This summary provides an overview of a report on opportunities for digital financial services in the cocoa value chain in Côte d'Ivoire. Digital financial services (DFS) like mobile money have significantly expanded financial inclusion in rural Côte d'Ivoire, with mobile money account penetration higher in rural (26%) than urban (22.6%) areas. The report analyzes financial behavior data from over 1,000 cocoa farmers, finding that while farmers have relatively high incomes, few have bank accounts. It identifies farmers' financial needs and how DFS could help by facilitating payments, savings, lending, insurance, and agricultural services. DFS may help address inefficiencies in the cash-based cocoa value chain and improve
Towards Financial Inclusion in the Caribbean - Mobile Payments SolutionRhea Yaw Ching
This document proposes a mobile payments solution to increase financial inclusion in the Caribbean. It begins by outlining the current state of limited access to financial services and infrastructure in the region. It then qualifies the opportunity, noting that over 60% of adults lack bank accounts while mobile phone penetration exceeds 100%. The proposed solution is a mobile financial services ecosystem that would allow convenient, affordable payments via SMS, smartphones and agents. It would offer services like domestic transfers, international remittances and bill payments. For it to succeed, private sector stakeholders must cooperate on distribution and risk-sharing, while governments facilitate regulation and funding to support social goals. Overcoming resistance to change from the status quo is seen as the biggest challenge.
This document discusses mobile payments security in Central and South America and its impact on profits, reputation, and customer loyalty. It notes that Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia lead the region in mobile adoption. While smartphones are rising, basic USSD-based services still play an important role for the unbanked. Case studies highlight successful P2P payments in Paraguay, Colombia's DaviPlata digital wallet platform, and growing mPOS usage. However, the document notes security remains a key issue for the financial industry as mobile payments rise in the region.
The document summarizes Ayodo Foundation's proposal to alleviate global poverty through increased financial inclusion and reduced remittance fees. Specifically, it proposes a model where migrant workers can transfer purchasing power, rather than cash, between countries using their mobile phones. This would allow recipients to access goods and services from participating local merchants. The goal is to divert a portion of the over $20 billion in annual remittance fees to better assist families and reduce poverty. A pilot program between Canada and the Philippines is suggested to demonstrate the concept.
Ericsson ConsumerLab: Mobile commerce in emerging marketsEricsson
This document summarizes a report by Ericsson ConsumerLab on attitudes toward mobile commerce (m-commerce) in emerging markets. The report is based on quantitative and qualitative research conducted between 2013-2014 including interviews with over 100 consumers and 47 merchants across 11 countries in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia.
Key findings from the research include:
1) Urbanization is accelerating in emerging markets as many move from rural to urban areas. However, the majority of workers remain in the informal economy and have unstable incomes.
2) Paying with cash is common due to its convenience but carries risks, whereas mobile financial services offer potential benefits like speed, reduced risk, and financial inclusion for the un
Summary_GSMA_State of the Industry 2015Swati Mehta
The document provides an overview and analysis of the state of the mobile money industry in 2015 based on a survey of 107 mobile money providers. Key findings include:
- Mobile money services have expanded to 64% of developing countries but growth is slowing, with only 13 new services launched in 2015.
- Total registered agents reached 3.2 million globally in 2015, though the active agent rate remains a challenge at 51.4%.
- 134 million accounts were considered active in the past 90 days as of June 2015, with West Africa seeing dramatic growth in active agents and accounts.
- Smartphones and internet access could enhance access but few have successfully leveraged this opportunity at scale so far.
The document discusses how mobile phones are transforming Africa. It describes how mobile phones have become essential devices across the continent, improving financial inclusion and helping work around infrastructure problems. Innovations like mobile money services have disrupted banking by allowing digital financial transactions without bank accounts. Mobile phones are also transforming agriculture, healthcare, and increasing transparency in politics. Entrepreneurs have created mobile applications that help farmers access market information, verify authenticity of medicines, and monitor political violence.
The document discusses how financial technology (FinTech) innovation, a focus on customers, and collaboration across the financial ecosystem can help address the "last mile" challenge of expanding access to financial services. It summarizes several case studies of organizations that have implemented digital financial services with these elements in mind. For example, using mobile phones as the primary delivery channel, understanding and addressing customer pain points to create frictionless services, taking a phased rollout approach, and establishing physical access points. It concludes that while technology enables solutions, addressing customer needs through collaboration is key to achieving last mile access.
Towards Financial Inclusion in the Caribbean - Mobile Payments SolutionRhea Yaw Ching
This document proposes a mobile payments solution to increase financial inclusion in the Caribbean. It begins by outlining the current state of limited access to financial services and infrastructure in the region. It then qualifies the opportunity, noting that over 60% of adults lack bank accounts while mobile phone penetration exceeds 100%. The proposed solution is a mobile financial services ecosystem that would allow convenient, affordable payments via SMS, smartphones and agents. It would offer services like domestic transfers, international remittances and bill payments. For it to succeed, private sector stakeholders must cooperate on distribution and risk-sharing, while governments facilitate regulation and funding to support social goals. Overcoming resistance to change from the status quo is seen as the biggest challenge.
This document discusses mobile payments security in Central and South America and its impact on profits, reputation, and customer loyalty. It notes that Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia lead the region in mobile adoption. While smartphones are rising, basic USSD-based services still play an important role for the unbanked. Case studies highlight successful P2P payments in Paraguay, Colombia's DaviPlata digital wallet platform, and growing mPOS usage. However, the document notes security remains a key issue for the financial industry as mobile payments rise in the region.
The document summarizes Ayodo Foundation's proposal to alleviate global poverty through increased financial inclusion and reduced remittance fees. Specifically, it proposes a model where migrant workers can transfer purchasing power, rather than cash, between countries using their mobile phones. This would allow recipients to access goods and services from participating local merchants. The goal is to divert a portion of the over $20 billion in annual remittance fees to better assist families and reduce poverty. A pilot program between Canada and the Philippines is suggested to demonstrate the concept.
Ericsson ConsumerLab: Mobile commerce in emerging marketsEricsson
This document summarizes a report by Ericsson ConsumerLab on attitudes toward mobile commerce (m-commerce) in emerging markets. The report is based on quantitative and qualitative research conducted between 2013-2014 including interviews with over 100 consumers and 47 merchants across 11 countries in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia.
Key findings from the research include:
1) Urbanization is accelerating in emerging markets as many move from rural to urban areas. However, the majority of workers remain in the informal economy and have unstable incomes.
2) Paying with cash is common due to its convenience but carries risks, whereas mobile financial services offer potential benefits like speed, reduced risk, and financial inclusion for the un
Summary_GSMA_State of the Industry 2015Swati Mehta
The document provides an overview and analysis of the state of the mobile money industry in 2015 based on a survey of 107 mobile money providers. Key findings include:
- Mobile money services have expanded to 64% of developing countries but growth is slowing, with only 13 new services launched in 2015.
- Total registered agents reached 3.2 million globally in 2015, though the active agent rate remains a challenge at 51.4%.
- 134 million accounts were considered active in the past 90 days as of June 2015, with West Africa seeing dramatic growth in active agents and accounts.
- Smartphones and internet access could enhance access but few have successfully leveraged this opportunity at scale so far.
The document discusses how mobile phones are transforming Africa. It describes how mobile phones have become essential devices across the continent, improving financial inclusion and helping work around infrastructure problems. Innovations like mobile money services have disrupted banking by allowing digital financial transactions without bank accounts. Mobile phones are also transforming agriculture, healthcare, and increasing transparency in politics. Entrepreneurs have created mobile applications that help farmers access market information, verify authenticity of medicines, and monitor political violence.
The document discusses how financial technology (FinTech) innovation, a focus on customers, and collaboration across the financial ecosystem can help address the "last mile" challenge of expanding access to financial services. It summarizes several case studies of organizations that have implemented digital financial services with these elements in mind. For example, using mobile phones as the primary delivery channel, understanding and addressing customer pain points to create frictionless services, taking a phased rollout approach, and establishing physical access points. It concludes that while technology enables solutions, addressing customer needs through collaboration is key to achieving last mile access.
Stone and Chalk is a Sydney FinTech community seeded by KPMG with participation from the majority of the Australian Banking community plus others
Moroku is keen to participate to grow the community and ourselves
The mobile money industry continues to grow with 219 services available across 84 countries by the end of 2013. While mobile money remains concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, services have expanded to other regions in recent years. There are now over 60 million active mobile money accounts globally, with 13 services having over 1 million active users each. However, only 29.9% of registered accounts are active on average, indicating that many services still face challenges in building scale. Mobile money revenues are significant for some large providers, while ecosystem transactions now represent 29% of total mobile money transaction value. The development of mobile insurance, credit and savings is extending financial inclusion, with 123 such services now live across the globe.
Mobile payment has grown rapidly in West Africa in recent years, enabled by increasing mobile phone adoption. However, several challenges remain:
1. Territorial coverage of mobile networks and agent networks remains inadequate, especially in rural areas.
2. Agent networks provide an important mode of distribution but remain limited in scale and sustainability.
3. Lack of interoperability between mobile operators limits the scope of mobile payment services.
4. The cost of implementing innovative solutions like online bill payment and government services is prohibitive for many West African governments.
5. Regulation of mobile financial services remains imprecise, which could limit further growth and innovation in the sector. Overcoming these challenges will be important to realize
This document provides an overview of mobile money services in India. It defines mobile money and describes its key characteristics, including using agents outside bank branches to deposit and withdraw funds and initiating transactions via mobile phones. Globally, there are 411 million mobile money accounts across 93 countries. The document outlines reasons for mobile money's potential success in India, including high mobile penetration, financial inclusion needs, and government initiatives. It lists some prominent Indian mobile wallet providers and payments banks. Finally, it discusses factors important for mobile money to succeed in India, such as digital and financial inclusion, awareness/education, regulatory reforms, and customer confidence.
Mobile banking has great potential to promote financial inclusion in Africa. By reducing geographic and cost barriers, mobile banking allows commercial banks to expand into new areas at low cost. Kenya and South Africa have been leaders in mobile banking, with services like M-Pesa in Kenya growing exponentially and bringing millions of unbanked individuals into the formal financial system. Partnerships between mobile operators, banks, and microfinance institutions can further expand access to affordable financial services across Africa through mobile phones.
International remittances the next big thing in mobile payments sep-2012Peerasak C.
The document discusses the potential for mobile payments to play a larger role in international remittances, which totaled over $483 billion in 2011. While the size of the market is attractive, mobile payments have so far played a modest role due to a lack of market concentration across many corridors, security concerns around money laundering, and established alternatives. Barriers include the need to negotiate regulations between many different countries and concerns that criminal networks may exploit mobile payment systems.
This document is the foreword to the 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Thailand Report. It discusses how entrepreneurship plays a critical role in economic development, particularly as ASEAN economic integration approaches. This year's GEM Thailand Report compares entrepreneurship in Thailand to other ASEAN and East Asian countries. It is distributed to provide valuable data and insights to help inform decision making. The report examines factors influencing entrepreneurship, links between entrepreneurship and economic performance, and the effects on growth at different development stages.
O Haiti está passando por tempos difíceis, com problemas de pobreza, violência e instabilidade política. A economia está em ruínas e a ajuda internacional não tem sido suficiente para resolver os problemas sistêmicos do país. O futuro do Haiti permanece incerto sem reformas significativas e investimentos a longo prazo.
El documento habla sobre la unidad 11 de dibujo a mano alzada en el Colegio Nacional Nicolás Esguerra, la cual cubre temas como dibujo inteligente usando medios como pinceles, plumas caligráficas y diferentes niveles de presión.
