fundraising apps, respectively, that ride on M-Pesa’s rails—afford new means of articulating relational work. M-Changa, which makes it possible for fundraisers to monitor each other’s activities, complements relationships built on trust in these social networks, acting like what IMTFI Director Bill Maurer calls a “distributed ledger” that works in a similar manner to the fact-checking functions in blockchain currencies. (Maurer kicked off IAD's symposium earlier in the week with his talk, “The Problems of Cash and the Perils of Cashlessness: Researching Mobile Money and Payment Infrastructure after M-Pesa" interview can be found here.)

Mobile money uptake in Ghana – one size doesn't fit all

After lunch, an unofficial “IMTFI panel,” titled Mobile Money and Remittances—Lessons in and Beyond Africa, featured IMTFI researchers Vivian Afi Dzokoto and Ishita Ghosh as well as former IMTFI postdoctoral scholar Ivan Small discussing mobile money research in global context. Dzokoto’s presentation, “Mobile Money in Ghana: Past, Present and Future,” raised an important contrast to Kusimba’s research, and in so doing reiterated the reality of “one size doesn’t fit all” that has confounded mobile money service providers. Ghana shares many similarities with Kenya when it comes to GDP PPP, share of the population who are unbanked, and widespread access to mobile phones. However, development experts and mobile network operators alike have lamented mobile money’s relatively slow adoption in Ghana when compared to its East African counterpart. In her talk, Dzokoto highlighted several key differences between Ghana and Kenya that help to explain why mobile money has failed to scale as quickly as some would have hoped. First, differences in immigration patterns: Whereas migration from rural villages to cities and the remittance corridors that followed helped to propel M-Pesa’s adoption in Kenya, these trends did not and do not exist in Ghana to the same degree. Second, the regulatory environment: the Central Bank of Kenya’s early embrace of mobile money and willingness to work with Safaricom and brick-and-mortar banks to create an enabling environment was a fundamental condition of M-Pesa's possibility. Ghana is a good counterexample of what happens when banks see mobile money as competition instead of as an opportunity for collaboration with telcos. The Ghanaian public also has very little trust in mobile network operators, in part because of network outages and infrastructural shortcomings.

Dr. Vivian Dzokoto

Education and outreach have been lacking in Ghana, too, with very few of Dzokoto’s respondents reporting that they knew how to use mobile money or had any sense of why it might be useful for them to do so. Finally, there is the fact that Ghanaians love cash and see little reason to use mobile money when cash is an option. Building on research that she has been involved with for nearly a decade, Dzokoto explained that the cedi’s redenomination in 2007 ended up incentivizing the use of cash and disincentivizing adoption of mobile money; since Ghanaians no longer had to carry around large piles of cash for even basic transactions, one of mobile money’s potential advantages—i.e. a more secure, more convenient mode of value transfer—was essentially obviated. All of these factors have combined to make mobile money an “option of last resort” in Ghana, used primarily for emergencies and remittances rather than day-to-day transactions.


Remittance models in Southeast Asia

Ivan Small’s presentation, “Remittance Technology Models: African Innovations for Southeast Asia?”, considered how the lessons gained from mobile money services in Africa might inform their deployments in Southeast Asia, specifically in Laos and Vietnam. As noted above, remittances and remittance corridors have been instrumental in the adoption of mobile money in places like Kenya. Small argued that the focus on harnessing remittances for development illuminates a few interesting points. First, development discourses have shifted from seeing migration primarily as a negative (e.g. anxieties about “brain drain”) to seeing it as a positive. Moreover, development experts—especially those working in and around financial inclusion—have come to understand internal migration and domestic remittances as potentially more significant than international ones. At the same time, since the early 2000s, anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism initiatives have brought greater regulatory and public attention to remittances, for better and for worse. If remittances are so important to the success or failure of mobile money, then it is imperative to understand the specific contours of remittance practices in a given environment. As Small pointed out, local cultural ecologies and monetary repertoires influence adoption of new services like mobile money and affect financial practices in often unexpected ways. Uptake depends not only on local savings and transfer behaviors, but also on trust in networks, both social and technical; for example, the relative instability and unavailability of electricity in Laos has proven to be a challenge for mobile money. Furthermore, material liquidity continues to be prevalent throughout Southeast Asia because of long histories of conflict and political instability.

Preference for in-person transactions by the urban poor in Uganda and India

In her talk, “Informal Loans and the Mobile Phone: Glimpses into the Coping Strategies of the Urban Poor in Uganda and India,” Ishita Ghosh compared research on lending practices and strategies in East Africa and on the Indian subcontinent. She raised a deceptively simple research question that has profound implications: when the option of using mobile money for securing loans exists, why aren’t people calling upon their distant social networks and instead are maintaining their proximate networks?

The answer, she argued, is because in both Uganda and India there are important symbolic significances entailed by in-person transactions that make them preferable alternatives. Social etiquette matters; asking for a loan through a mediating technology like a mobile phone is difficult for many people because it does not afford the same opportunities to perform self-effacement and gratitude as a face-to-face interaction. Thus, reducing transaction fees for mobile money transfers and making interest-free loans available ultimately do not matter if the underlying social norms that influence financial behavior go unaddressed.

Moving forward – Financial Inclusion or Financial Justice?

