Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion

This paper presents an investigation of a pilot project that implemented a mobile payment platform in a poor community in Brazil. This project involved the creation of a network of organizations that includes a local microfinance institution, a large retail bank, a mobile phone operator, an international credit card company, and an acquirer, as well as small local merchants. The objective of this paper is to describe the process in which this platform was created and how it was maintained through time, considering the business objectives of the partners involved. Two conceptual approaches were combined for developing a theoretical understanding of this pilot project first to describe the process of inter-organizational network establishment and second to analyze its evolution during its first year of operation. The study points to the critical role played by governance processes, the environmental dynamics, the two dimensions of adoption (users and merchants) in mobile payments platforms, and how it can compromise the success of establishment and maintenance of such inter-organizational networks.