This document summarizes the design of a hydrometallurgical copper processing plant aimed at processing 15 tons of copper oxide ore per day. The plant utilizes a comminution circuit to grind the ore to an optimal size, followed by leaching to extract the copper. Solid-liquid separation then purifies the solution, which undergoes solvent extraction and electrowinning to produce copper cathodes. Laboratory experiments and theoretical calculations were used to design and size the equipment. The plant is estimated to recover over 80% of the copper at a capital cost of $1.5 million and produce around 583 tons of copper annually, making it a viable small-scale option. Recommendations include using design software and specialized engineers to
The Diversity Initiative is a comprehensive campaign by Youth Discovery Inc meant to serve minority and low-income students in Cache Valley. It consists of four parallel campaigns targeting students, parents, the community, and educators. The goals are to close achievement gaps, increase graduation rates, and encourage greater enrollment in post-secondary education. The campaigns involve establishing new programs and expanding existing ones to provide academic support, guidance, and educational resources to students, parenting workshops and computer labs for parents, training and fundraising for educators, and identifying community organizations able to support these efforts.
The document discusses various vitamins including their sources, functions and deficiencies. It covers both fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) and water soluble vitamins (B vitamins, C). Key points include: vitamins are organic compounds required for health; 13 vitamins are essential for humans; vitamin deficiencies can be primary or secondary; and both deficiencies and toxicities of different vitamins can impact health.
Sara Stinson has over 15 years of experience in customer service, logistics, safety training, and administration. She currently works at Ford Motor Company where she schedules appointments, handles customer inquiries, and performs various marketing duties. Previously, she held roles as a service coordinator, office administrator, and safety instructor. She has extensive experience in customer support, scheduling, inventory management, and training.
The document reports the results of surveys about an opening scene from a horror film. It shows percentages of respondents who liked or engaged with different elements of the clip like the titles, music, tension/suspense built, location, villain's identity, choice of weapon, female costume. The majority found the clip effective in building tension and engaging them to want to watch more. Some detailed comments praised the music, location, vulnerability created by the costume, and glimpses into the villain's actions.
This document contains a resume for Hafiz Muhammad Ishfaq. Some key points:
- Ishfaq is an Occupational Therapist and Senior Lecturer currently working at Helping Hands Institute of Rehabilitation Sciences in Mansehra.
- He has a B.S. in Occupational Therapy and a Master's in Public Health.
- Ishfaq has work experience in rehabilitation centers including the Pakistan Society for the Rehabilitation of Disabled in Lahore.
- He has professional certificates in areas like wrist/hand therapy and sensory integration therapy.
The Youth Discovery Latino Initiative is a nonprofit organization that aims to increase educational and career opportunities for Latino and underserved students and their families through a K-16 pathway program. The initiative addresses challenges such as low high school graduation and post-secondary education completion rates among Latino youth. It implements various campaigns targeted at students, parents, community members, and educators to close achievement gaps, increase involvement and awareness, and prepare youth for a variety of careers.
The Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) is a four-year medical school with campuses in Virginia, South Carolina, and Alabama that focuses on training physicians to serve rural and underserved communities. The intern shadowed physicians and helped provide care at various free clinics around Spartanburg and Cherokee Counties in South Carolina that serve the uninsured and medically underserved. The intern also tested a patient database, helped plan enrichment programs for high school students, and conducted research on the health needs of the local communities. Through this experience, the intern gained medical knowledge and confidence working in healthcare settings while also developing a passion for serving underserved populations.
Stone and Chalk is a Sydney FinTech community seeded by KPMG with participation from the majority of the Australian Banking community plus others
Moroku is keen to participate to grow the community and ourselves
The mobile money industry continues to grow with 219 services available across 84 countries by the end of 2013. While mobile money remains concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, services have expanded to other regions in recent years. There are now over 60 million active mobile money accounts globally, with 13 services having over 1 million active users each. However, only 29.9% of registered accounts are active on average, indicating that many services still face challenges in building scale. Mobile money revenues are significant for some large providers, while ecosystem transactions now represent 29% of total mobile money transaction value. The development of mobile insurance, credit and savings is extending financial inclusion, with 123 such services now live across the globe.
Mobile payment has grown rapidly in West Africa in recent years, enabled by increasing mobile phone adoption. However, several challenges remain:
1. Territorial coverage of mobile networks and agent networks remains inadequate, especially in rural areas.
2. Agent networks provide an important mode of distribution but remain limited in scale and sustainability.
3. Lack of interoperability between mobile operators limits the scope of mobile payment services.
4. The cost of implementing innovative solutions like online bill payment and government services is prohibitive for many West African governments.
5. Regulation of mobile financial services remains imprecise, which could limit further growth and innovation in the sector. Overcoming these challenges will be important to realize
This document provides an overview of mobile money services in India. It defines mobile money and describes its key characteristics, including using agents outside bank branches to deposit and withdraw funds and initiating transactions via mobile phones. Globally, there are 411 million mobile money accounts across 93 countries. The document outlines reasons for mobile money's potential success in India, including high mobile penetration, financial inclusion needs, and government initiatives. It lists some prominent Indian mobile wallet providers and payments banks. Finally, it discusses factors important for mobile money to succeed in India, such as digital and financial inclusion, awareness/education, regulatory reforms, and customer confidence.
Mobile banking has great potential to promote financial inclusion in Africa. By reducing geographic and cost barriers, mobile banking allows commercial banks to expand into new areas at low cost. Kenya and South Africa have been leaders in mobile banking, with services like M-Pesa in Kenya growing exponentially and bringing millions of unbanked individuals into the formal financial system. Partnerships between mobile operators, banks, and microfinance institutions can further expand access to affordable financial services across Africa through mobile phones.
International remittances the next big thing in mobile payments sep-2012Peerasak C.
The document discusses the potential for mobile payments to play a larger role in international remittances, which totaled over $483 billion in 2011. While the size of the market is attractive, mobile payments have so far played a modest role due to a lack of market concentration across many corridors, security concerns around money laundering, and established alternatives. Barriers include the need to negotiate regulations between many different countries and concerns that criminal networks may exploit mobile payment systems.
This document is the foreword to the 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Thailand Report. It discusses how entrepreneurship plays a critical role in economic development, particularly as ASEAN economic integration approaches. This year's GEM Thailand Report compares entrepreneurship in Thailand to other ASEAN and East Asian countries. It is distributed to provide valuable data and insights to help inform decision making. The report examines factors influencing entrepreneurship, links between entrepreneurship and economic performance, and the effects on growth at different development stages.
O Haiti está passando por tempos difíceis, com problemas de pobreza, violência e instabilidade política. A economia está em ruínas e a ajuda internacional não tem sido suficiente para resolver os problemas sistêmicos do país. O futuro do Haiti permanece incerto sem reformas significativas e investimentos a longo prazo.
El documento habla sobre la unidad 11 de dibujo a mano alzada en el Colegio Nacional Nicolás Esguerra, la cual cubre temas como dibujo inteligente usando medios como pinceles, plumas caligráficas y diferentes niveles de presión.
This document summarizes the design of a hydrometallurgical copper processing plant aimed at processing 15 tons of copper oxide ore per day. The plant utilizes a comminution circuit to grind the ore to an optimal size, followed by leaching to extract the copper. Solid-liquid separation then purifies the solution, which undergoes solvent extraction and electrowinning to produce copper cathodes. Laboratory experiments and theoretical calculations were used to design and size the equipment. The plant is estimated to recover over 80% of the copper at a capital cost of $1.5 million and produce around 583 tons of copper annually, making it a viable small-scale option. Recommendations include using design software and specialized engineers to
The Diversity Initiative is a comprehensive campaign by Youth Discovery Inc meant to serve minority and low-income students in Cache Valley. It consists of four parallel campaigns targeting students, parents, the community, and educators. The goals are to close achievement gaps, increase graduation rates, and encourage greater enrollment in post-secondary education. The campaigns involve establishing new programs and expanding existing ones to provide academic support, guidance, and educational resources to students, parenting workshops and computer labs for parents, training and fundraising for educators, and identifying community organizations able to support these efforts.
The document discusses various vitamins including their sources, functions and deficiencies. It covers both fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) and water soluble vitamins (B vitamins, C). Key points include: vitamins are organic compounds required for health; 13 vitamins are essential for humans; vitamin deficiencies can be primary or secondary; and both deficiencies and toxicities of different vitamins can impact health.
Sara Stinson has over 15 years of experience in customer service, logistics, safety training, and administration. She currently works at Ford Motor Company where she schedules appointments, handles customer inquiries, and performs various marketing duties. Previously, she held roles as a service coordinator, office administrator, and safety instructor. She has extensive experience in customer support, scheduling, inventory management, and training.
The document reports the results of surveys about an opening scene from a horror film. It shows percentages of respondents who liked or engaged with different elements of the clip like the titles, music, tension/suspense built, location, villain's identity, choice of weapon, female costume. The majority found the clip effective in building tension and engaging them to want to watch more. Some detailed comments praised the music, location, vulnerability created by the costume, and glimpses into the villain's actions.
This document contains a resume for Hafiz Muhammad Ishfaq. Some key points:
- Ishfaq is an Occupational Therapist and Senior Lecturer currently working at Helping Hands Institute of Rehabilitation Sciences in Mansehra.
- He has a B.S. in Occupational Therapy and a Master's in Public Health.
- Ishfaq has work experience in rehabilitation centers including the Pakistan Society for the Rehabilitation of Disabled in Lahore.
- He has professional certificates in areas like wrist/hand therapy and sensory integration therapy.
The Youth Discovery Latino Initiative is a nonprofit organization that aims to increase educational and career opportunities for Latino and underserved students and their families through a K-16 pathway program. The initiative addresses challenges such as low high school graduation and post-secondary education completion rates among Latino youth. It implements various campaigns targeted at students, parents, community members, and educators to close achievement gaps, increase involvement and awareness, and prepare youth for a variety of careers.
The Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) is a four-year medical school with campuses in Virginia, South Carolina, and Alabama that focuses on training physicians to serve rural and underserved communities. The intern shadowed physicians and helped provide care at various free clinics around Spartanburg and Cherokee Counties in South Carolina that serve the uninsured and medically underserved. The intern also tested a patient database, helped plan enrichment programs for high school students, and conducted research on the health needs of the local communities. Through this experience, the intern gained medical knowledge and confidence working in healthcare settings while also developing a passion for serving underserved populations.
This document contains a summary of Sandip S. Ganguly's professional experience and qualifications. He has over 26 years of experience in healthcare field sales management, including strategic planning, sales operations, marketing operations, and business development. Currently he works as a Zonal Sales Manager for Gujarat and Mumbai at Anglo French Drugs & Industries Ltd. He holds a B.Com from Gujarat University and has held several sales and marketing roles at major pharmaceutical companies across India.
This document contains the resume of Malik Ishfaq, an Occupational Therapist and Senior Lecturer. It includes his personal details, qualifications, work experience, professional certificates, computer skills, and extracurricular activities. His objective is to apply his knowledge and experience to enhance his career and the growth of the organization. He has over 5 years of experience working in various hospitals and organizations in Lahore, including Children's Hospital.
This resume is for Malayarasan M, an Indian national born in 1989 with over 3 years of experience as a planning engineer. He has worked on electrical substation projects in Qatar and has experience using Primavera P6 and MS Project. His responsibilities as a planning engineer include creating schedules and resource plans, establishing budgets and cash flows, and generating regular progress reports. He has also worked on SAP CMMS systems, involving tasks like data collection and cleaning, document management, and maintenance of plant equipment hierarchies.
A letter from Dr. Moscato, a Haitian physicist with a PhDD, requests help finding a programmer. The letter contains random characters and is addressed to "Bitch" rather than a name.
This CV provides biographical and professional details about Muhammad Ismail. It summarizes his educational background which includes a Bachelor of Law degree and a postgraduate degree in Economics. It then outlines his extensive career in law enforcement spanning over 30 years, including roles in operational policing, financial crime investigation, police training, and security work. It also notes his experience working with the United Nations and an international NGO.