The symposium’s final panel, Perspectives, Potentials, and Promises—What Next?, was moderated by IMTFI researcher Ndunge Kiiti, and featured Willene Johnson, former U.S. Executive Director of the African Development Bank; Melita Sawyer from Tufts University’s Fletcher Leadership Program in Financial Inclusion; Lourdes Casanova, Director of the Emerging Markets Institute; and Edward Mabaya, Senior Research Associate in Cornell’s Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. In her opening remarks, Kiiti noted three potential threads to think about moving forward. First, research has made it clear that in order for mobile money to flourish, stakeholders such as telcos, banks, and regulators need to work together, and so figuring out how best to facilitate their alignment will be crucial. Second, when looking at new entrants into the mobile money space like Alibaba’s Alipay, are services like M-Pesa becoming "backwards" before they are even over? In other words, trying to replicate M-Pesa outside of Kenya and simply hoping for the best clearly isn’t working, so what best practices should mobile money providers adopt in order to remain innovative, not to mention effective? Third, we have learned over and over again just how important remittances are not only for mobile money, but more importantly to the financial practices of the unbanked, and so one practical step that must be taken is reducing the price of remitting money, both domestically and transnationally.

A general sense of dissatisfaction with the current direction of financial inclusion pervaded many of the audience’s questions for the panelists. Mabaya offered this pithy reminder for those excited by the promise of so-called “disruptive innovation”: “It’s easy to get carried away by the

technologies, but they’re only as useful as the problems they solve.” The main problems that the panelists and audience members identified were twofold. First, there is clearly a need to develop a framework that can facilitate strategic partnerships among businesses, governments, development agencies, and, of course, the financially excluded. But who is best equipped to take the lead? The consensus was that it depends upon the problem at the time, and that like mobile money, one solution will not work everywhere or for every situation. Everyone agreed, however, that governments need to be more involved in helping to bridge disputes among banks, mobile network operators, and fintech innovators. Government regulators in particular are in the unique position to demand that financial practices be unbundled from the big banks. But at the same time, none of these interest groups can try to dominate the others.

The second problem, which builds upon the first, was well articulated in a comment from the audience: What do banks, insurance companies, and mobile network operators all have in common? They have all been deemed “too big to fail,” and thus enjoy subsidization by governments and aid organizations that allow them access to the poor in the name of “inclusion.” What are the distributional consequences of this? If the point of financial inclusion is making financial services more available, accessible, and affordable for marginalized social groups, can we honestly say that this has been the outcome, or are we simply propping up old vulnerabilities and creating new ones in the process? As Kusimba raised in her talk and the panelists echoed in their remarks, what does finance mean for someone living on less than $2 per day? Can we assume that traditional ways of approaching finance informed by centuries of banking practices are appropriate or even desirable for the financially excluded?

A larger question that grows out of these critiques is whether or not financial inclusion, as presently articulated, can be synonymous with financial justice and equity. And if so, can mobile money contribute to improving financial justice, or will it only perpetuate the same inequalities that many hoped that it would help solve? Over the next few weeks, the IMTFI blog's PERSPECTIVES series will feature reports from a number of conferences where participants have grappled with these same questions.

Photo Credits: Ndunge Kiiti

Yet Another Cashlite Stumbling Block: "Alarming" Fraud and Mobile Money Uptake in Ghana

By IMTFI Fellow Vivian Dzokoto, Virginia Commonwealth University and
John Kojo Aggrey, Louisiana State University

After a bunch of false starts, it seemed like Mobile Money in Ghana was finally on the up and up. CGAP declared that Ghana was finally on the “cusp” of progress on the mobile money front (Mckay, 2015). The Ghanaian Central Bank repealed Mobile Money guidelines which were deemed excessively restrictive, and replaced them with a bunch of guidelines that were considered more conducive to the scaling up of branchless banking initiatives (Blay, 2016). Mobile Money transaction volumes doubled from 266,246,537 in 2015 to 550,218,427 in 2016 (BOG, 2017).

Source: Ghanaweb.com

Ghanaian citizens such as Auntie Ama - who curiously still names current prices in the old currency that was redenominated in 2007 – now receives money from friends and relatives via Mobile Money, just like one of the 2009 MTN mobile money television ads had demonstrated she could. To the chagrin of the sometimes reluctant remitters, they can no longer use “I can’t come and see you” as an excuse anymore, since Auntie Ama herself reminds them that they can send her money via mobile. Tech-savvy Kweku Mensah has one of his bank accounts linked to his Mobile Money account which he uses to pay bills, and buy airtime for his girlfriends (who I am not sure know about each other). Last night he had pizza delivered. He paid for it using - you guessed it - mobile money. Even some Ghanaian churches – after some initial misgivings about the impersonality of it all - have developed online portals where people can send donations or tithes via mobile money (see for example https://www.centralgospel.com/ give/). Cash was certainly not on the way to extinction in Ghana, but Mobile Money, offered by Airtel, Glo, MTN, Tigo, and Vodafone was certainly becoming an increasingly important part of the payment ecosystem due to its convenience and accessibility....that is, when the agent was available and the network was functional.

Ghanaians, it seemed, after a loooong while of coaxing, had begun to move on to the mobile money bandwagon touted as a means to financial inclusion to the 60% of the population who for a variety of reasons were excluded from the formal financial sector because they did not or could not own a bank account. Branchless banking did make sense given the fact that Ghana had 110.8 times more branchless banking agents than bank branches. The ratio of agents to ATMs was an even more astounding ratio of 150:1 (International Monetary Fund Financial Access Survey, 2016). Plus, trust in the formal banking sector took a bit of a dive when customers of UT and Capital banks earlier this year awoke to the news that their banks had failed and had their licenses revoked, and were being taken over by Ghana Commercial Bank (Frimpong, 2017). Added to the stories and rumors over the years of a few errant supposed microfinance companies who disappeared with people’s deposits, mobile money - while not as secure as hiding money under the mattress - was beginning to look like it offered a pretty good degree of safety. You could, after all, call a mobile network operator and yell at them if something happened: they were after all first and foremost a communications company.

