Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion

This research studies how recent developments in mobile banking are inscribed in and are contributing to the transformation of existing networks, practices and perspectives of social protection (in terms of help in times of need and provision for future scenarios) in two rural areas in Colombia. The question of how have rural families engaged in social protection, what are they doing now and what are their perspectives for the future become important in the context of Colombia where the majority population employed in the informal economy particularly in rural areas rely heavily on family networks. Two processes have particularly affected the dynamics of social protection in the areas (Montes de María and Putumayo) this research focuses on: the armed conflict with its impact on local economies and the displacement of families forced to reconfigure across different territories, and government programs such as conditional cash transfers that have brought these populations into the realms of formal banking, first through banking correspondents and now through mobile banking. Inspired by Dorothy Smith’s conception of the sociological endeavor, the aim of this research is to construct a map that would help different actors locate themselves in an actual context. The first stage of this research consists in a series of interviews and informal conversations with local functionaries and recipients of government transfers in which both their experiences with mobile banking and social protection will be discussed. In the second state, three families in each locale will be selected for more in-depth study where the researcher and family members will collectively reconstruct, with the help of social network methodologies, their practices of social protection and the role mobile banking is playing and can play in these evolving arrangements.