Today we welcome Chris Bold as a new blogger for CGAP. Recently, Chris joined CGAP’s Technology Team on leave from the UK Department for International Development where he worked in their Financial Sector Team and, for the last year and a half, was based in Kabul managing DFID’s private sector development programs in Afghanistan. Chris will be providing additional support to CGAP’s portfolio of projects and exploring how large flows of money such as government payments and remittances can be harnessed to bring financial services to the unbanked.
It’s hard to think of a tougher environment in which to test the potential of mobile banking than Afghanistan. With a population of 30 million people, 36% of whom live below the government defined poverty line and 74% of whom are illiterate; Afghanistan is the poorest country in the world outside Africa. But bringing banking services to Afghanistan is exactly the challenge that Roshan, an MNO majority owned by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, is taking on. We met with Zahir Khoja, Roshan’s Executive Director for M-Paisa, on a recent visit to Afghanistan to discuss the roll-out.
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I would be pretty annoyed if my bank started to charge me for putting money in to my bank account. What strategy would CGAP’s partner in Pakistan, Tameer Microfinance Bank consider with their “mobile wallet”? I spent a week in Pakistan with Ali Abbas Sikander and the Easypaisa team who have been thinking about their pricing strategy for the past three months.