Mobile Money fraud had risen to an alarming degree

It was therefore jolting that Ghanaians woke up on October 23rd to the news not that another bank had failed, but rather that Mobile Money fraud had risen to an alarming degree. Customers were being defrauded of their money through a variety of ruses. According to the police, staff of the various mobile network operators were often “deeply involved”. The news about fraud in mobile money wasn’t exactly new: there had been horror stories circulating through the rumor mill; a few mentions in the press earlier on the year about the need to “wage war” on mobile money fraud; and reminders by MNO representatives to mobile money subscribers to refrain from sharing their Personal Identification Numbers (PINs). But the latest news report (Joy Online, 2017; Darko, 2017) is jarring:

• 50% of mobile money subscribers have been targeted; 
• The criminals have found ways to cover their tracks so well that the cybercrime division of the Ghana Police Service could solve only 10% of the crimes; and
• Mobile money was described as a “time-bomb waiting to explode, unless something drastic is done to curb the increasing fraud in the system”.

There goes the idea that mobile money is safe, perhaps safer than cash, and more convenient to access than the formal banking sector. There is nothing whatsoever convenient about being defrauded of money. There goes the idea that a transition to cashlessness can create a record of transactions and thus reduce fraud in Ghana. Fraudulent individuals found a way to take advantage of cashlessness based on their knowledge of the logistics of the Mobile Money platform, and did so without leaving much of a trail. There goes all the hard work that the mobile network operators, their banking partners, legislators, agents, and other stakeholders have invested in growing the mobile money market. It’s going to be much more difficult to market a product everyone knows has significant weaknesses. Mobile Money has lost that lovely feeling.

Hopefully, all is not lost. However, trust is important for adoption, growth, and sustainability of this payment form, and this trust has been badly broken by people from the inside. Sadly, the reality that these crimes are at least partly inside jobs are a reminder of the Ghanaian (Twi) proverb that states “if an animal will bite you, it is from your own cloth”. Adding salt to the wound is Uncle Attah who absolutely refused to use Mobile Money in the first place. He was suspicious that something could happen to the money once it wasn’t in physical form anymore by some “419” (fraudulent) person. He is now going round his neighborhood on an unofficial “I told you so” campaign. To him, it was, it is, and always shall be nothing but cash.

*Note: Some of the people referred to in this post are composites of people encountered in fieldwork, for others, names have been changed.

References
Blay, C. (Bank of Ghana). 2016.   “Mobile Financial Services in Ghana. Sub-regional Workshop on Mobile Money in West Africa.” 14th – 16th March 2016, Freetown Sierra Leone.

Bank of Ghana (BOG). 2017. “Payment systems statistics” https://www.bog.gov.gh/privatecontent/Payment%20Systems/PAYMENT%20SYSTEM%20STATISTICS_%20First%20Quarter%202017%20.pdf  Accessed October 23, 2017.

Darko, F. (2017). Mobile money fraud alarming -Staff of telcos deeply involved – Police. 23-10-2017. https://www.thefinderonline.com/news/item/10415-mobile-money-fraud-alarming-staff-of-telcos-deeply-involved-police.  Accessed October 23, 2017.

Frimpong, D. (2017). GCB takes over UT Bank and Capital as BoG withdraws licenses. Business Insider. 14.08.2017. http://www.pulse.com.gh/bi/bank-of-ghana-gcb-takes-over-ut-bank-and-capital-as-bog-withdraws-licenses-id7142183.html. Accessed October 23, 2017.

Joy Online (2017). Staff of telcos accomplices in mobile money fraud – Police. 23-10-2017. (https://www.myjoyonline.com/business/2017/October-23rd/staff-of-telcos-accomplices-in-mobile-money-fraud-police.php). Accessed October 23, 2017.

McKay, C. (2015). New Data Finds Mobile Money "On the Cusp" in Rwanda and Ghana. 15 December 2015.  Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). http://www.cgap.org/blog/new-data-finds-mobile-money-cusp-rwanda-and-ghana. Accessed October 23, 2017.

International Monetary Fund Financial Access Survey, 2016. International Monetary Fund.

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Read Vivian Dzokoto's blogpost from the special PERSPECTIVES Series on Demonetization in India, "Before Money isn't Money Anymore...."

“When I make sales, I want to sit and count my money at the end of the day”: Low Adoption of Digital Payment Platforms among SMEs in Ghana

by IMTFI Fellows Clement Adamba, Onallia Esther Osei, and Rebecca Sarku

"There is power and some good feeling in holding cash"

Introduction
Ghana’s informal economy is dominated by small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) whose huge contribution to the economy is widely acknowledged. SMEs are, however, characterized by limited application of technological innovation that could enhance business financial transactions. Current non-cash payment platforms in Ghana include switch and card, primarily operated by e-zwich, gh-linkTM; mobile or wallet money operated by big mobile telecommunication companies such as MTN, Airtel, Tigo, and Vodafone networks. There is also real-time gross settlement system (RTGS), a funds transfer system where the transfer of money or securities takes place from one bank to another on a "real time" and on a "gross" basis.

