Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion

The popularity and use of Mobile Money is increasing in Africa, indicating a trend towards cashlessness in the continent’s developing economies. The Central Bank of Zambia redenominated the Kwacha (Zambian National Currency) in 2013. This decrease in the volume (but not value) of notes handled on a daily basis at both individual and institutional levels has eliminated the burdens associated with low value currencies. It was unclear whether a more convenient medium of exchange would impact the adoption of Mobile Money, which was introduced to Zambians around the same time. The current study examined the initial impact of the 2013 currency redenomination of the Zambian national currency the Kwacha on Mobile Money use.

Results showed that (i) the new currency was generally favored over the old currency; (ii) the new notes were perceived as easier to use; (iii) the new coins were perceived as burdensome to use and carry around; and(ii) a majority of Zambians did not use Mobile Money in the initial aftermath of the currency rebasement. The initial slow adoption of mobile money was influenced by (i) the limited “payment spaces” in which it could be used, (ii) lack of awareness, and (iii) unclear distinctions between online banking and mobile money for banked consumers. The majority of identified Mobile Money users in our study used it as a means to send remittances.

In the year and a half since the fieldwork was conducted, mobile money use has increased in Zambia, indicating that the accessibility of a more portable version of legal tender alone does not serve as a technology- adoption barrier.

With the introduction of mobile money in India beginning in 2010, we wanted to research empirical understandings about the role of mobile money in replacing cash among migrant workers in South India. We also wanted to understand the role of middlemen in this broad ecosystem. Lastly we wanted to understand whether the users feel a sense of trust when using mobile money. We find that on average, mobile money users' transfer of both money per month and emergency money as compared to non-mobile users was significantly higher. There was also greater interstate transfer of cash by mobile money users. Our regression results clearly show that mobile money users send about 64% more than non- mobile users. Also mobile money users send about 44% more emergency money than non-mobile users. Its usage also increases with age, education level, and marital status.

With the introduction of mobile money in India, we wanted to research the empirical understanding about its role in replacing cash amongst migrant and non-migrant workers in Chennai (Tamil Nadu) and Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh). We also wanted to understand the role of middlemen in this broad ecosystem. Lastly, we want to understand whether the poor trust mobile money.

This post-fieldwork report summarizes a series of findings and preliminary analyses from fieldwork conducted in the kingdom/village cluster of Mayong, Assam (Northeast India) from June 1, 2013 until May 30, 2014. The goal of this research project, which in part informs my (the co-PI’s) PhD dissertation, was to investigate ethnographically how an impoverished1 section of Assam’s multiethnic populace reckon, document, and symbolically manage the actions, agents, objects, and ends of their economic lives. In a word, this project is about how a people account—not only for finances, but also to each other in secretive and publicly shared modes. The overall framing of this study is that reckoning economic life is a cosmological practice in Mayong—it creates images of the whole world and its parts; and in attuning part and whole, it modifies the picture of what the whole is. The vitality of accounting is an index of the dynamisim of Mayongian society and the visions Mayongians have of their history and the universe they live in. Effectively, there is a tendency in Mayongian accounting: whatever is kept intentionally secret is often pushed into the open, toward becoming a publicly shared account.The findings and analyses included here are by no means exhuastive. This report is meant to provide a glimpse into how I am currently thinking through the research data. In what follows, I will lay out the project and provide some exemplifications that respond to the general research question: how and to what ends do Mayongians actually account?

PART TWO of TWO, IMTFI Blog: PART TWO: Financial Vocabularies, Accounting and Calculation

Final Report, Mobilizing Religion as Value Storage: Islamic Microfinance in Bangladesh as a Model for Poverty Alleviation: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2hj9r8mt

PART ONE of TWO, IMTFI Blog: Research Questions and the ‘Islam’ of Islamic Microfinance.

Final Report, Mobilizing Religion as Value Storage: Islamic Microfinance in Bangladesh as a Model for Poverty Alleviation: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2hj9r8mt

This blog post presents some of my research findings through a FarmVille inspired infographic. In it I compare the rules and features of the game to actual practices of savings, loan repayment and provision of government technical assistance for agriculture and farm improvement in the Philippines. FarmVille was introduced on Facebook in 2009 asan online farming simulation social network game that teaches players to use availableresources for generating maximum farm productivity. It requires the players to beinvolved in different farm management activities such as planting, plowing, growing and harvesting crops and trees, and raising livestock. FarmVille’s popularity soared onFacebook between 2009 and 2011 and appears to have contributed significantly to an awareness on aspects of farm management among online gamers all over the world.

This report presents gold-based life-story interviews with stakeholders in the silk industry of Karnataka, towards understanding how liberalisation policies have impacted gender relations and work vulnerability. The interviews, designed to complement a survey of production in the sector, have paid particular attention to the acquisition, ownership, and divestment of gold. Gold serves as a monetary marker that will be used to locate and track memories of financial situations and financial behavior over time.

Bangladesh, a deeply impoverished nation of nearly 160 million with the world’s fourth-largest Muslim population, has a rapidly growing Islamic finance industry, anchored by its oldest Islamic bank, the Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL). IBBL is one of Bangladesh’s largest banks, offering commercial and consumer financing, tremendously popular remittances servicesfor migrant workers, and an Islamic microfinance program for the rural poor, the Rural Development Scheme (RDS). Since its inception in 1983, the Islami Bank has described itself as a religious as well as financial institution dedicated to poverty alleviation—an identification often invoked by employees during our conversations. In addition to the regulatory, staffing andmonitoring structures to ensure the Shari’a compliance of IBBL’s operations, its expansion strategy, corporate culture, and the semiotics of its branding and marketing reinforce IBBL’s status in Bangladesh as an Islamic institution. My PhD dissertation is an ethnography of finance, Islam, and poverty that explores the theoretical registers of Islamic (micro)finance client experience and institutional management threaded through the money, policy, and influence connecting Saudi Arabia to the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka to a small-town slum tucked along the Bay of Bengal.

The relatively high financial exclusion ratios and the size of the information (undocumented) economy have been a source of concern for Nigerian and Ghanaian policy makers. The introduction and rapid growth of mobile telephony services after the deregulation of the telecommunications industry in the early 2000s witnessed a dramatic rise in teledensity ratios across West Africa. With access to mobile phones exceeding banks, the use of the mobile device as an economic tool to enhance financial inclusion has been pronounced by the regulatory licensing of mobile money operators and the introduction of a mobile money framework in Nigeria and more in-depth policy discussions about a mobile money framework in Ghana.

This study seeks to explore the utility of mobile money with a view to not only assess its application in the enhancement of financial inclusion, but also to: 1) help better tailor the current applications for poor end-users; 2) help in targeting specific unbanked poor end- users for specific existing or new mobile money products; 3) provide information which can be used by mobile money platform developers and providers to craft new, innovative and locally-tailored applications of mobile money; and 4) help identify specific cultural limitations that hinder the adoption and use of mobile money by the poorest segment of the population in both countries.