The document discusses drivers of inactivity in mobile banking and digital financial services in Côte d'Ivoire. It finds that nearly half of customers have irregular incomes and do not need to consistently use their accounts. Over a quarter are unaware of benefits compared to cash. Over 15% cite costs being too high as mobile money tariffs are higher in Côte d'Ivoire than other African countries. The document recommends reducing costs, making services more relevant with savings/loans, and improving agent distribution and education on benefits.
The document provides guidance on using digital financial services to address challenges smallholder farmers face in managing their farms as businesses. It presents an analytical framework to identify specific challenges in agricultural value chains that can be addressed by improved payments or financial services, and corresponding digital financial services solutions. The goal is to improve value chains' ability to increase farmer incomes and access to financial services, ultimately moving closer to objectives of inclusive agricultural growth and improved nutrition.
This document discusses innovative models for expanding financial access and inclusion around the world. It notes that over 50 countries have set targets for increasing access and mentions examples like Alibaba in China and M-Pesa in Kenya that focus on small business finance and mobile payments. The World Bank President has stated the goal of achieving universal financial access by 2020 using new technologies and business models. The initial point of access for many is receiving wages or payments electronically through means like mobile wallets or bank accounts. Expanding access to regulated bank accounts is an important next step towards full financial inclusion and its benefits.
This document discusses innovative models for expanding financial access and inclusion around the world. It notes that over 50 countries have set targets for increasing access and mentions examples like Alibaba in China and M-Pesa and Equity Bank in Kenya. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has stated that universal financial access could be achievable by 2020 thanks to new technologies and business models. The initial point of access for many is receiving wages or payments electronically. Expanding access to bank accounts is an important next step towards full financial inclusion.
The document discusses innovative models that are expanding financial access through transformational business models like Alibaba in China and M-Pesa in Kenya. It also discusses the World Bank's goal of achieving universal financial access by 2020 through new technologies and business models. However, it notes that simply improving access to financial services is only a first step, and that bank accounts are important for full financial inclusion and access to savings, credit, and insurance. It discusses lessons from pilots on making low-income bank accounts viable and sustainable for banks through simplified products, alternative access points, and affordable pricing. Private sector buy-in is seen as key to achieving financial inclusion targets.
The document discusses innovative models that are expanding financial access through transformational business models like Alibaba in China and M-Pesa in Kenya. It also discusses the World Bank's goal of achieving universal financial access by 2020 through new technologies and business models. However, it notes that simply improving access to financial services is only a first step, and that savings accounts are important for reaching financial inclusion and reducing poverty through access to savings, credit, and insurance. It also discusses the need to design affordable products and engage the private sector to ensure targets for financial inclusion are achieved.
This document provides an overview and analysis of instant payment systems (IPS) in Africa. It begins with an introduction by the CEO of AfricaNenda highlighting the importance of digital payments for financial inclusion in Africa. The document then covers the IPS landscape in Africa, evolving digital payment customer behavior, barriers to and opportunities for IPS inclusivity, and future perspectives on IPS development and trends. It includes annexes with case studies of four IPS schemes, a list of consulted stakeholders, landscaping data tables, and details on the consumer research methodology. The overall aim is to inform stakeholders about IPS in Africa and support evidence-based policymaking and investment decisions regarding digital financial services on the continent.
This document provides an overview and introduction to the State of Instant and Inclusive Payment Systems in Africa 2022 report. It discusses that the report aims to inform public and private sector players about developments in instant payment systems in Africa, including an assessment of inclusivity. It notes that currently most systems are geared toward limited financial institutions and transaction values. The introduction emphasizes that digital financial inclusion is key to supporting Africa's development, and that collaboration across sectors is needed to build inclusive payment systems that meet people's needs.
The document provides an overview of the fintech industry in the Philippines in 2020. It notes that the Philippines has a population of over 100 million, with over half owning smartphones. The fintech sector in the Philippines was one of the few bright spots during an economic contraction due to the COVID-19 pandemic, experiencing exponential growth. The report serves as an essential reference on the development of fintech in the Philippines during this landmark period.
Technical Report of ITU Focus Group on Digital Financial Services : Bulk Payments and the DFSs Ecosystem
Written by Bennett Gordon, Carol Coye Benson, Carolina Trivelli, Daniel
Radcliffe, Abi Jagun, Mireya Almazán, Matt Homer, Toru Mino, Charles Niehaus, Satwik Seshasai,
Michael Goldfarb, Michael Faye, Niyi Ajao, and Quang Nguyen
Government-to-person (G2P) and employer-to-person payments of all sorts, often referred to as “bulk
payments”, are seen by many as key enablers for the growth of the digital financial services (DFS)
ecosystem. In this paper, we examine ways in which bulk payments have been made in the past and
look at ways in which this has improved over recent years. We also analyse the remaining challenges
which have stymied bulk payment rollouts in many countries.
This demand-side diagnostic study aims to gauge the end-user experience in adopting cashless modes (including cheques) along with the barriers (behavioral and functional) they faced in uptake and usage of cashless solutions.
The Singapore FinTech Consortium - Introduction to Financial Inclusion in Sou...FinTech Consortium
In recent years FinTech, has grown tremendously and is making its presence felt across the globe. The Singapore FinTech Consortium presents our slide deck: Introduction to Financial Inclusion in Southeast Asia to give you a preview of our research in the Southeast Asian landscape.
If you are keen to learn about P2P Lending, please view our slide deck at:
http://www.slideshare.net/SGFinTech/singapore-fin-tech-consortium-intro-to-p2p-lending
If you would like to receive a pdf copy of any of our slide decks, please drop us an email at info@singaporefintech.com and we'll be happy to oblige. For more information about us and our service offerings, please visit our company website at www.singaporefintech.com.
Financial Inclusion: Landscape and ChallengesJohnnyRizq
There are 2.5 billion unbanked adults around the world, mainly in developing economies. Financial inclusion is important because the lack of access to formal financial services limits the ability of poor communities to thrive economically, and also entails greater risks of fraud and theft. This presentation gives an overview of the status of financial inclusion, what it means, and how new technologies such as mobile money services could help give poor people in remote areas better access to reliable financial services.
Conozca el resumen "Aceleradores a un mundo inclusivo en un ecosistema de Pagos digitales", en el siguiente articulo podrá observar la brecha de los 25 países en los que la digitalización ha tenido un gran impacto y revela 10 pasos o aceleradores que los gobiernos y las empresas pueden tomar para construir las economías digitales.
Digital finance has the potential to significantly increase financial inclusion by providing affordable access to banking services through digital platforms like mobile phones. While over 1.7 billion adults globally remain unbanked, digital financial services have expanded access to finance in developing countries by lowering costs and allowing remote transactions. However, the impact of greater digital finance adoption on financial stability, especially during economic downturns, remains unclear and requires further examination.
This document discusses a study examining the determinants and intensity of use of mobile phone-based money transfer services among smallholder farmers in Kenya. The study finds that education level, distance to commercial banks, membership in farmer organizations, and access to physical and financial assets influence whether farmers use these money transfer services. The intensity of use, or number of transactions, is also conditioned by various socioeconomic factors. The study uses logistic and count regression models to analyze the factors affecting use and frequency of use of these important new financial services for smallholder agriculture.
Unsgsa thoughts on financial inclusion in post2015 development 2013 Dr Lendy Spires
The document discusses financial inclusion and its importance for development. It notes that 2.5 billion adults globally lack access to formal financial services, which disproportionately impacts the poor and those in emerging/developing countries. Financial inclusion, through universal access to banking and other services, can help lift people out of poverty and support small businesses and economic growth. Recent innovations in technology and mobile banking have helped make financial inclusion a growing reality and priority for policymakers, who are establishing national strategies and targets to expand access and usage of financial services.
This is a presentation by Paschal Anosike, Director, Centre for African Entrepreneurship and Leadership (CAEL), University of Wolverhampton, UK, at the 3rd Annual East Africa Finance Summit
This document discusses microfinance in Cambodia, providing statistics on the population, number of microfinance institutions (MFIs), borrowers, and depositors. It outlines the phases of microfinance development and notes that while MFIs originally shared social missions, they now focus more on commercialization. The document identifies several issues and challenges facing MFIs, including legal limitations, high funding costs, multiple borrowing, lack of credit assessments for farmers, and difficulties retaining rural staff. It concludes that allowing MFIs to offer more products and reducing funding costs could help them better serve clients and generate further growth in the sector.
Digital Financial Services for Cocoa Farmers in Côte d'IvoireCGAP
The document summarizes a project by Advans Côte d'Ivoire to develop a digital financial services solution for cocoa farmers in Côte d'Ivoire. It conducted a feasibility study which found farmers and cooperatives were interested in branchless banking. It then developed a USSD-based solution allowing farmers to save a portion of their cocoa payments digitally and withdraw cash. Over 7,000 farmers enrolled, with 2,770 making deposits. Key challenges included lack of USSD aggregators, registration difficulties, and literacy issues. Lessons included the need for training, USSD was essential, adaptive pricing, effective partnerships, and a progressive rollout approach.
Similar to IFC CDI Cocoa report ENGLISH FINAL FOR WEB 10 JUNE 2016 (20)
Digital Financial Services for Cocoa Farmers in Côte d'Ivoire
IFC CDI Cocoa report ENGLISH FINAL FOR WEB 10 JUNE 2016
1. Opportunities for Digital
Financial Services in the
Cocoa Value Chain
CÔTE D’IVOIRE
Insights from New Data
By Susie Lonie, Meritxell Martinez, Rita Oulai, Christopher Tullis
2. Acknowledgement
The team would like to thank Cargill Côte d’Ivoire, specifically Jean Marie Delon, Augustin Ringo, Gildas Loukou and Simon
Nango, for their help in structuring the survey underlying this research and facilitating interviews with Cargill farmers.
The authors would also like to acknowledge the support of Bakary Yéo, Carole Kanga, and Ange Thibaut Yaon from Société
Ivoirienne de Banque.
3. Opportunities for Digital Financial
Services in the Cocoa Value Chain
in Côte d’Ivoire
Insights from New Data
Contents
Executive Summary 2
Introduction 3
DFS drive financial inclusion in rural Côte d’Ivoire 5
Are Ivoirian cocoa farmers financially included? 7
What are cocoa farmers’ specific financial needs? 12
What could DFS do for farmers? 18
Conclusions 22
Annexes 24
4. 2
Managing money can be particularly challenging for farmers since they receive the majority of their income during the harvest
and this needs to cover their expenses for the rest of the year. To understand better the farmers’ cash flow challenges and the
ways that digital financial services could help alleviate some of the burden, IFC has undertaken research into the financial lives
of cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire. The World Bank Group is committed to enabling the financial inclusion of one billion people
by 2020. Helping cocoa farmers accessing digital accounts is part of meeting that global goal.
Most cocoa farmers in this study had relatively high annual incomes, well above the statutory minimum wage, but very few
(six percent) had bank accounts. The main reason for this was neither access to nor the cost of banking, but the perception
that“banks are not for them”. Most cocoa farmers appear to see banks as“for the rich” and thus not a relevant option for them.
However, the various DFS offered by the Ivoirian mobile network operators1
appear not to have such constraints, and they have
a high level of adoption (53 percent) among cocoa farmers. The DFS sector in Côte d’Ivoire is successful and continues to grow:
and interestingly, usage of DFS in rural areas (26.0 percent) is even higher than in the cities (22.6 percent).
Cocoa farmers receive the majority of their income during the main harvest, supplemented by a smaller amount in the
secondary harvest. This money has to cover all expenses throughout the year, including not only regular living expenses but
also planned irregular expenses as well as any unexpected financial shocks. Some farmers are better than others at stretching
income across the year, and, notably, this financial acumen does not appear to be related to the amount that they actually
earn. We found that farmers who save money, either formally or informally, are better able to feed their families throughout
the year than those who do not save, irrespective of income.