Mobile Money Vendor
Accra Central Business District

There are a limited number of SMEs using digital financial platforms for transactions despite efforts to encourage adoption and utilisation. The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has attributed the low adoption of digital payment platforms to high illiteracy and ignorance about the relevance of non-cash payment systems (BoG, 2014). In our recent study, we found that, indeed some operators of SMEs in Ghana have adopted some form of digital financial payment for personal and business transactions. Our study also confirmed that illiteracy and lack of knowledge about digital money are the two predominant factors that affect adoption and utilisation of available digital payment platforms. However, we found two other reasons that will require more than literacy to encourage patronage among SMEs in Ghana – the high value of cash and low feelings of trust.

In the remainder of this blog post we highlight some of people’s perceptions about the value or power of holding physical cash over digital money and the issue of trust expressed in the reliability of the system and its operators.


“I want to count my money…….”
There is the feeling among some SME operators that counting cash at the end of a day’s business is an indication of a good day. One is able to determine physically whether or not the day’s transaction has been good or bad. More importantly, holding money and counting it at the close of the day enhances one’s self-image and gives a positive self-feeling. In the expression of one lady in Makola, Ghana’s busiest market in the capital city of Accra, the power associated with the holding of cash supersedes digital money. The feeling of having cash in hand arouses a greater sense of liquidity, power and feeling.

Inside the Makola Annex Market

“When I make my sales, at the end of the day, I want to sit down and count the money. Then, my self-esteem is enhanced. And then I also feel that I am working. But if the money is on a machine like the mobile thing we are talking about, it doesn’t make sense to me. There is power and some good feeling in holding cash [more] than there is with numbers on your phone or on a card.” (A 28-year-old female make-up kit trader in a focus group discussion in Makola, 24/3/2016).

This expression resonated among most of the participants in our study, who immediately concurred with this sentiment. In cases where people have received a mobile money transfer for example, they will immediately go and withdraw the cash.


The other problem is trust
Negative experiences of some adopters with digital payment platforms have led them to lose trust in the system, which has provided added impetus for many to completely stay away from adoption and use of digital payment platforms such as mobile money transfer services:

Adawso Roadside Market

“When I went to a vendor one time to withdraw a customer’s payment for goods that she transferred into my mobile money account, I was asked to bring my code. And I was afraid that once I tell the agent about my code, they may steal my money. Meanwhile I don’t know how to operate my phone. So as soon as I gave my code out, I withdrew everything from my account. This is because my cousin said she left GHC 200 in her account but when she went to withdraw her money, she was told that she did not have anything in it. It means that either her agent or someone took note of her code and then withdrew her money. So I prefer to have my money in cash. I know where to hide the money and not even a rat could notice it in my room. [This is better] than this code and secret number things they are talking about as a form of security for my money” (A 40-year-old fishmonger in Adawso market, 18/03/2016)

However, the distrust of the mobile money system could often be linked to misunderstandings of how the system works. For instance, some SME operators expressed concerns as to why one had to pay for registration fees and charges for transfer and withdrawal of money from mobile money vendors. Others expressed concerns about the need to pay charges for some of the most basic services. These concerns suggested that the SME operators feel exploited with fees or charges; eliciting their fear that mobile money service providers are cheating them instead of helping them with their businesses. But mobile money service agents and some platform service providers have noted that what subscribers call registration fee is actually an initial deposit for the wallet, just as it would be the case in starting a savings account with a bank.


Acknowledgement of some positives with digital financial service platforms
Notwithstanding the concerns of some SME operators about the challenges and the fact that there is the need for one to count his/her cash at the end of day, some SME operators do acknowledge some positive aspects associated with utilising a digital platform service.

mobile money advertisement in Ghana

For example, it is safe and reduces the risks of theft or robbery associated with travelling over long distances with physical money. For example, a female trader indicated that:

 “I don’t carry cash in my bag these days. At first when I travel to buy goods, we are usually attacked by armed robbers but with the mobile money technology, I usually transfer all my cash onto my mobile money wallet and then when I get to my destination, I withdraw it into physical cash to transact business. And so, even if we are attacked by robbers, they can only take my mobile phone and only a small amount of money away. Even if I lose my mobile phone, I still have my money because the code is with me” (A 32-year-old female cosmetic trader in Makola, 06/04/2016).

Another trader noted that keeping money in a mobile wallet helps to avert impulse spending:

“The benefit of keeping my money in my mobile money wallet is that when they pay me cash, it is likely that I may do an impulse buying but if the money is in my wallet it will be very difficult for me to go withdraw it. I hardly get time and if I will have to join a queue very often to withdraw money, then I will prefer that the money remains in the wallet. So it is more or less like a bank savings for me” (A 27-year-old female trader in Makola, 06/04/2016).

Conclusion
Digital payment platform designers and service providers have an obligation to educate potential users of the digital payment platforms on the suite of services that they provide.

Field Interview, Ga-Mashie

They need to spend more time on public media to educate people about the operations or workings of the digital platforms and how even illiterate users can operate these effectively without relying on any second party for support. Improved education outreach can also serve as a catalyst in reducing fears about security and the safety of wallets. Specifically, user-centered education can help people understand how to access money in their wallet as well as operate and utilize all the available packages on the platform such as buying airtime and paying bills through the mobile wallet. Platform providers need to do more to allay subscribers’ fears of risk and losing money through theft, including by agents.

