This is a guest blog by Greta Greathouse, Chief of Party for the USAID-funded Haiti Integrated Finance for Value Chains and Enterprises project (HIFIVE).

Voila and Unibank receive the second "First to Market" Award for Ti-Cash

Just seven months ago on January 11, CGAP reported that HIFIVE and the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative (HMMI) awarded Digicel  and its partner bank Scotiabank, its “First to Market” Award of $2.5 million for “Tcho Tcho Mobile”. It was a very positive piece of news just prior to the ceremonies one day later marking the first anniversary of the earthquake that hit Port au Prince. Established in June 2010 as part of a longer term response to the disaster in an effort to establish long term financial services for all Haitians, HMMI was created by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in partnership with USAID. HMMI, implemented by the USAID project HIFIVE, provides incentives to encourage mobile operators and financial institutions to launch mobile money services.

Here is a follow up on how that legacy is developing. On July 5 HIFIVE awarded mobile operator Voila and their bank partner Unibank the $1.5 million second “First to Market” Award for “Ti-Cash”. With this important milestone completed and others rapidly approaching, mobile money is well on its way to fulfilling the promise of being a “legacy of the earthquake” that was hinted at in this blog in January. 

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