Liz Losh's Guest Blog: Beyond the 99%

In welcoming participants to the annual research conference for the Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion, where chocolate coins dotted the reception table, director Bill Maurer noted that the very value of membership in the formal banking system was already being hotly debated by conference participants at dinner the night before conference sessions even began. With the fate of the Euro in jeopardy, people being kicked out of the formal financial system in the developed world, bank protests, consumer rebellions against unfair fees and profit taking, and bank failures too frequent to be worth reporting in the nightly news, Maurer argued that banking the unbanked from the so-called "bottom of the pyramid" of financial life might be a missionary activity increasingly worth examining. Of course, as Maurer also observed, the Institute had always been interested in the many ways that the "end of banking" might be imagined from the apocalyptic to the mundane as a response to perceived crises in the formal economy.

Maurer reminded attendees that this was a conference known for providing a corrective to the just-so stories told by economists about twenty-first-century money as a set of transparent frictionless transactions that could be easily aggregated and numerically abstracted. As Maurer explained, it was a conference intended to draw on the knowledge base of a variety of other disciplines -- including agriculture, anthropology, design, and IT -- to explore material culture and social practices that might otherwise be treated as ephemeral or insignificant. Of course, this conference had welcomed papers in the past on everything that relates to IMTFI from an uncovering of underwear money to accounting with the bodies of dead migrant workers. To acknowledge the fact that the conference often celebrated money as well as studied it, Maurer introduced Catherine Eagleton of the Money Gallery of the British Museum.

Maurer told the story of the founding of the institute, which he traced to his initial experiences at a mobile money workshop at the Federal Reserve, where he apparently thought “now here’s a kind of financial innovation that we can all be excited about.” Although these "bridges to cash" might have been built most rapidly in the case of M-PESA and its 14 million accounts, Maurer asserted that this kind of "entire new business" was most notable because it reopened discussions of "the definition of money itself," which "changed the terms of discussion at moment when we need new terms."

Rather than have U.S. specialists "parachute in" to a given country, IMTFI emphasized funding the research of local and regional experts and suspicion of the tendency to "overuse economists." Maurer explained how there were now 100 researchers working in 50 countries who represented "other kinds of disciplinary training" and an "alternative sets of voices" at a conference that was tolerant of exploratory work that had not yet produced "completed research results" in the interest of facilitating conversation and disseminating new ideas. As Maurer pointed out, there was even "an ethnographer studying us" as a "community of scholars," whose work had already appeared in Critique of Anthropology. (Author Anke Schwittay presented a talk about Kiva last year.)

Women's Groups and Mobile Money in Eastern Kenya

IMTFI is happy to release our most recent working paper, a study of rural women's groups in Eastern Kenya and use of mobile money technology. Here is a brief summary and reflection from IMTFI researcher Ndunge Kiiti:

Our research in Kenya was a real eye opener in terms of what mobile money services rural women need, for their projects and groups to succeed.  The primary goal of our study was to investigate the use and impact of mobile money services (e.g. M-PESA, YU and Zap), among the 21 women’s groups, as a tool for poverty reduction in Eastern Kenya.  We met with the women from all the 21 groups, using the format of in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, or participatory observations.  The highlight of the process was a workshop we held at the end of our data collection process. What an experience!!! We had about 100 women (about 4-5 representatives from each group) participate.  Since ALL the groups use the M-PESA service, we were able to get in touch with the staff and they happily attended the workshop as well.  It was an extremely informative process, not just for the women’s groups but for the M-PESA staff.  They got to hear nine of the groups talk about various projects they are doing in the community.  They also got to hear some of the opportunities and challenges the women face in using M-PESA services.  The M-PESA staff were  extremely moved by the conversation.  Even if they had known this information prior to their workshop, it was good for them to hear, first hand experiences, from the field.  At times the staff seemed overwhelmed with all the women were doing with such limited resources and opportunities.  The M-PESA staff were able to share, the women’s groups, and also address some of the opportunities and challenges related to M-PESA services in rural areas.  They also provided products and upgrades that the women had access to at the workshop.  A highlight for the women was the M-PESA staff bring T-shirts for everyone!   That was a treat.  Overall, the dialogue was extremely productive and there was commitment to continue in conversation to see if there’s other ways M-PESA or Safaricom might partner with these women’s groups. 

Click here to read the paper! 

Alternative Banking and Social Inclusion

by IMTFI researchers Kurt von Mettenheim and Olivier Butzbach

This post reports on an international seminar sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation in July, 2011 that brought together several of IMTFI's researchers with colleagues from around the world to discuss alternative banking and "social" inclusion. Often we read and research financial inclusion without reflecting enough on social justice and social welfare policies that may or may not accompany financial inclusion goals. This conference took up this issue.