Read their final report here

Economies of Scale: Session Five of the 2016 Conference

In the second panel of the day "Small Size Big Impact? Management of Financial Opportunities and Constraints by Micro-entrepreneurs and Small Merchants" with discussant Olumide Abimbola, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology focused on the so-called "SME" sector with a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises and led off with "Influence of Mobile Money on Control of Productive Resources Among Women Micro Entrepreneurs Participating in Table Banking - Nakuru, Kenya" by Milcah Wavinya Mulu-Mutuku and Castro Ngumbu Gichuki of Egerton University. Mutuku discussed Kenya's Vision 2030 and how the aim is to transform Kenya economic, social, and political pillars. The research team decided to focus their study on the "social pillar," with an emphasis on the reduction of gender disparities and boosting of access to control around productive resources for women. They narrowed in on the business of "table banking," where money is put on the table and people borrow from the pool of currency, a practice that has even received presidential endorsement. As illustrated in the photograph above, audience members were encouraged to look at the entire assemblage of materials on the crowded table and to notice differences between documents, such as the differentiation of light blue passbooks from beige ones, which might indicate two different types of transactions. Researchers also visited Safari.com mobile money services.

The methodology was characterized by three stages of data collection 1) questionnaire (data collected; analysis on-going), 2). focus group discussion (May, 2016), and 3) in-depth interviews (June & July, 2016). The culminating event would be a results dissemination workshop on September 2016. In surveying informants, they discovered that the issue was "not that they don't know about competing companies like Airtel," but getting accustomed "to a particular service for business." They also discussed how not all Safari.com services remained popular, because "they stopped using Lipa Na M-PESA," because the convenience of till numbers was offset by unanticipated service charges."

Although their intention was to study women's groups, they discovered significant levels of participation by men in the groups. For example the Peniel Young Women Group had a male treasurer and secretary and a 13-10 gender ratio, The Faith Women Group also had a male treasurer, Hosea, who introduced new ideas to the group, such as acquiring land. The benefits of being in these groups could be amplified by technology as well as gender diversity, so that table banking + mobile money might lead to a "transformation of life, as in the case of one of their subjects, Mary, who now encourages customers to use normal person-to-person money transfers. She wants customers to pay using mobile money and then transfers funds to her bank account, which makes her more able to important her goods from Uganda. With table banking and mobile money, her wealth has grown from 2 dollars to 700 dollars. According to researchers "when men are added," there might be "even higher benefits." So they asked, in focusing on empowering women alone, "are we missing something?" As Hosea exclaims in the end of their presentation, "women's eyes were open long ago, and the men's eyes are still closed."

"Informal Loan Trap: Bombay 5-6 and its Effect on Tacloban Micro-entrepreneurs" by Rosalita M. Dula and Marilou Pelenio Grego of Eastern Visayas State University looks at loans and informal arrangements in the Philippines. Tacloban city is a regional capital that was recently devastated by a typhoon, Local lore attributes the presence of Indians to conscripts who jumped ship during the British occupation of earlier centuries. Today the "Bombay 5-6" wear distinctive checked shirts and zip through the city on motorbikes, which allow them to pass through alleys, escape ambushes, and not stay in the areas for too long as "walking cash dispensers." The micro-entrepreneurs who serve as their client base may sell fruit, root crops, street foods, and other products and services such as watch repair. As ambulant vendors, they need capital to set up for the next day Dula cited prior work on the group in studies of informal financial survival in business by Mari Kondo.

Grego explained the methodology of the study. She also narrated accounts of interpersonal dynamics, which might include pleading and negotiating the issue of default (which might be more common with formal bank loans despite their low interest). With these informal loan operators, women can easily begin a relationship. In contrast, with banks they feel the problem "of starting a business with only a dollar." Dula and Grego lauded these entrepreneurs for being highly innovative, although profit was often used in household expenses rather than business growth or expansion. Money lenders reach out to ambulant vendors and keep books very informally, so that "a piece of a notebook and a whole lot of trust" constitute the basic elements of the exchange.

The final panel of the session was "Assessing Unmet Needs of Small Merchants in Adopting Digital Payment Systems in Southern Ghana" by Clement Adamba of the University of Ghana, who began by crediting Onallia Esther Osei and Rebecca Sarku for their dedication to the project. Unfortunately these members were unable to get visas to the IMTFI conference, despite their important contributions to the study that comprised home-based enterprises, roadside businesses, and work conducted in the back of shops. They focused on 1) 30 respondents who were SMEs on Osu Oxford Street, 2) 90 respondents from Makola, one of the oldest markets in Accra, which is dominated by imported foods, 3) 30 respondents from old Accra in Ga Mashie, the former capital of colonial government, and 4) 50 respondents from a rural district, the Adawso Roadside Market. Each site also included at least one FGD and one IDI. Most respondents were women, with a gender ration of 154 to 46. 28% of respondents had used digital payment platforms, but 8.9 % had dropped out, and 25% were currently using. Factors included 1) illiteracy and ignorance, 2) poor communication networks characterized by waiting ("we cannot afford to go and wait for two hours"), 3) security and lack of trust, 4) language barriers that might be exacerbated by lack of transport, and 5) the fact that holding cash has more power than holding a card or invisible wealth on a phone. This show of cash was strongly linked to self-esteem. Respondents explained that "we want to count our money after a day's work". They look forward to ongoing fieldwork.