A substantial minority of farmers save (35 percent), but the most common ways to do so are informal storage of money at
home (36 percent) or in simple mobile money accounts operated by an MNO (20 percent). Only 20 percent of farmers had a
remunerated savings account at a bank or other financial institution. Some farmers reported borrowing money (15 percent),
but, as with savings, this is done mainly informally, from friends and family (54 percent of borrowers), with only 11 percent of
borrowers using a financial institution. These loans are more likely to be used to help with emergencies and regular household
expenses (70 percent) than for planned events such as buying agricultural inputs (7 percent) or school fees (15 percent).
It is clear that encouraging good financial practices, by providing easily accessible remunerated savings, and enabling the
associated credit scoring to support formal lending, would be of great benefit to many cocoa farmers. These services are
more likely to have high adoption levels if they are delivered by DFS, because of convenience, acceptance, and the current
widespread usage of DFS by farmers for more basic transactions. Farmers’ willingness to try new kinds of financial services as
alternatives to cash was well demonstrated, with an overwhelming majority (73 percent) responding that they would like it if
their cooperative paid them for the harvest digitally.
There are several types of DFS that may be used to service cocoa farmers’ latent demand for financial services, for example
by expanding the range of services offered by mobile money providers (possibly in partnership with banks or microfinance
institutions). These partnerships are being promoted by the Government of Côte d’Ivoire in other sectors such as school-fee
payments.2
There is also an obvious opportunity for formal financial institutions to introduce agent banking services and
suitable entry-level accounts to penetrate rural areas.
1
The most popular DFS in Côte d’Ivoire are Orange Money, MTN Mobile Money and Flooz (Moov), all simple mobile money services.
2
For more information on school payments via mobile money see http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/programme/mobile-
money/paying-school-fees-with-mobile-money-in-cote-divoire
Executive Summary
5. Opportunities for Digital Financial Services in the Cocoa Value Chain in Côte d’Ivoire 3
Côte d’Ivoire has the world’s largest cocoa sector, producing over 1.4 million metric tons of raw cocoa per year, accounting for 32
percent of world production.3
These production volumes multiplied by the minimum farmer price of 1,000 CFA francs ($1.7) per
kilogram for the 2015/16 harvest could result in $2.3 billion of harvest income paid directly to cocoa farmers.
Despite the large sums involved, nearly all of these payments are made in cash. Cash payments pose a number of problems for
farmers. Harvest payments often arrive late – due to the complex logistics of cash-based payments – and it is not uncommon
for the amount farmers receive to be somewhat below market value due to high commissions taken by chains of intermediary
middlemen. Even if these middlemen do not take an outsized cut of farmers’ payments, the cash is still subject to significant
risk of theft whilst in transport.4
These factors mean that the costs of transporting cash are very high. In Uganda, where risks
are similar, one analysis found that agricultural businesses were spending about 10 percent of annual operating budget on
covering losses – from theft or fraud—and expenses related to insuring, securing, and transporting cash.5
Cognizant of these costs and inefficiencies, many actors in the cocoa value chain are exploring alternatives. One such
alternative is paying farmers through DFS. Taking advantage of recent technological developments, DFS can be used to enable
a full suite of financial services to rural and farmer communities through mobile, card-based, and other e-commerce products
that can be accessed through agent networks in rural areas. This research focuses specifically on mobile money accounts and
discusses, first, how these have already expanded financial inclusion in Côte d’Ivoire and, secondly, how mobile money could
help deliver products to cocoa farmers that meet their needs.
Extending the use of DFS for rural and agriculture purposes could bring many benefits to the entire value chain and to the
daily lives of farmers. Once a DFS ecosystem becomes well developed, DFS platforms could be used to link farmers with input
suppliers and agricultural buyers, facilitating transactions between all three. Some of the more basic services that DFS could
provide to farmers include faster payments for harvest and easier access to savings and lending products. Eventually, DFS
could be used to facilitate the provision of crop insurance to farmers, helping them not only to manage risk and protect their
investments but decreasing credit risk to lenders and expanding access to credit. Mobile technology can also be harnessed to
provide agricultural-extension services, sending farmers information and reminders on best practices, weather forecasts, and
harvest calendars, as well as putting them in contact with horticulturalists. Additionally, at the value-chain level, the entire
distribution network could be improved through e-warehousing, transportation management, and better traceability of
produce or payments (see chart in Annex 1 for details of the services that could eventually be offered).
Although DFS offers an array of promising new technologies with high potential to alleviate longstanding problems in rural
finance, there is little data on the actual demand for these new services among potential users. What data does exist often
remains siloed or inaccessible,6
leaving decision-makers with little indication of how to prioritize product innovation and
marketing efforts. The limited data we do have suggests that demand for DFS can be highly context dependent: what can
work in an environment like Kenya where DFS is well established might not be appropriate in a context that differs in terms of
3
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2013), FAOSTAT database. Latest available data.
4
Côte d’Ivoire’s recent civil war ended in 2011, and although the official post-conflict disarmament program was declared a success and
brought to a close in 2015, arms still remain in the country. Rinaldo Depagne (2015),“Côte d’Ivoire: The Illusion of Stability,” International
Crisis Group, Brussels, Belgium.
http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/africa/west-africa/cote-divoire/op-eds/depagne-cote-d-ivoire-the-illusion-of-stability.aspx
5
http://www.cgap.org/blog/digitizing-agriculture-value-chains-story-so-far
6
Xavier Martín Palomas (2014),“Filling Data Gaps in Smallholder Finance,” CGAP Blog, World Bank Group, Washington, DC.
http://www.cgap.org/blog/filling-data-gaps-smallholder-finance
Introduction
6. 4
mobile money adoption rates, literacy rates,7
or overall trust in the financial sector (perhaps due to a history of bank failures).
In the agricultural context, different crops and value chains also provide different challenges.
In many ways, Côte d’Ivoire – with over 100 percent mobile phone penetration8
and 53 percent of all mobile money
transactions in the entire WAEMU9
– provides a favorable environment for using DFS to promote financial inclusion. Against
that background, this study had two key aims. The first was to diagnose farmers’ current financial needs and identify demand
for financial services – including any sources of latent demand – by looking at data on current financial behavior. The second
aim was to explore ways in which DFS might be used to address some of those needs.
This study is based on a sample of 1,149 smallholder cocoa farmers who are members of six agricultural cooperatives in central
Côte d’Ivoire (for details on the sampling strategy, seeAnnexes 2 and 3). Farmers in the sample were interviewed with a detailed
questionnaire that assessed their financial needs and behavior. While not representative of all Ivoirian cocoa farmers, this
sample provides a rich and detailed snapshot of farmers’ individual financial behavior and demand for financial services.
The study is a knowledge product of the Partnership for Financial Inclusion, a joint initiative of IFC and The MasterCard
Foundation to expand microfinance and advance digital financial services in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is organized as follows:
The first section reviews the financial inclusion landscape in Côte d’Ivoire, revealing that DFS has unusually high penetration
in rural areas. The second section analyzes the specific financial behavior of cocoa farmers based on new data collected by IFC,
and is followed by a third section presenting a framework for how DFS could help improve farmers’ lives. The report concludes
with a call to stakeholders to keep piloting and innovating with products and payment channels that cater to the financial
needs of rural communities in Côte d’Ivoire and beyond.
7
Low literacy in the service-interface language is widely considered to be a key barrier to adoption of mobile money services. Claire
Scharwatt et al. (2014),“2014 State of the Industry: Mobile Financial Services for the Unbanked,” GSMA, London, UK.
8
The World Bank, World Development Indicators (2014).
9
BCEAO (2014),“Situation des services financiers via la téléphonie mobile dans l’UEMOA.”
7. Opportunities for Digital Financial Services in the Cocoa Value Chain in Côte d’Ivoire 5
Although the financial access landscape in Côte d’Ivoire has been improving in recent years, the country still lags behind much
of Sub-SaharanAfrica in terms of financial inclusion.According to theWorld Bank, in 2014 some 29 percent of adults in SSA had
an account with a bank or other formal financial institution, up from 24 percent in 2011.10
In Côte d’Ivoire, the figure is much
lower, with only 15 percent of adults having a formal account in 2014, just about half of the SSA average and an increase of only
1.7 percent from 2011.11
Côte d’Ivoire thus lags far behind both in terms of the rate of formal financial inclusion and the growth
rate of the formal financial sector (even as it remains one of the best performing economies in the WAEMU region).
Given this recent stagnation in the rate of formal financial inclusion in Côte d’Ivoire, the key driver of change is digital financial
services provided in partnerships between banks and mobile network operators. The increase in mobile phone penetration (to
109 percent in 201512
) combined with low access to formal financial institutions has proved fertile ground for mobile money
account expansion.
10
The World Bank, Global Findex database (2014). Latest available data.
11
The trend in financial inclusion over time is difficult to track for Côte d’Ivoire, since the political crisis prevented the Global Findex team from
collecting data in 2011. The 2011 data referenced is from the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO).
12
Penetration rates in excess of 100 percent indicate that some people have more than one phone number registered to their name.
DFS drive financial inclusion
in rural Côte d’Ivoire
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Burkina Faso Côte d’Ivoire Ghana Kenya Mali Nigeria Senegal Tanzania Uganda SSA
PERCENTAGE
Total Poorest
40%
Richest
60%
Rural Urban
FIGURE 1: MOBILE MONEYACCOUNT OWNERSHIP IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Source:World Bank Global Findex database.
8. 6
Mobile money account penetration in Côte d’Ivoire is well above the average (24 percent vs. 11 percent) in Sub-Saharan Africa,
and approaching levels comparable to some leading mobile money markets such as Tanzania (although Kenya remains the
leading market by far at 58 percent penetration) (see Figure 1). The fact that almost a quarter of adults in Côte d’Ivoire have
a mobile money account is a very positive development, and although some of these accounts are inactive,13
the account
activity rate in Côte d’Ivoire is substantially higher than the global average (50 percent vs. 33 percent).14
Whilst the percentage of Ivoirians with formal accounts declines as one leaves the cities and moves into the countryside (19.9
percent urban vs. 10.3 percent rural), the same is not true for mobile money. In fact, mobile account penetration in rural Côte
d’Ivoire is higher than the national average (26.0 percent rural vs. 22.6 percent urban). It is not surprising that mobile money
has caught on in rural areas: the existing branch network of financial institutions in rural districts15
compares negatively to
the existing and increasingly large network distribution of MNOs across the country. The two main MNOs in Côte d’Ivoire
claimed to have over 6,000 agents each as of January 2015, while the total number of bank branches was just 600 at the end
of 2014.16
In some regions, such as Folon in the north, there are no bank branches at all, according to recent IFC research. In
such areas, mobile money has become the de facto financial solution for farmers and rural populations, as existing banks and
microfinance institutions are not meeting their needs.
13
In 2014, IFC conducted research (qualitative and quantitative) on DFS users’ inactivity in partnership with two local MNOs. The research
revealed that almost half of DFS users registered in Côte d’Ivoire were inactive (on a 90 day basis), posing a key challenge to expanding
financial inclusion. The reasons for this are several, including customers’ irregular incomes, high service costs, and customers’ not finding
the service relevant for them. Susie Lonie, Meritxell Martinez, Christopher Tullis, and Rita Oulai (2015),“The Mobile Banking Customer That
Isn’t: Drivers of Digital Financial Services Inactivity in Côte d’Ivoire,” IFC, Washington, DC.
14
In 2015 the GSMA reported that 32.6 percent of mobile money accounts were active worldwide. GSMA (2015)“State of the Industry Report:
Mobile Money” GSM Association, London, UK. IFC research found the equivalent figure for Côte d’Ivoire to be 50 percent. Susie Lonie,
Meritxell Martinez, Christopher Tullis, and Rita Oulai (2015),“The Mobile Banking Customer That Isn’t: Drivers of Digital Financial Services
Inactivity in Côte d’Ivoire,” IFC, Washington, DC.
15
For example in Goh-Djiboua and Sassandra-Marahoue. Finclusion Lab (2015),“State of the Data Report: 2015” MIX, Washington, DC.