These ideas were first explored in 2006 at an international seminar in São Paulo and developed further at the 2009 Meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Social Economics in a session entitled “An Alternative Banking Business Model? Savings, Cooperative and Public Banks in the Current Financial Meltdown.”  We have since worked with business and public policy schools and alternative bank groups and associations to build a network capable of launching new Core Principles for Alternative Banking and Social Inclusion. The July seminar confirmed the potential for new technologies at large alternative banking institutions in developing and emerging countries to accelerate social inclusion (and maintain it in advanced economies).

Evaluating The Social Impacts of Mobile Money Services in Cambodia

By Jeff Fang

Between March to September 2011, I collaborated with WING Money Cambodia (WING), a leading mobile money services provider in Cambodia, on a research project to evaluate the social impacts of mobile money services in Cambodia.

Currently,WING allows any customers (individuals and businesses) to transfer, deposit (cash-in) and withdraw (cash-out) money between each other and with anyone in Cambodia as well as top up their pre-paid mobile phone credits with their SMS-enabled mobile phones at low cost. Payment transactions like sending/receiving money, phone top-up can be done from any mobile phone, and secured by a personal 4-digits pin code. There is no monthly fee charged for holding a mobile wallet with WING and all the money are safely stored in a regulated bank.

I am both thankful and privileged to be part of this research collaboration with WING. It has been an exciting journey for me to travel to different rural towns to interact with different mobile money community sales representatives, customers and merchants/agents to find out first-hand how WING’s mobile money services has really made positive changes to their small business activities, local cultural norms, social well-being and financial management habits.

Below are 2 customer profile stories which are shortened versions of more detailed interview sessions conducted as part of the current research project collaboration between RMIT University Australia and WING. The names have been left out for privacy concerns.

IMTFI PANEL at 54th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association

By IMTFI researcher Vivian Dzokoto

Since 1957, the African Studies Association (ASA) has converged individuals with academic and professional interests in Africa, and served as the leading North American organization promoting the academic study of that continent. This year, IMTFI sponsored a panel at ASA’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. In line with the conference theme “50 Years of African Liberation,” the IMTFI panel was titled “Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion in Africa: What We Know After 50 Years of Liberation.”

Out of the conference’s 214 panels, the IMTFI-sponsored panel was the only one that focused on contemporary financial services and the poor. The panel highlighted major findings from 4 of 20 research projects focusing on various countries in Africa that IMTFI has funded over the past 3 years. Presenters examined pathways and obstacles to achieving financial inclusion for the poor in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

Funny Money Roundup

While IMTFI remains firmly focused on the intersection of novel and not-so-novel technologies and monetary practices (payments, value storage, and so on)—and, in particular, on the world of mobile money—we are also interested in money, finance, and the economy more generally. As a part of our new blog, we are initiating a recurring feature that will highlight, with a list of entirely noncomprehensive and thoroughly idiosyncratic links, interesting debates, developments, and other tidbits about money from around the Internet. The goal is simply to draw some attention to the diverse worlds of money, its meanings and uses. We’re calling it the Funny Money Roundup. If you have come across something interesting that you think we might like, send it to IMTFI research assistant Taylor Nelms at tnelms@uci.edu. For our inaugural link list, we've got a set of stories about bitcoin, everyone's favorite crypto-currency. Enjoy!

Nigerian Mobile Money Survey

IMTFI is pleased to be able to offer insight into Nigerian trends based on this survey of over 4000 rural and urban Nigerians from every region of the country. In light of the mobile money industry’s interest in Nigeria, and the recent issuing of licenses by the Central Bank of Nigeria to 11 mobile money businesses, we hope that the trends that we have identified here will allow for a better understanding of this important area in its own terms, not just in reference to the mobile money miracle of Kenya.

The survey revealed information including the gender and location of banked and unbanked populations, respondents' experiences with mobile money, their preferences regarding mobile channels, their preferences regarding mobile money providers and mobile money transactions, and how they anticipate using mobile money when they have access to it.

These data suggest that Nigeria is ready for mobile money, especially money transfer. Bill pay is desired by Nigerian respondents and that mobile money agents are likely to play an important role as the Nigerian mobile money system develops. They also reveal that potential clients have very mixed feelings about banks, and different kinds of worries regarding theft and fraud. Concern and confidence depend on where and who respondents are in Nigeria.

Click here to read our working paper!