In the lively question and answer session, a variety of innovative research questions were discussed, from deploying mystery shoppers to potentially going into business themselves to move toward more participation and less removed observation. There was also considerable debate about the dynamics of interest rates as incentives or disincentives of pursuing particular credit strategies.

Final Report - Mobile Money Utility & Financial Inclusion: Insights from Unbanked Poor End-Users in Nigeria and Ghana

The comparative report from Lite J. Nartey and Olayinka David-West exploring dynamics of mobile money utility amongst poor unbanked users in Nigeria and Ghana has just been released. Filled with analyses, research tools, and informative wordles, and colorful infographics. View the full report here.


Ghana: Non-User General Trust Perceptions of Banks Vs. Telcos



Nigeria: Detailed Non-User Trust Perceptions of Banks vs. Telcos

Sample of concluding insights:

• The mobile money services offered are basic and ranked at the bottom of the hierarchy of consumer financial needs.

• Although the mobile money services offered are supported by a myriad of value creation and delivery processes, the low adoption levels are indicative of additional efforts in the value delivery activities like market development and segmentation.

• Direct marketing is a useful tool to encouraging both awareness and a better understanding of the product. However, more needs to be done to increase base awareness and actually encourage users to try to these platforms.

• In Nigeria, the relatively low adoption and utility rates do not support innovative uses by the targeted users.

• In Ghana, despite the low adoption rate, the service is highly favored amongst those that actually do use it.

• The use of informal savings schemes like susu or ajo that provide savers with a pool of funds to facilitate substantial payments are a popular and preferred savings method. The use of transportation services is a substitute for remittance services; however, the transfer and resale of mobile airtime are also employed for small amounts.

Read blogpost summarizing key findings.

Mobile Money Utility & Financial Inclusion: Insights from Unbanked Poor End-Users in Nigeria and Ghana

by Lite J. Nartey and Olayinka David-West

Cross-section of Nigerian focus group

Mobile money is a unique service comprising the convergence of two industries—banking and telecommunications. Still in its nascent stages, the industry is making a significant impact on financial inclusion and transforming the lives of the poor. Indeed, mobile money “represents the biggest opportunity to increase financial inclusion in emerging markets” (GSMA MMU Annual Report 2012). There is, however, more room for penetration and access of mobile money globally. Access to financial services (financial transactions, credit, savings etc.) is important for individuals to financially manage, structure and plan livelihoods for themselves and their families. It is worth noting that 50% of adults worldwide (more than 2.5 billion people) do not have access to formal banking services, and 59% of adults in developing economies are unbanked poor (Demirguc-Kunt and Klapper, 2012).

Mobile money as a solution for financial inclusion has been relatively successful in East African countries like Kenya and Tanzania. The project titled “Mobile Money Utility and Financial Inclusion: Insights from Unbanked Poor End-Users”, examined Western African practices—Ghana and Nigeria in particular. This mixed-methods study examined mobile money utility, the understanding of the products offered to the poor and how these products are utilized. From talking to mobile money providers and other researchers, we understood the range of services provided. The consumer study, comprising of focus group discussions and surveys highlighted the utility of mobile communications and financial services (savings, contributions, mobile money) by the unbanked poor in Ghana and Nigeria. The telecommunications growth in sub-Saharan Africa has significantly improved access to mobile telephony; teledensity estimates exceed 100 percent in both Ghana and Nigeria. However, our findings reveal that mobile money services have been developed around formal services and hence adoption is relatively low amongst the financially excluded.

Mobile Money Utility in Nigeria

Cross-section of Nigerian focus group

In Nigeria, banks and informal groups are providing financial services like money transfers, savings, and contributions that are commonly found economic practices amongst the poor. Mobile phones are  primarily utilized for basic telephony—voice calls and short message service (SMS). The convergence of voice, data and media that has led to the growth and popularity of smartphones is evident in the growing number of mobile data services such as Internet browsing and messaging. However, utility of mobiles for financial services is still very low.

In spite of the high institutional trust of both banks and telcos and perceived convenience, mobile money adoption is inhibited by factors such as low knowledge of operational protocols and product/services, network quality, and trust. Key improvement areas for Nigerians were service delivery and market development.

Ghana

Microfinance institutions, savings & loans companies, and cooperative/ joint saving schemes provide savings products in Ghana popularly known as “Susu.” Even with high levels of ownership, mobile phones are predominantly used for voice and SMS with data-oriented services trailing.  

In Ghana unlike the case in Nigeria, knowledge and adoption of mobile money appears significantly higher in insurance products and money transfer. However, inhibiting factors include transaction costs, agent/customer/merchant disputes or issues, and network quality.

Whilst Ghanaian respondents perceived telcos as more trustworthy than banks, areas of improvement included the extension of services supported on the platform. Mobile money improvement areas in the two countries under observation appear to be somewhat contradictory. Nigerians are desirous of enhanced service-delivery through more accessible channels and market development while Ghanaians seek service extensions derived from innovation.Whilst person-to-person remittances are well supported, complementary services that the customers value vary. In Ghana, for example, where telecommunications companies are licensed to provide mobile money operations, complementary services such as ATM withdrawal are not as prevalent as in Nigeria that operates on bank-led or independent consortia models. These models warrant different strategies and institutional processes to enhance value proposition, market development & education, and distribution. As such regulatory licensing models are important considerations for mobile money development and growth.

Results 

The key insights drawn from these two West African countries are summarized below.