16
BCEAO, 2014.
9. Opportunities for Digital Financial Services in the Cocoa Value Chain in Côte d’Ivoire 7
To establish the financial needs of rural populations and better understand how financial services can be expanded in rural
areas, IFC carried out research with cocoa farmers in 2013 and 2015.17
In qualitative interviews, both farmers and cooperative
management reported that farmers routinely have to travel long distances in bush taxis to retrieve harvest payments, which
is not only very costly but also exposes them to risk of robbery and personal injury. While not representative of the entire
population of Ivoirian cocoa farmers, given the meager data on rural financial inclusion in Côte d’Ivoire18
the data from this
study gives a unique insight into the specific needs of rural populations and can help financial institutions design effective
financial products tailored to rural farmers’ specific needs.
Formal institutions
Some key messages stood out from this data. First of all, the data suggest that the farmers are less poor than the national
rural population, with 42 percent of our sample living below the national poverty line (compared to 57 percent of the rural
population of Côte d’Ivoire19
). Using the World Bank’s standard $1.25 per day,20
only 27 percent of our sample is defined as poor.
Perhaps in part because they are better off than average, the farmers in our sample were also more likely to have an account at
a formal financial institution than the general population, despite the fact that they are located in rural areas with little access
to bank branches.21
Overall, 20 percent of our sample reported having some sort of formal account, somewhat higher than the
17
In 2013 and 2015, IFC conducted research with two major cocoa exporters to understand financial habits of cocoa farmers. In total, 2648
farmers were surveyed and provided insight on their needs, habits and expectations for financial services. See Annex 2 for details.
18
The BCEAO, the regional regulator, does not collect data disaggregated by rural-urban but there are initiatives underway to fill this
knowledge gap.
19
Côte d’Ivoire National Statistical Institute, 2014 National Household Survey (L’enquête sur le Niveau de vie des ménages).
20
The data for this report was collected before the World Bank changed the standard poverty line to $1.90/day in 2015, and the survey
instrument used to calculate poverty statistics used the pre-2015 methodology.
21
The World Bank, Global Findex database (2014). Latest available data.
Are Ivoirian cocoa farmers financially
included?
Poorest 10% >10th
to 25th
percentile
>25th
to 50th
percentile
>50th
to 75th
percentile
>75th
to 90th
percentile
Richest
10%
All
incomes
Bank MFI/Financial cooperative Mobile money
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
PERCENTAGE
FIGURE 2: COCOA FARMERS WITH ACCOUNTS AT A FORMAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTION
10. 8
Ivoirian average of 15 percent. Breaking this down by type of financial institution, 6 percent of farmers had a bank account and
14 percent had an account with an MFI (including financial cooperatives) (see Figure 2).22
While the rate of access to MFIs is encouraging, it should be kept in mind that the majority of these MFIs are poorly performing
financial cooperatives.23
Of the farmers who are clients of an MFI, the majority has accounts at Unacoopec, a network of
financial cooperatives currently under government administration and experiencing substantial financial distress, and which
has had issues with the quality of its services. Unsurprisingly, the farmers interviewed for this study appeared to have a low
level of trust in Unacoopec, and there were many tales of farmers depositing some of their harvest payments one day to find
out the next day that they could not cash out because their local Unacoopec branch had no liquidity. If these poor-quality
Unacoopec accounts are discounted, then the level of formal financial inclusion of these farmers is likely significantly lower
than 20 percent.
Mobile money
Although only a minority of farmers have an account at a bank or MFI, mobile money accounts are much more common,
with more than half of the surveyed farmers (53 percent) reporting using mobile money. Access to mobile money agents
appeared fairly good with nearly half the farmers (46 percent) saying that they could reach their nearest agent on foot in
under 20 minutes, and 83 percent able to access an agent in under an hour. No major issues with agent performance were
reported, and even among farmers who would not want to receive harvest payments to their mobile money account, only
2 percent gave “agents never have cash” as a reason. Additionally, the infrastructure is in place to reach new mobile money
clients. Mobile network coverage was reasonably good in the research area, with 81 percent of cocoa farmers reporting good
network coverage near their homes and 99 percent having access to a mobile phone. Some farmers had multiple SIM cards
with different providers, but they tended to mainly use one mobile money account, with 75 percent favoring Orange Money,
and 23 percent favoring MTN Mobile Money.
So how do farmers currently use their mobile money accounts? Most mobile money customers do not take full advantage of
the potential of their accounts, using only one or two of the transaction types available, with a strong focus on sending and
receiving money (P2P) (see Figure 3).
FIGURE 3: WHAT HAVE COCOA FARMERS USED THEIR MOBILE MONEYACCOUNTS FOR?
22
Only 0.5 percent of farmers had an account at both a bank and an MFI, suggesting that they are considered to be almost perfect
substitutes.
23
For an analysis of the microfinance sector, please consult http://www.apsfd.ci/nos-membres/donnees-statistiques.
Send
Receive
Storemoney
Save
Buyairtime
Paybills
Send
international
remittance
Receive
internationa
remittance
Receive
salary
ReceiveG2P
transfer
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
PERCENTAGEOFMOBILEMONEYUSERS
86%
66%
52%
31%
18%
5%
2%
1% 0% 0%
11. Opportunities for Digital Financial Services in the Cocoa Value Chain in Côte d’Ivoire 9
There could be many reasons why cocoa farmers are making mainly P2P transactions, providing financial support to family
members for example, or making payments for informal business purposes such as buying and selling produce and inputs. If
these transfers are indeed informal business transactions, it would suggest that the time may have come in Côte d’Ivoire to
start promoting other mobile services such as bill payments and in-store purchases which have become popular in a number of
other markets. It is also surprising how few farmers were using their mobile money accounts to buy airtime (18 percent), given
that they all consume airtime and buying it in person at a vendor is more difficult in rural regions.This suggests an opportunity
for MNOs to promote the convenience of this service as a means of increasing account usage in rural regions.
Saving
Over one third of the farmers surveyed claimed to have set money aside in the past year (35 percent), with 23 percent of
farmers saving with a specific goal in mind. Relatively few of those saving for a specific purpose used a formal account to do so
(33 percent). The most common place to store such savings was at home (36 percent of savers) followed by mobile money
(34 percent of savers) (see Figure 4). While saving at home is preferable to not saving at all—65 percent of farmers claimed not
to set aside any of their income—it is still far from ideal. It is well documented that saving at home can prevent people from
meeting their medium- and long-term savings needs. There are a number of reasons for this. For one, saving at home can
pose a security risk: 7 percent of our overall sample reported having had their savings lost or stolen at some point in their lives.
Money stored at home is also easier to spend, so self-control problems can undermine people’s budgeting goals. Such self-
control problems are exacerbated by the irregularity of farm incomes.24
FIGURE 4: THE PLACES WHERE COCOA FARMERS SAVE THEIR MONEY
Borrowing
Similarly, while 15 percent of farmers reported having taken out loans in the past year, just 11 percent of these borrowers
patronized a formal financial institution (5 percent of borrowers took their last loan from a financial cooperative, 5 percent
from an MFI, and 1 percent borrowed from a bank). The vast majority of savings and credit seems to be coming from informal
sources. The primary source of these informal loans was friends and family members, with 54 percent of borrowers reporting
having borrowed from kin in the previous year. The next most common lender was the farmers’ agricultural cooperative, at 30
percent of borrowers (see Figure 5).
24
Dean Karlan, Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan, and Jonathan Zinman,“Savings by and for the Poor: A Research Review and Agenda,” Review of
Income andWealth 60(1):36–78.
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
At home
Mobile money
MFI/Financial coop
Bank
Informal/traditional
savings group
Agricultural
cooperative
Other
PERCENTAGE OF SAVERS
37%
20%
17%
16%
2%
2%
7%
12. 10
FIGURE 5: THE SOURCES OF LOANS FOR COCOA FARMERS
It might be expected that these cooperatives' loans are mostly agricultural input credits, but our data suggests otherwise.25
While agricultural cooperatives do give credits for inputs in this population, only 9 percent of farmers who had recently
borrowed money from agricultural coopoperatives reported doing so to finance the cost of inputs, while 63 percent said the
loan was to cope with an emergency. Indeed, agricultural cooperatives routinely functioned as a source of emergency funds
for farmers going through hard times. In qualitative interviews, cooperatives not only reported giving such emergency loans to
farmers, but also said that they had little choice in the matter: farmers feel entitled to loans when they have a significant event
in the family, such as a death of a close family member, and will feel like the cooperative is not taking good care of them if they
don’t receive a loan. In order to stay competitive in a market where farmers often have numerous options of where to sell their
harvest, agricultural cooperatives often find themselves asked to act as banker to meet farmers’ credit needs.
Similarly, from all sources, by far the most common reason was borrowing to deal with shocks, with 59 percent of borrowers
citing an emergency of some sort as the reason for taking out their lastest loan. The next most common reasons were to
finance school fees (15 percent), to cover regular household expenses (11 percent) and financing farm inputs (7 percent) (see
Figure 6). Thus while the primary use of credit is to cope with unforeseen expenses, a substantial number of farmers are also
using credit as a budgeting aid, to help spread irregular incomes over the entire year.
25
The team does not have enough data to understand how farmers are currently paying for agricultural inputs and suggests further research.
8%
Other
7%
Pay farm tools or
inputs
11%
Regular
household
expenses
15% School
fees
59%
Emergency
FIGURE 6a: REASONS GIVEN BY COCOA FARMERS FOR BORROWING MONEY
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Family and friends
Agricultural
cooperative
MFI
Financial
cooperative
Bank
Other
PERCENTAGE OF BORROWERS
11%
1%
5%
5%
30%
54%
13. Opportunities for Digital Financial Services in the Cocoa Value Chain in Côte d’Ivoire 11
FIGURE 6b: REASONS FOR BORROWING MONEY BY INCOME BRACKET
It is striking that the incidence of reasons for borrowing are similar across all earnings levels, suggesting that among even
the richest farmers, many do not have the reserves to deal with unexpected financial shocks and need to resort to borrowing
money.
Emergency School fees Regular household
expenses
Pay farm tools
or inputs
Other
Poorest 25% Second income quartile Third income quartile Richest 25%
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
PERCENTAGEOFBORROWERS
"Agricultural cooperatives routinely
functioned as a source of emergency
funds for farmers going through
hard times."
14. 12
Access to finance is a problem for rural populations across Sub-Saharan Africa. Bank branches are often located so far away
from people’s homes as to render banks inaccessible. For many, price is a significant barrier, with account maintenance fees
and minimum account balances preventing them from taking advantage of services. Other barriers include know-your-
customer legislation, which can require personal documents to open an account which many do not have, as well as a lack of
confidence by consumers in the financial sector. The latter can be problematic especially in contexts where banks have gone
bankrupt and depositors have lost their savings.26
Additionally,ifthefinancialproductsthatbanksandMFIsofferareconceivedprimarilywithbanks’coreurbancustomerbasein
mind, these products may not meet the needs of rural farming populations. For example, a loan with strict monthly repayment
deadlines, while well suited to an urban employee who draws a monthly salary, can make repayment all but impossible for
rural farmers who may only bring home substantial income once or twice per year during harvest seasons.
It is important to better understand why Ivoirian cocoa farmers are not making more use of the digital financial instruments
available to them: Are they too expensive? Inaccessible? Or in some other way not meeting farmers’ needs? What insights into
the financial needs of cocoa farmers could be addressed by innovative financial solutions?
Setting money aside for tomorrow
To begin, we asked farmers who did not currently use various financial services about the factors preventing them from doing
so. Surprisingly few farmers cited the traditional barriers to financial inclusion discussed above. For example, when asked why
they did not have a formal account, only 8 percent of unbanked farmers cited not having the right documents. Even fewer cited
a lack of confidence in financial institutions (7 percent), living too far away from a branch (6 percent) and the services being too
expensive (5 percent).27
The overwhelming reason farmers gave for not having an account at a formal financial institution. cited
by 74 percent of unbanked farmers (or 60 percent of the full sample), was being too poor to be able to take advantage of the
service. It should be emphasized that they were not saying that formal accounts were too expensive—a reason cited by only 5
percent of farmers—but that they themselves were too poor to benefit from them (see Figure 7).
