CGAP Podcast with Jonathan Donner of Microsoft Research India
by Jim Rosenberg : Thursday, May 28, 2009
Leading up to the 2009 Mobile Money Summit and beyond, we’re running a podcast series with some of the voices we’re listening to this year as part of the CGAP/DFID Branchless Banking in 2020 scenarios work. The process is based on one driving question: How can government and private sector most affect the uptake and usage of branchless banking among the unserved majority by 2020? You can participate directly through this blog, by joining our prediction market, or posting discussions through our Mobile Banking and Microfinance LinkedIn Group. –Jim
Jonathan Donner is a Researcher in the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research India. Previously, Jonathan was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and worked for the consultancies Monitor Company and The OTF Group. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Communication Theory and Research.
Speaking on the side of a workshop that was held in Cape Town last month, Jonathan shared his views on how cash and electronic money aren’t so different when it comes to a question of trust, and how branchless banking is helping poor people spend less time and money to do simple financial transactions.
June 4th, 2009 at 7:17 pm, Monique Cohen ()
No doubt that technology offers important access to financial services to low-income populations. However, there are two separate issues we should consider when looking at client behavior, and whether they can make the “leap” from cash to electronic balances. The first issue is the level of willingness, familiarity, and/or comfort that low-income clients have towards formal financial services. The second issue is their willingness to adopt the technologies that provide access to those financial services. As Jonathan points out, many low-income people are willing to adopt these technologies. But how many of these users were previously unbanked? To bridge the transition from unbanked to banked (regardless of whether it is through mobile banking or at the bank itself), financial education is an important tool in helping low-income clients to adopt formal financial services.
3 Comments
May 28th, 2009 at 4:12 pm, Putting people first » CGAP podcast with Jonathan Donner of Microsoft Research India ()
[...] on the side of a workshop that was held in Cape Town last month, Jonathan shared his views on how cash and electronic money aren’t so different when it comes to a question of [...]