• Firstly, awareness in Nigeria is somewhat lower than Ghana despite the former having more providers. The notion voiced by one of the members of the focus group participants that mobile money is for the rich may be indicative of inadequate communications.

Figure 1: Expression of mobile money curiosity from Ghanaian non-users

• Secondly, access limitations were evident in both countries where the lion’s share of consumer transactions are conducted in open (informal) markets using cash. The expanse of the mobile money ecosystem is evident in the exclusion of the open markets tradesmen, transportation providers, hawkers, and other informal services that are utilized by a large proportion of the population may explain the low adoption rates. These adoption rates are particularly low in Nigeria (3 percent adoption amongst survey participants), a country promoting Cashless and Financial Inclusion Strategies.

Figure 2: Nigeria-Perceived Usefulness of Mobile Money 

Figure 3:Ghana-Perceived Usefulness of Mobile Money

• Finally, the financial nature of mobile money transactions mandates higher levels of trust, especially amongst the unbanked poor. In spite of the institutional trust ascribed to both telecommunications operators and banks in both the countries, network quality and sustained functionality undermines the entire service.

Conclusion

Key mobile money insights from unbanked poor users in Ghana and Nigeria suggest that providers of these services need enhanced strategies in the following areas: awareness/communications, adoption, and trust. The service expansions sought by Ghanaian respondents warrant ecosystem development supported by a more open and inclusive platform. In all, the most crucial strategy will be the substitution of mobile money for cash in open markets where the majority of the population trade.

--

GSMA (2012). Mobile Money for the Unbanked poor, Annual Report, 2012, pg. 2

Demirguc-Kunt, Asli and Leora Klapper, 2012, “Measuring Financial Inclusion: The Global Findex Database,” World Bank Policy Research Paper 6025.

View the full report here.

Valuing Connection: The Interface between Tradition and Technology

At the sixth annual conference for funded researchers at the Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion, director Bill Maurer introduced the proceedings by acknowledging the limitations of the closed knowledge forms rewarded by academia that present "neutral academic perspectives" in peer-reviewed journals.  He also noted that Silicon Valley ways of knowing may also be inadequate for understanding perspectives from the Global South.  In particular, he observed that cash may be criticized as a vulnerable currency that is easily stolen and even eaten by vermin and exotic creatures such as elephants, but cash also represents important "public infrastructure," a state-supported means of value transfer that is available without fees or tolls.  By aiming to include "the voices of those who would be most impacted" to understand the collision between traditional values and new monetary technologies, IMTFI aims to include people in remote areas "not just people in urban centers" visiting the U.S. "from Delhi and Manilla."  This particular scholarly occasion is also intended to support ongoing collaborations throughout the year with "resources to help people get in touch" as they negotiate realization of what is always understood to be a "midstream" presentation of research each year.

The first presentation about "When the Dead Decide: An Investigation into the Influence of the Ancestors in the Decision to Use Mobile Technology in a Rural Community in Northern Ghana" presented a unique fieldwork approach that incorporated traditional divination as a research method. Francis Niagia Santuah from the University for Development Studies and the West African Resilience Innovation Lab  presented the bulk of the findings with Martin Alichimah of Roots and Futures available to discuss the somewhat unconventional methodology that researchers used.  Although "the ancestors" might generally only communicate in response to yes/no questions through the interface of a diviner's probing stick, researchers argued that their influence in the use of mobile phones in the rural community in northern Ghana that they studied was significant, especially given the larger cosmic vision of inhabitants in which "the dead, the living, and the unborn" all shape decision-making in contemporary life.  Santuah argued that in designing products and services for customers debates about the existence of ancestors or dismissals of so-called superstitions were counterproductive when the influence of dead over the living was a fact of life for many.  Although Santuah said he was "not here to say whether the ancestors exist," in the question-and-answer period he explained the utility of this form of social connection in his own life.

Santuah and Alichimah explained that Ghana has a robust 84% mobile phone penetration rate in a country in which there were more phones than people.  Nonetheless, remote rural communities often don't have access to the technologies available in urban centers.  The research team wanted to focus on the use of mobile phones for community development among the Kasena in northern Ghana with focused group discussions (FGDs), key informant interviews (KIIs) with lineage heads able to represent their clans, and with divination.  While working in the Kasena-Nankana District, researchers did encounter obstacles.  Interviews were scheduled during the rainy season when communication might be disrupted.  Two soothsayers declined to serve as mediators, and one ancestor declined the interview when the divination process was initiated.  Furthermore, compensation and investment in traditional culture was an issue: one soothsayer complained that the consultation fee was “too small,” and one ancestor requested the sacrifice of a ram after a successful divination session.  Finally, planned randomization was resented by informants as disrespectful of existing processes.  Despite all of these hindrances, researchers asserted that "the ancestors blessed the study," since they were able to successfully present preliminary findings in the United States.

The team from Ghana shared several impressions from the field that corroborated their hypothesis that ancestors might influence the decision of residents in the area to use mobile phones.  For example, in one interview an informant commented that "I have heard they can send money through 'Atogedevio' (through the air) for you to go and collect at a place."  Although paying clinics and supporting tuition might be lauded, ancestors and clan heads were also wary of the social disruptions that new technologies might bring.  One interviewee bemoaned the fact that "you see a girl talking on phone and suddenly she disappears," and another chided the young texting on footpaths for not giving way to their elders.  Certain forms of news sharing still required traditional face-to-face contact.  For example, a mobile phone should not be used "to inform me that my in-law is dead."  The consequence for this inappropriate communication would be that "I will not attend the funeral because you are not serious."  In closing, Santuah described how his own use of the mobile phone changed in interacting with his own father, once he realized that his father's silence signaled censure for inappropriate multitasking behavior.  Now "I leave all my phones in my room," he declared, because the "relationship" should be privileged over "ease of communication."