We tried to tease out what farmers meant by this. In qualitative interviews, farmers expressed the sentiment that since they
already had difficulty making ends meet, they did not see how they could be expected to set any money aside. But are these
farmers really too poor to benefit from accounts to manage their money given that their earnings are well above the national
poverty line? And does being poor really mean that it is impossible to save?
26
For a full report on barriers to access to finance, see Thorsten Beck, Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, and Maria Soledad Martinez Peria,“Banking
Services for Everyone? Barriers to Bank Access and Use around the World,” TheWorld Bank Economic Review 22, no. 3 (January 1, 2008):
397–430.
27
Multiple responses possible.
What are cocoa farmers’ specific
financial needs?
15. Opportunities for Digital Financial Services in the Cocoa Value Chain in Côte d’Ivoire 13
Even though many farmers consider themselves too poor to save (even while they consider the accounts to be affordable), the
data reveal no statistically significant relationship between farmers’ income (either farm income or overall household income)
and the tendency to claim to be too poor to have a bank account.28
The analysis shows that even the richest unbanked farmers
in our sample nonetheless perceive themselves as too poor to benefit from a bank account. If farmers’ assessments of whether
or not their incomes justified a formal account were accurate, we would expect better-off farmers to be less likely to consider
themselves too poor for accounts. This is especially true given that a substantial proportion of the farmers in our sample were
relatively well off, with the richest 10 percent bringing in enough income from cocoa alone for each member of their household
to live on more than $4 per day, even without considering any other sources of household income they might have access to.
The fact that relatively well-off farmers are just as likely to consider themselves too poor for a bank account suggests that
something apart from income is triggering this response. One possibility is that banks’ current offerings are not sufficiently
addressing farmers’ needs, and that financial products need to be better adapted in order for farmers to see the relevance to
them.Another likely explanation is that banks in general are seen by cocoa farmers as inaccessible to people like them. Perhaps
farmers associate bank accounts with urban elites and salaried employees, writing them off as “not for me”—even in cases
where they stand to benefit from them.
Concerning the second question, available evidence suggests that even the poorest of the poor can have substantial latent
demand for savings. Household surveys from across Sub-Saharan Africa indicate that the poor do have some surplus funds
that they use for non-essential expenditures that could be set aside without lowering consumption of household essentials.29
Otherstudieshaveshownthataccountscanbedesignedinwaysthathelpmitigatebehavioralbarrierstoeffectivebudgeting—
including self-control and kin pressure to redistribute – enabling the poor to stretch incomes further than they anticipated
being able to. In particular, locked accounts or accounts equipped with other commitment devices can empower the poor to
set more money aside and save it for longer.30
While farmers’ income has no evident effect on the tendency of farmers to see themselves as too poor for a formal account, the
same was not true for literacy. In contrast to income, literate farmers were many times less likely see themselves as too poor
to benefit from an account, even when holding income constant. This suggests that illiterate farmers are particularly likely
to perceive bank accounts as irrelevant to their needs. These farmers’ low level of financial education may make it difficult for
them to accurately assess the potential benefits of accounts.
Interestingly, this perception barrier seems to exist to a significantly lesser extent for mobile money accounts. Firstly, many
more farmers use mobile money than use formal financial services (53 percent vs. 20 percent). Secondly, fewer farmers
reported not having enough money as a reason for not having a mobile money account (17 percent vs. 60 percent for formal
accounts). Thirdly, unlike with formal accounts, farm income was a statistically significant predictor of farmers’ tendency to
consider themselves too poor to benefit from mobile money.
28
For details of the statistical methods used, see description of Model 1 in the Annexes.
29
Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo (2007),“The Economic Lives of the Poor,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 21(1):141–168.
30
Dean Karlan, Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan, and Jonathan Zinman (2014),“Savings by and for the Poor: A Research Review and Agenda,” Review
of Income andWealth 60(1):36–78.
16. 14
FIGURE 7: REASONS GIVEN BY COCOA FARMERS FOR NOT HAVING AN ACCOUNT AT A FORMAL FINANCIAL
INSTITUTION
FIGURE 8: REASONS GIVEN BY COCOA FARMERS FOR NOT HAVING A MOBILE MONEYACCOUNT
PERCENTAGEOFFULLSAMPLE
Not enough income to
justify
Service too
complicated
No cell
phone
Prefer cash Agent too
far away
Technical
problems
(handset or
network)
Security not
guaranteed
Agent
liquidity
problems
Other
17%
8%
4%
3%
2%
1% 1% 0%
6%
27%
16%
11%
8%
Poorest quartile
Second income
quartile
Third income
quartile
Richest quartile
PERCENTAGE REPORTING INSUFFICIENT INCOME, BY INCOME QUARTILE
PERCENTAGEOFFULLSAMPLE
Not enough income to
justify
Lack required documents No confidence in financial
institutions
Branch too far away Account fee too expensive
Poorest quartile
Second income
quartile
Third income
quartile
Richest quartile
65%
61%
62%
54%
PERCENTAGE REPORTING INSUFFICIENT INCOME, BY INCOME QUARTILE
60%
7%
5% 5% 4%
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
17. Opportunities for Digital Financial Services in the Cocoa Value Chain in Côte d’Ivoire 15
While it is encouraging to see that farmers do not seem to perceive mobile money accounts as being as out of reach as
formal accounts, it is important to remember that this does not mean that mobile money has maximized its potential in this
population. While uptake of mobile money is relatively high, 47 percent of farmers are still non-users. Of those who do have
a mobile money account, recent IFC research suggests that many are likely not active users.31
The farmers in our sample are
not making full use of the mobile money services currently available to them, which is not altogether surprising given that
current DFS offerings provide few services that farmers could take advantage of during lean periods. Indeed, one of the main
conclusions of the IFC inactivity research was that inactivity would decrease if DFS products were better tailored to target
populations’ needs.
Taking these findings together, a story begins to emerge. Because perception biases appear to be a key barrier to many rural
farmers’ adoption of formal bank accounts, financial service providers should tailor their services and marketing strategies to
address these biases explicitly. Fortunately, it seems that mobile technology can be an asset in this regard, since it suffers less
from these perception problems than formal financial institutions.
Getting all the way through the year
In the medium term, cocoa farmers have two big budgeting problems: 1) their incomes are irregular, and 2) their expenses
fluctuate over time and can often be unpredictable. The extreme irregularity of farm incomes means that especially careful
budgeting is required to ensure that harvest income lasts through the year.
Agriculture is by nature seasonal, with time passing between cash inflows and outflows. Cocoa farmers receive their incomes
during two harvests seasons.32
In order to assess the extent to which farmers were able to make this income last throughout
the year, we asked them in what months of the year, if any, they typically have difficulty providing food for their families. Thirty
seven percent of farmers in our sample reported having difficulty at least one month out of the year. By far the most common
months in which farmers had difficulties feeding their families were those immediately preceding the primary harvest season
(from July to September), with farmers reporting difficulties increasing dramatically from less than 1 percent at the height of
the main cocoa harvest to 27 percent during the two months directly preceding the main harvest. In fact, this is likely to be a
conservative estimate of the percentage of farmers struggling with a“hunger season”:According to data collected by IFC in 2014
on another sample of Ivoirian cocoa farmers, over 90 percent reported difficulty feeding their families before the harvest.33
This
trend, which can be seen in Figure 9, confirms that many cocoa farmers encounter significant difficulties budgeting incomes
to stretch over an entire year.
31
Inactivity was calculated on a 90-day basis. Susie Lonie, Meritxell Martinez, Christopher Tullis, and Rita Oulai (2015),“The Mobile Banking
Customer That Isn’t: Drivers of Digital Financial Services Inactivity in Côte d’Ivoire,” IFC, Washington, DC.
32
The bulk of the harvest is between October and January, with a second, much smaller harvest between April and June.
33
IFC Advisory Services internal data collected with cocoa value exporter, 2014.
"The farmers in our sample are not
making full use of the mobile money
services currently available to them."
18. 16
FIGURE 9: COCOA FARMERS’ SEASONAL SAVINGS AND TIMES WITH INSUFFICIENT INCOME FOR FOOD
One recurrent expense that causes farmers particular difficulty is paying for their children’s schooling expenses. Of those
farmers who reported borrowing money in the previous six months, 15 percent cited paying school expenses as the reason for
needing this loan. Even though school fees are a perfectly predictable expense happening at the beginning of the school year
(early October), they still cause farmers difficulty because they require having a significant amount of cash on hand all at once,
on top of regular household budgets, at the time of year when funds are running low.34
Costly seasonal agricultural inputs such
as fertilizer also show low take-up rates in our sample, which may in part be attributable to farmers’ inability to make harvest
income last through the planting season when inputs are typically purchased. Farmers also have multiple lumpy medium-
term expenses such as weddings and festivals, many of which are predictable and ideally should be budgeted for in advance.
Smallholders use a variety of strategies to budget for an entire year in the face of irregular income.35
The cocoa farmers in our
sample tended to set money aside during the harvest season to pay for expenses later in the year. Most farmers are only able to
add to savings during a narrow window during the harvest. Of farmers who save, 90 percent either only manage to put money
aside once per year or, if they do manage to add to their savings, the additional time is nearly always during the harvest. Only
eight percent of savers reported putting away money regularly outside of the harvest season (see Figure 10).36
34
Although the back-to-school season often falls during the main harvest, payment delays mean that farmers have usually not received their
harvest payments by the time school-related expenses are due.
35
For a comparison of how farmers in different markets cope with their seasonal incomes, see CGAP’s research using financial diaries in
Mozambique, Tanzania, and Pakistan. The authors uncover some strategies that would not usually be considered financial management
mechanisms, such as diversifying crop income to include crops that yield during different parts of the year, and increasing the household’s
casual labor input during lean periods (demand permitting). Jamie Anderson and Wajiha Ahmed (2016),“Smallholder Diaries: Building the
Evidence Base with Farming Families,” CGAP, World Bank Group, Washington, DC.
36
Of savers, the vast majority (77 percent) cited the main harvest season as the time of year when they are most likely to save money,
compared to 19 percent for the other three quarters of the year combined.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
PERCENTAGEOFRESPONDENTS
MONTH
MAIN HARVEST BEGINS
% having difficulty feeding their families (by month)
% saving significantly (by quarter)
19. Opportunities for Digital Financial Services in the Cocoa Value Chain in Côte d’Ivoire 17
FIGURE 10: HOW FREQUENTLY DO COCOA FARMERS SAVE?
These savings seem to have a profound impact on farmers’ ability to budget for the entire year. Farmers who save see their
odds of having difficulty feeding their families in the two months preceding the main harvest decrease by 50 percent compared
to those who do not save, even when holding other factors constant, such as education and household income.37
A farmer
who saved in the past year had an 18 percent chance of experiencing difficulties while this number increased to 31 percent for
farmers who do not save. In other words, irregular incomes mean that it is essential for farmers to be able to set money aside
securely in order to maintain basic consumption levels year round. Additionally, farmers in the habit of saving are better able
to budget for the entire year.
In addition to savings, some farmers also borrow as a means of managing medium-term budgets. This reliance on borrowing
to fund regular household expenses is also concentrated in the time immediately preceding the main harvest, when many of
them experience financial difficulties (see Figure 9). For each additional month that farmers have difficulties in the five months
leading up to the harvest, the odds that they will take out a loan during that period increased by over 50 percent (holding other
factors constant, including income).38
In summary, some farmers are using credit as a substitute for medium-term savings,
financing regular household expenses on credit to make up for their inability to set aside enough of the harvest income to last
the entire year.
