Mobile banking and financial inclusion : the regulatory lessons

Mobile banking is growing at a remarkable speed around the world. In the process it is creating considerable uncertainty about the appropriate regulatory response to this newly emerging service. This paper sets out a framework for considering the design of regulation of mobile banking. Since it lies at the interface between financial services and telecoms, mobile banking also raises competition policy and interoperability issues that are discussed in the paper. Finally, by unbundling payments services into its component parts, mobile banking provides important lessons for the design of financial regulation more generally in developed as well as developing economies.Banks&Banking Reform,Access to Finance,Emerging Markets,Debt Markets,Technology Industry

Mobile Payment in Emerging Markets

Mobile payments have been a key driver of socio-economic development in emerging markets. Factors such as advancements in technology, socioeconomic conditions, and the high penetration rate of mobile devices are driving m-payment development in certain emerging markets. Yet other factors are hindering further development. This department is part of a special issue on IT in Emerging Economies

Scenario planning with mobile payments in emerging markets

CEM

Past, present and future of mobile payments research: A literature review

The mobile payment services markets are currently under transition with a history of numerous tried and failed solutions, and a future of promising but yet uncertain possibilities with potential new technology innovations. At this point of the development, we take a look at the current state of the mobile payment services market from a literature review perspective. We review prior literature on mobile payments, analyze the various factors that impact mobile payment services markets, and suggest directions for future research in this still emerging field. To facilitate the analysis of literature, we propose a framework of four contingency and five competitive force factors, and organize the mobile payment research under the proposed framework. Consumer perspective of mobile payments as well as technical security and trust are best covered by contemporary research. The impacts of social and cultural factors on mobile payments, as well as comparisons between mobile and traditional payment services are entirely uninvestigated issues. Most of the factors outlined by the framework have been addressed by exploratory and early phase studies. </p

Banking sector stability, efficiency, and outreach in Kenya

Although Kenya's financial system is by far the largest and most developed in East Africa and its stability has improved significantly over the past years, many challenges remain. This paper assesses the stability, efficiency, and outreach of Kenya's banking system, usingaggregate, bank-level, and survey data. Banks'asset quality and liquidity positions have improved, making the system more resistant to shocks, and interest rate spreads have declined, in part due to reduction in the overhead costs of foreign banks. Outreach remains limited, but has improved in recent years, driven by mobile payments services in the domestic remittance market. Fostering a level regulatory playing field for all deposit-taking institutions is a key remaining challenge. Specifically, an effective but not overly burdensome framework for regulation and supervision of microfinance institutions and cooperatives is a priority. Maintaining an openness to new, and non-bank, providers of financial services, which has enabled the success of mobile payments, could also further outreach.Banks&Banking Reform,Access to Finance,Debt Markets,Emerging Markets,Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress

Why would microentrepreneurs continue using mobile payments? An entrepreneurial perspective with evidence from India

Over the past decade, business activities have advanced electronically with mobile phones emerging as a significant channel for commercial transactions. How consumers are embracing mobile payments has received major attention in the literature. We shift focus to the microentrepreneurs, including small merchants and informal retailers, who constitute a bulk of developing economy markets. With the recent popularity of mobile payments among microentrepreneurs due to the demands of the Covid-19 pandemic, we now enquire about its long-term continuity. To acknowledge the entrepreneurial mindset driving microentrepreneurs to continue using mobile payments, we draw from the Entrepreneurial Orientation framework (Lumpkin & Dess, 1996) and develop a model that captures entrepreneurial characteristics of the technology like autonomy, innovativeness, competitive externalities, and customer expectations. Using the findings from a survey of 208 microentrepreneurs operating from an urban marketplace in India, we propose how mobile payment can contribute to sustainable development through long-term financial inclusion

Understanding merchant adoption of m-payments in South Africa

Despite the proliferation of mobile communication technology and smartphone adoption, a number of barriers, most notably trust and security, and the lack of critical mass, have slowed the uptake of mobile payments (m-payments). Little is understood about the factors driving the success of novel, intermediating technologies such as m-payments, particularly in emerging markets. In this thesis, we empirically investigated the factors that affect the success of m-payments in Cape Town, from the merchant's perspective. The research model is based on the Perceived Characteristics of Innovation (PCI) instrument developed by Moore and Benbasat (1991) which measures an individual's perception of adopting m-payments. Our results found the main adoption drivers to be relative advantage, ease of use, results demonstrability, convenience, speed of transaction, and service provider brand value. The key barriers to adoption include cost as well as trust and security. Based on our findings, implications for practice and future studies are suggested

Mobile Payments In South Africa: Middle Income Earners\u27 Perspective

Developing countries in Africa tend to face many challenges when it comes to ICT adoption and use. This is partly due to their low income which makes it difficult to spend on ICTs and related innovations. However, with the proliferation of mobile technology and the newly increase of the middle class citizens who tend to be younger, better educated, and a keen adopter of new technologies; organizations are forced to find ways of understanding these customers better and find how best they can provide goods and services to this emerging class. South Africa, one of the sub-Saharan countries with the most advanced telecommunication network infrastructures of the emerging markets, has experienced an increase in middle class citizens and comparatively better smartphone penetration. With this in mind, one would imagine that South Africa would have been one of the leaders in mobile payments. However, adoption has been lower than most other sub-Saharan African countries. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine the factors that affect mobile payments in the South African context from perspective of the middle class individuals. Following a quantitative approach and collecting data via an online questionnaire, the findings show that trust, risk and habitual use were factors that significantly affected intention to adopt mobile payments by South African middle class citizens. The findings provide the financial services industry and providers of mobile commerce offering with a better understanding of what are the main customer concerns in South Africa from the middle income clientele perspective

Mobile payments (mPayments)- an exploratory study of emerging issues and future trends

With the growing momentum of wireless revolution and mCommerce explosion, it is evident that mobile devices are becoming a critical component of the new digital economy. As mobile markets continue to mature, being able to pay using the mobile handset will be key to the development of next generation services. The current market penetration of mobile phones in conjunction with the expected growth of mCommerce, offers high potential for mPayment growth over the next few years. When mobile phones are equipped with a device to protect personal information, the security level of an entire service, including the network, improves considerably. However, the mobile payments market today is typical of an emergent one, encumbered with an abundance of approaches and concepts that may not interoperate. In this paper, we have explored the broad range of available mPayment methods, emerging issues in standardization, security and some proposed/ existing solutions.<br /

Innovations in emerging markets: The case of mobile money

Mobile money is a financial innovation that provides transfers, payments, and other financial services at a low or zero cost to individuals in developing countries where banking and capital markets are deficient and financial inclusion is low. We use transaction costs and institutional theories to explain the growth and impact of mobile money. Having developed a new archival dataset that tracks mobile money deployment across 90 emerging economies during 16 years between 2000 and 2015, we address the question of relative economic impact of the banking and telecoms sectors in the provision of mobile money. We show that telecom groups and not banks are more likely to launch mobile money in countries where legal rights are weaker and credit information less prevalent. However, it is when mobile money is offered via a banking channel that the spillover effects on the economy are greater. Findings have significant implications for policy and strategy