Maurer reminded participants who might be tempted to scoff at the idea of "marketing to the dead" that the Institute had authored a very inclusive document about possible financial services models in a catalog of Design Principles.

Because of catastrophic weather ravaging the Philippines, Bernadette M. Gavino-Gumba of Ateneo de Naga University was unable to deliver her presentation on "Storing and Transferring Money in a Cash-Strapped Fishing Municipality in the Bicol Region" in person.  Mrinalini Tankha delivered Gavino-Gumba's paper, which looked at a very poor community around the municipal center of Poblacion. (For those new to the financial inclusion discussion, studies of fishing communities and mobile money have shaped some of the "classics" in this new scholarly literature.  For example, Robert Jensen's "The Digital Provide" was questioned in this lively IMTFI discussion in a previous year.)  Researchers hoped to provide an overview of the socio-economic profile of selected fishing families, explore the processes and nature of mobile money transactions, and analyze the factors that influence the engagement of the fishing households in mobile money transfer and storage.  Critical factors spurring adoption included close family ties and a culture of "keeping in touch" in which members help each other and also place a high value on their children’s education, which might be occurring in other towns or supporting the care economy of nursing abroad.  The community that Gavino-Gumba examined also supported a variety of small businesses, which needed infusions of capital for daily replenishments of inventory and small transactions.  The remoteness of the area and poor transport services also encouraged mobile finance networks.  At this point, she has completed primary data-gathering and concluded key informant interview surveys.  The analytical framework was shaped by findings about the genders of household heads, their educational attainment, household size, dependency ratio, members outside the town studying, migrant worker family members outside the country, the number of members in skilled jobs, and monthly household incomes and expenditures.  Monthly statistics were also gathered on the use of service providers, amounts of money stored and transferred, and the frequency of usage.

The final presentation on this panel came from Sibel Kusimba who focused on "Mobile Money and Coming of Age in Western Kenya" and considered how the transition from boyhood to manhood in "a ritual with economic, social, and spiritual dimensions" in Bungoma County, Kenya might be transformed by access to mobile phones.  Kusimba argued that the rites of passage described by Günter Wagner in the 1930s to serve the purpose of severing a male child from maternal kinship and binding him to his patrilineal clan were undergoing significant changes, even as the elements of circumcision. seclusion for instruction in war, sexuality, and adult responsibilities, and public presentation as an adult member of society remained relatively recognizable in traditional form.  (Wagner -- who studied with Franz Boas and received Rockefeller funding -- is an interesting character.  He is interviewed here and debunked for his Nazi sympathies and post-war racism here.)   Kusimba examined 40 households that planned to circumcise and recorded evidence of the growing role of mobile money in visiting, feasting, and gift-giving, as well as how phones played a role in managing invitations and documenting the ceremonial event.

Even if the ceremony takes place in a hospital, traditional customs must be observed.  Beginning in July, the boys practice songs and dances, and families construct additions to their homes to make room for the father's age-mates (Bakoki) from his own circumcision cohort, as well as for other visitors, and to provide a place to drink beer.  Marketplaces are also important sites of activity, particularly for purchasing traditional pots.  The mother of the house is responsible for hospitality and may activate an M-PESA account just to make sure they don't lose face by being unready for guests or running short on beverages and food.  As one informant observed, "there is underestimation always."

Of particular interest to Kusimba was the "thirteenth cow" that is provided by the mother’s brother, which is central to the ritual, serves as a traditional mechanism for saving, and can even be used to finance the boy's education, if need be.  She also showed images of the boys recuperating after the procedure in skirts and carrying slingshots from their time in seclusion.  The nurturing role passes from the mother to the paternal aunt at this juncture; she serves as more than the father’s sister in a role of symbolic mother or wife.  Her customary gift had been a goat, but this has now been supplanted by other customs.  Often her symbolic gift now is a mobile phone, which for most boys is the first time they will have ownership of this possession.  This aspect of the ritual now is part of "creating a socially connected person in Kenya today."  In closing she contrasted how mobile money facilitates saving that is private, short term, and in small amounts, while the thirteenth cow represents a form of saving that is public, long-term, and both of symbolic and economic value.  She referred the audience to Hutchinson's work on cattle among the Nuer for the context for different kinds of savings mechanisms.   She described how research done two years ago did not show as much saving behavior with mobile money, because M-PESA currency was cashed out immediately or sent out in response to social pressure to send remittances.

In the question and answer period, panelists responded to questions about "different social contexts" at a time in the year when, as Kusimba pointed out, the last part of the boys' ceremony would be taking place this weekend with more gifts.  In answer to a question about people "left behind," she asserted that they were not "left behind" but "living in two worlds."  For example, she described a couple coming home to have the ceremony for their son despite being civil servants in Nairobi.

Santuah's claim that a belief in the role of one's ancestors could provide a way to organize life in meaningful ways and to facilitate social connection seemed legitimate to me, as someone who often communicates with remote family members across generational divides.  In recent years, as I use mobile money myself with my own adult children to send money to them on my cell phone from sites around the world (including from the remote location shown below), I do find myself valuing those connections, even if they may often be unseen and intangible.