37
For details of the statistical methods used, see description of Model 3 in the Annexes.
38
For details of the statistical methods used, see description of Model 4 in the Annexes.
2%
Other
3%
Every 3 months
2%
Every 6 months
50%
During the
harvest only
40%
Has not added to
savings in 12 months
3%
Every month
20. 18
Given how prevalent mobile money accounts are becoming among cocoa farmers existing and potential DFS providers,
policymakers, and other parties such as exporters would be well advised to seize the opportunity this new channel provides to
improve financial inclusion and bring much needed financial services within farmers’ reach. Some experimentation is already
taking place regarding potential uses of DFS in agricultural value chains, providing some perspective on the opportunities and
also challenges involved in offering DFS to rural populations. While it is still too early to assess the impact of these initiatives,
the opportunity to use DFS in agricultural value chains appears large. The next section proposes some potential ways DFS
could be used to the benefit of cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire, and other farmers with similar needs.
What could DFS do for farmers?
Recent experiences of mobile money payments for farmers
Advans Côte D’Ivoire. With the vision to extend its footprint into rural areas as well as to reduce cash payments
and associated risks, Advans has developed partnerships with local MNOs (MTN and Orange) as well cocoa
exporters (Cargill, Barry Callebaut). In a pilot launched with MTN and a number of local exporters, cocoa farmers
receive harvest payments through a combination of Advans savings accounts and MTN Mobile Money accounts.
Participating farmers are affiliated to agricultural cooperatives which play an essential role in the implementation
of the pilot by initiating the electronic payments and ensuring farmers adoption. As of the start of 2016, Advans had
successfully registered more than 7,000 farmers from 58 cooperatives. Connecting farmers’ Advans accounts to the
MTN platform can be challenging as this requires paper-based registrations and verifications by both companies’
relevant staff as well as access to MTN’s USSD channel. This interconnection allows farmers to withdraw money at
MTN’s agents in their villages. Otherwise, they would need to travel to an Advans branch, which are only located
in the country’s biggest cities. CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, of the World Bank Group) is providing
technical assistance and funding to Advans for this pilot.
Biopartenaire Côte D’Ivoire. Established in Côte d’Ivoire in 2010, Biopartenaire works with cocoa farmers to
responsibly produce certified cocoa (UTZ and Cocoa Horizons). Biopartenaire is a fully owned subsidiary of Barry
Callebaut, the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality chocolate and cocoa products. Together with a leading
Ivoirian MNO, the company is implementing a program to pay cocoa farmers directly into mobile wallets for cocoa
harvests. This payment is done via a P2P transaction from the Biopartenaire agent to the farmer. This solution
aimed to overcome security issues linked to cash handling in rural areas, improve traceability of payments and allow
farmers to save money, to be able to transfer money and eventually to become bankable. Biopartenaire distributed
handsets and solar chargers to farmers and partially subsidized the cost of cash withdrawal. By 2013, the program
had reached more than 10,000 farmers in 122 villages across Côte d’Ivoire. Key challenges to the implementation of
this project were the high cost of mobile money transactions in the Ivoirian market (hence the subsidy), sometimes
irregular network coverage in rural areas, as well as the effort required to fulfill formal requirements to open mobile
money accounts for farmers.
IFC/Cargill Côte D’Ivoire. In 2013, IFC launched a country program in Côte d’Ivoire to support increased usage of
digital financial services, particularly in the agricultural value chains, with the financial support of The MasterCard
Foundation. A key activity of the program is the digitalization of payments in the cocoa value chain, representing 20
percent of the country’s GDP. In May 2015, IFC initiated a pilot for the digitization of 1,000 cocoa farmers’ payments
and savings in cooperation with Cargill (world’s leading cocoa exporter), SIB (local subsidiary of Attijari Wafa Bank
Group), and Orange Côte d’Ivoire (MNO). The participating farmers, from three different cooperatives, receive
payments on their SIB accounts and have the possibility to withdraw money either at a SIB branch or at an OM agent
after a bank to wallet transfer. The first payments were for premium on certified cocoa, while the main payments
from the harvest production will be added gradually. As of April 2016, 373 farmers were participating in a pilot phase
of the project.
21. Opportunities for Digital Financial Services in the Cocoa Value Chain in Côte d’Ivoire 19
MercyCorps/KAITEZimbabwe.In2013,MercyCorps,aninternationalNGO,facilitatedapartnershipbetween
EcoNet (the country’s largest MNO) and a specialized produce buyer, KAITE, to deliver mobile payments to 448
chili farmers in the Domboshawa region, north of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare. This initiative falls under the
Agrifin Mobile Program led by Mercy Corps and active throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia. Mercy
Corps played a crucial role from the strategic alignment of both companies to the actual implementation of the
pilot (registration of farmers, monitoring). According to KAITE management, electronic payments decreased
the cost of transporting cash to remote areas and ensured farmers receive their payment in a secure manner
and in full, as opposed to instances where KAITE agents would run out of cash while in the field.
NWK Agri-Services Zambia. Established in 2000, NWK Agri-Services is the largest cotton buyer in Zambia,
with about 120,000 affiliated farmers as of 2015. The company has experienced serious issues linked to cash
transportation (armed robbery, fraud) and has been looking for a suitable solution to digitize its payments
to farmers. It tried ATM cards in 2012 but was limited by the low density of banks’ distribution networks in
rural areas. In 2015, NWK started a pilot with 20,000 farmers paid via MTN Mobile Money. Although the pilot
had achieved mitigated results in terms of farmers’ adoption, network coverage, and liquidity availability, it
did decrease NWK’s operating costs and security concerns. NWK and MTN are working toward improving
customer education on mobile money usage, better understanding farmers’ financial habits, and developing a
local merchant payments network, hence reducing the need for cash. The company is considering rolling out
the solution to its entire network of farmers.
Rice Mobile Finance Ghana. With the financial support of Visa Innovation Grant, the Ghana-based NGO
Agribusiness Systems International initiated a mobile payment solution (Rice Mobile Finance) for 727 rice
farmers in partnership withTigo, one of Ghana’s leading MNOs, and GhanaAgriculture Development Company
(GADCO), a major rice producer and miller. During the pilot phase from September 2013 to June 2014, GADCO
made 19 bulk payments, resulting in a total of $250,000 transferred through the Tigo Cash platform. GADCO
subsidized all payment and withdrawal fees for farmers. This initiative helped decrease security risks as it
eliminated the need for farmers to travel long distances to GADCO offices to receive cash payments. However,
an evaluation of the pilot suggested that rolling out mobile payments to a larger group of farmers would
require better agent liquidity management, coordinated training of farmers and agents, as well as increasing
transactions limits. In response, the partners raised the maximum daily withdrawal cap per account from $520
to $1,298, and GADCO began handling some disbursements itself. With these modifications, the program was
scaled up to 1,815 rice farmers and has proved sustainable, with a total of $781,868 disbursed as of April 2016.
GADCO ultimately aims to reach at least 5,000 farmers through this mobile payment scheme.
Source: Authors’ interviews
22. 20
The short term: receiving money and keeping it safe
Safe storage is one of the main reasons why cocoa farmers currently use mobile money accounts (53 percent). In addition
to storage, mobile money can also be used for sending and receiving money; for emergencies; to prevent loss or theft; and
potentially as an efficient payment channel. Another short term application of DFS in farmers’ lives could be to facilitate
harvest payments. Most payments are currently made in cash, with all the risks and inconvenience that implies. However, in
our sample, 73 percent of cocoa farmers said that they would like to be paid via mobile money, indicating substantial demand
for digital payments if produce buyers and DFS providers were to expand this service.
However, care must be taken when digitizing harvest payments that opportunities for farmers to make other relevant
transactionsaredigitizedatthesametime.Ideally,digitalharvestpaymentsshouldbeaccompaniedbyexpandedopportunities
for farmers to make relevant digital transactions, such as buying inputs, repaying loans, and bill payments (including airtime).
If these transactions remain cash based, then digital harvest payments simply become an alternative form of cash delivery,
with the burden of cash management transferred from the buyer to the DFS agent. By focusing on digitizing a core subset of
farmers’ basic expenses first, farmers can become more familiar with basic DFS, providing a gateway through which they can
explore more sophisticated financial services over time.
A significant barrier remains the user interface with DFS, especially among illiterate farmers.Although the majority of farmers
would accept harvest payments into their mobile money accounts, among those who would not, a non-negligible minority
(17 percent) thought the mobile money service was too complicated for them. This indicates that even though the majority of
farmers have the requisite skills to use DFS, there is a need39
for more and better customer communication and training on how
to perform mobile money transactions, with special attention to the specific needs of illiterate and semi-illiterate farmers.
The medium term: Getting through the year
Mobile money accounts could be well placed to help farmers both save and borrow. Although agricultural cooperatives
regularly act as a lender of last resort to farmers who are experiencing financial difficulties, these cooperatives reported
difficulties assessing farmers’ creditworthiness, as well as high default rates. A DFS-based credit scoring system, for example
based on data obtained through DFS account usage, could help by easing the pressure on agricultural cooperatives to provide
loans while also making emergency credit more accessible to farmers. In the specific case of emergency lending, DFS could
be a way to provide such small loans quickly and on demand, even if the emergency arises outside of business hours of formal
lending institutions.40
In addition to borrowing, DFS could help empower farmers to set aside enough of their incomes to make it through the entire
year. There are a number of ways DFS could help by offering budgeting tools and dynamic reminders to help farmers save and
budget more effectively.
For example, DFS providers could offer farmers locked accounts that make portions of the original payment available
progressively over the course of the year. Farmers could then choose to deposit some or all of their harvest payments into this
account and gain access in the same way as a salaried employee would. Furthermore, since these accounts freeze money for
a pre-determined length of time, farmers could potentially earn higher interest rates on their deposits than they would in a
simple savings account. Most importantly, such“monthly salary” accounts would have the potential to relieve farmers of some
of the burden of income irregularity, empowering them to budget for the year in the same way as salaried employees do.
For digital harvest payments to be effective economic tools, there needs to be an ecosystem of relevant payments that farmers
can make using DFS, for example, bill payments and regular in-store purchases.
39
A recent IFC study in Côte d’Ivoire found that although just 18 percent of respondents said DFS were too complicated for them, 35 percent
said they needed help to use the services. Susie Lonie, Meritxell Martinez, Christopher Tullis, and Rita Oulai (2015),“The Mobile Banking
Customer That Isn’t: Drivers of Digital Financial Services Inactivity in Côte d’Ivoire,” IFC, Washington, DC.
40
This type of service is not yet present in Côte d’Ivoire. In Kenya, Safaricom M-Pesa has partnered with Commercial Bank of Africa to launch
M-Shwari a bank account offering a combination of savings and micro-loans accessible exclusively through the M-Pesa mobile money
network. A similar service is offered in partnership with Kenya Commercial Bank.
23. Opportunities for Digital Financial Services in the Cocoa Value Chain in Côte d’Ivoire 21
The long term: planning for the future
Since so much of our sample struggled to set money aside at all, with over a third having difficulties making it all the way
through the year, our data revealed little about farmers’ long-term savings needs. Common long-term goals farmers cited
during interviews were buying land or building a house, all of which are difficult to accomplish without the ability to save
effectively.
TheapplicationsofDFStothelong-termfinancialplanningoffarmers’livesarestillunclear.Ifuptakeofmobilemoneyaccounts
continues to grow and conventional financial service providers do not innovate, mobile money could very well become the
default choice that farmers use to manage their money due to its convenience and accessibility. Alternative financial services
are already starting to be offered in some markets, including payment of interest held in mobile money accounts and access
to loans based on customers’ airtime purchase habits. Many of these new services are the product of partnerships between
banks and MNOs, combining the former’s financial product portfolio with the latter’s large customer base and extensive
agent network in order to make traditional financial services more accessible.41
But increasingly, MNOs are also innovating on
their own, eschewing difficult-to-manage partnerships with banks and offering increasingly sophisticated financial products
themselves.42
The potential uses of DFS to address the various needs of farmers identified above are summarized in Table 1.
