This is the fourth post in our series on G2P, branchless banking and financial inclusion. Our first post on Pakistan can be found here, our second post on the Philippines can be found here, and our third post on Colombia can be found here. Our guest blogger for this post is John Ratichek from Bankable Frontier Associates. John leads the development of BFA’s work in social transfer payments.  He has done work on the use of technology in mobile phone banking and has written and supervised case studies on the development of financial services in rural Africa.

Mama Cash and her husband at their shop in Turkwell, Turkana district

Forty kilometers east of Lodwar, through the sand and river beds of arid Turkana district in northern Kenya, is the settlement of Turkwell. In the middle of this unforgiving landscape that can hardly support a few goats, “Mama Cash” and her husband run a thriving shop.

Her success is primarily a result of her participation in the Kenyan government’s pilot cash transfer program known as the Hunger Safety Nets Programme (HSNP). But she’s not a beneficiary.  Rather, she is one of the two agents in Turkwell who pay cash to the programme’s 250 local recipients. For that service, she receives a commission from Equity Bank who is the administrator of the payment service; and she gleans some additional business from the beneficiaries who often buy goods from her store. Plus, the community has bestowed on her the title she now proudly posts on her storefront.

Mama Cash is one of 120 merchant agents who are being hired and trained by Equity Bank to distribute the HSNP funds. The pilot programme has now been underway for 24 months.

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