TABLE 1: POTENTIAL DFS SOLUTIONS TO FARMERS' NEEDS
SHORT TERM MEDIUM TERM LONG TERM
P2P TRANSACTIONS NEED Send/receive money from
friends and family
Small business transactions with
suppliers and customers
PRODUCT Mobile money Mobile money
RECEIVING HARVEST
PAYMENTS
NEED Secure harvest payments Budgeting for the year
PRODUCT Mobile money
Bank accounts accessed
through DFS
“Monthly salary” accounts
SMS reminders
Soft budgeting tools
MAKING PAYMENTS NEED Merchant payments
Paying utility bills
Buying farm inputs
Children’s school expenses
PRODUCT Mobile money Mobile money
Automatic credit reimbursement
SAVINGS NEED Secure storage Medium to long-term savings
PRODUCT Mobile money
Bank accounts accessed
through DFS channel
Bank accounts accessed through DFS channel
Commitment savings accounts
CREDIT NEED Small emergency loans School fee loans
Farm input credits
Long-term investments
(business, education
retirement)
PRODUCT Digital credit scoring algorithms adapted to smallholder context
Loans delivered through DFS channel
Flexible loan-repayment schedules based on harvest cycles
41
Examples of fully integrated services include M-Shwari and KCB M-Pesa in Kenya as well as M-Pawa in Tanzania. Additionally, it is becoming
increasingly common for banks and MNOs to allow users to connect an existing bank account to a mobile money wallet and make transfers
between the two.
42
In WAEMU the current regulatory framework (BCEAO’s 2015 e-money guidelines n°008-05-2015) still requires MNOs to partner with
registered financial institutions for any 2nd generation financial services, such as credit or savings. This might limit product development in
those two areas.
24. 22
Conclusions
Our research indicates that the current offering of financial products in Côte d’Ivoire is not well adapted to the needs of cocoa
farmers, but that current trends in the usage of DFS by rural populations suggest this may be a key tool for extending rural
financial inclusion. The reasons are multidimensional but the research suggests the following:
Cocoa farmers were much more likely to consider DFS to be relevant to their needs than formal financial services.
Despite many of the farmers interviewed being above the poverty line, very few were banked (20 percent).The main reason
given was that they could not afford an account. By contrast 53 percent had mobile money accounts which they appear
to consider as better suited to their needs, despite the limited service offering of mobile money services currently on the
market. Farmers seem to consider bank accounts to be more “for the rich” than mobile money, and thus mobile banking
could help counter the impression among farmers that bank accounts are not for them. A key finding of this study is that
DFS accounts do not seem to suffer from the same perception barriers that bank accounts do.
Farmers need innovative savings products designed to help them manage irregular incomes. Our data show that
farmers who are in the habit of saving are better able to stretch their seasonal incomes over the entire year than those
who do not save. Even farmers in the top income quartile have the same difficulties feeding their families in lean months
as poor farmers if they do not save. In general, formal savings are underutilized, with only 52 percent of savers using some
kind of account, and only 33 percent saving in an interest-bearing account at a formal institution. Many farmers already
save in mobile wallets—the second most common savings vehicle after storing cash at home—but simple mobile money
accounts are not fully meeting farmers’ savings needs. DFS provide an opportunity to help overcome farmers’ perceptions
that institutional saving is not for them and expand access to formal accounts. Additionally, there is great potential for
financial service providers to design and market savings products adapted to the specific financial situation of farmers in
Côte d’Ivoire. In particular, offering an account that converts a lump-sum harvest payment into a monthly payment could
empower farmers to overcome barriers to effective annual budgeting.
Many farmers need loans to help with cash flow. Since many cocoa farmers are unable to save enough of their harvest
payment to cover expenses for the entire year, many borrow to make up this deficit, particularly in the months preceding
the main harvest.The majority of borrowing currently takes the form of informal loans from friends and family members (54
percent). Another 30 percent of loans come from farmers’ agricultural cooperatives, who find themselves obliged to act as
lender despite being poorly equipped to play this role.There is a clear need for more access to formal loans to satisfy demand
for credit, relieving the burden on agricultural cooperatives and giving farmers more flexibility in how they budget for the
year. DFS provides a good potential delivery channel for loans, and for repayment—particularly for small emergency loans
where farmers need money quickly—as is already happening43
in other markets.
43
Since its launch in 2012, M-Shwari has disbursed loans amounting to over $900 million at an average of 50,000 loans processed per day. In
2014, the service reached 2.8 million unique borrowers with 20.6 million cumulative loans disbursed.
25. Opportunities for Digital Financial Services in the Cocoa Value Chain in Côte d’Ivoire 23
The demand-side barriers to financially including cocoa farmers through DFS appear to be less onerous than for
other populations. Although perception barriers preventing smallholders from feeling that banks are“for them” remain a
key challenge, many of the other barriers to financial inclusion—including lack of trust in banks, resistance to paying fees,
and distance to bank branches—were de-emphasized by the farmers in our sample. The benefits of moving away from
cash—in terms of safety, security, and timeliness—would appear to outweigh the costs of banking in many cocoa farmers’
minds. Additionally, the barriers to using mobile money are even lower, with 53 percent already having an account and 73
percent eager to receive their harvest payments into it. Financially including these farmers may be a question of putting the
right products on the market.
Overall, our data confirms that farmers need a diverse suite of financial products that are adapted to the specific financial
challenges they face and are accessible through a DFS channel, for example, through mobile money and agent banking.
Mobile technology has penetrated into the rural regions far more than formal financial institutions and mobile money
accounts seem to suffer from fewer of the perception issues that dog formal financial institutions. Receiving harvest
payments through mobile money accounts is a clear first step to developing a rural DFS ecosystem that can habituate
farmers to a non-cash economy and eventually provide a platform for more sophisticated financial services. However, in
order to prevent inactivity and ensure that financial providers achieve a return on investment, digitizing these payments
needs to be complemented by opportunities for the farmers to use that money digitally, not only by providing savings and
loans, but also other services such as bill payment and ultimately buying goods and services.
27. Opportunities for Digital Financial Services in the Cocoa Value Chain in Côte d’Ivoire 25
Annex 1: Potential future digitization of agricultural value chains
Mobile payment models
TYPEOFSERVICE
FINANCIAL
SERVICES
INFO
SERVICES
SUPPLYCHAIN
SERVICES
MARKETACCESS
SERVICES
VALUE CHAIN
SERVICES
INPUTS
TRANSPORT &
STORAGE
POST HARVEST
PROCESSING
SMALLHOLDERS
FARMERS
PRODUCTION
MARKETING
Mobile vouchers
Savings
Micro-insurance
Lending
Agricultural information services on mobile
Digitally supported extension services
Farmer helplines
Smart logistics
Traceability systems
Supplier management
Distribution management
Cooperative management systems
Trading platforms
Tendering platforms
Bartering platforms
NascentEmergingMaturing
Maturity of models
Source: Accenture.
28. 26
Annex 2: Methodology and Sampling
The sample included farmers from six cocoa cooperatives in west-central Côte d’Ivoire (regions of Diégonéfla, Guiberoua,
Guitri, Oumé and Tiassalé). Each cooperative was organized into sections located near the farmers’ residences. The sampling
target was two hundred farmers from each cooperative, distributed equally between sections. Once the number of farmers
to be sampled from each section was determined, farmers were selected randomly from membership lists supplied by the
cooperatives. In cases where a section contained less than the requisite number of farmers, all farmers from that section were
included; in such cases, other sections of the same cooperative were oversampled in order to make up the difference. For five
of the six cooperatives, all sections were included, while for the sixth cooperative (located in Guitri), a subset of five sections
was selected from the total of 15 sections for logistical reasons. For this cooperative, sections with no women members were
excluded in order to maximize the number of women in the sample, and the remaining sections were included.
In general, women were oversampled in order to ensure adequate representation in the sample (in Côte d’Ivoire, cooperative
registries often include few women due to the fact that women farmers in male-headed households are often not considered
to be cooperative members). The final sample included 7 percent women cooperative members while overall cooperative
membership was less than 3 percent female.
TABLE 1: DETAILS OF STATISTICAL MODELS USED
MODEL 1 MODEL 2 MODEL 3 MODEL 4
Model type Binary logistic regression Binary logistic regression Binary logistic regression Binary logistic regression
Dependent variable Whether or not a farmers
reported their own lack
of income as reason for
not having an account at
a formal financial institution
Whether or not a farmers
reported their own lack of
income as reason for not
having a mobile money
account
Whether or not farmers
experienced difficulties
feeding their families in
the two months preceding
the main harvest (July or
August)
Whether or not a farmer
had taken out a loan
during the second or third
quarter of the year (April–
September)
Main
explanatory
variable
Variable Farm income
(percentile)
Farm income
(percentile)
Whether or not a farmer
reported having saved any
money in the past year
Number of months for
which a farmer reported
having difficulties feeding
his family during the five
months leading up to the
main harvest (April–August)
Odds ratio 0.99 0.98 0.53 1.53
Statistical
significance
No
(p = .26)
Yes
(p < .01)
Yes
(p < .001)
Yes
(p < .001)
Control variables Literacy
Education level
Age
Gender
Literacy
Education level
Age
Gender
Household income
Literacy
Education level
Age
Gender
Household income
Literacy
Education level
Age
Gender
29. Opportunities for Digital Financial Services in the Cocoa Value Chain in Côte d’Ivoire 27
Annex 3: Summary Statistics
STATISTIC VALUE
Dates of data collection April – May 2015
Farmers in sample (n)
By region
Diégonéfla
Guiberoua
Guitry
Oumé
Tiassalé
1149
182
202
336
222
207
Number of cooperatives 6
Female 7%
Poor
Less than $1.25/day (2008 dollars)
Below national poverty line
27%
42%
Literate 55%
Age (mean)
Age, ranges
Under 30
30–39
40–40
50–59
60–69
Over 70
48
6%
25%
28%
24%
12%
6%
Household size
10th percentile
25th percentile
Median
75th percentile
90th percentile
4
6
8
10
15
Account usage
Account at a formal institution
Bank
MFI
Mobile money
20%
6%
14%
53%
Financial habits
Saved in the past year
Borrowed in the past year
35%
15%
30. 28
Authors
SUSIE LONIE is a Digital Finance Specialist working with IFC. Susie was one of the creators of the M-PESA money transfer
service, and in 2010 she was the co-winner of“The Economist Innovation Award for Social and Economic Innovation” for her
work on M-PESA.
MERITXELL MARTINEZ is an IFC Operations Officer. She leads a program that seeks to increase uptake of digital financial
services in Côte d’Ivoire. Meritxell works on digital finance advisory services and portfolio management of IFC investments in
West Africa.
RITA OULAI is an IFC Operations Analyst based in Abidjan. She works in microfinance and digital finance. Rita worked
previously for GIZ in Côte d’Ivoire.
CHRISTOPHER TULLIS is a Research and Evaluation Specialist at theWorld Bank Group, working with the IFC Digital Financial
Services team as well as the World Bank. Based in Abidjan, Christopher’s research focuses on the barriers to and the impact of
expanding access to financial services for the poor.
31.
32. CONTACT
Anna Koblanck
IFC, Sub-Saharan Africa
akoblanck@ifc.org
The PARTNERSHIP FOR FINANCIAL INCLUSION is a joint initiative
of IFC and The MasterCard Foundation to expand microfinance
and advance digital financial services in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Partnership is also supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation and the Development Bank of Austria (OeEB,
Oesterreichische Entwicklungsbank AG), and collaborates with
knowledge partners such as the World Bank and the Consultative
Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). An important objective of the
Partnership is to build and share industry knowledge for the
public good. This publication is part of a series of research reports
published by the program.
www.ifc.org/financialinclusionafrica