Can mobile money transform a country?
by Charley Johnson and Priya Jaisinghani : Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Over the past week, the world has been commemorating the 2nd anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. Today and tomorrow we will have two guest blog posts on the mobile money sector that has emerged over the last two years in Haiti. Today’s post is written by two colleagues at USAID.
Charley Johnson is a Presidential Management Fellow at USAID. Priya Jaisinghani is a Senior Advisor to the Administrator and Director of the Mobile Solutions team. Prior to her work at USAID, Priya helped launch the Gates Foundation’s work in financial services from 2005-2009.
Two years after the earthquake, Haiti is rebuilding not just brick by brick, but click by click.
The earthquake left behind a government in rubble, an economy in shambles, and a people living in makeshift camps, coping with enormous loss. Against this backdrop, the possibility of progress lives not just in the resilient spirit of the Haitian people, but also in the simple power of their mobile phones.
In June 2010, USAID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative (HMMI). This program leveraged the private sector and the ubiquity of mobile phones to bring financial services to Haitians, 90% of whom didn’t have access to a bank account before the earthquake destroyed nearly one-third of the country’s bank branches, ATMs, and money transfer stations. Put simply, mobile money gives Haitians access to banking without building a single bank.
It worked. In January 2011, one year after the earthquake, HMMI awarded Digicel and its partner bank, Scotiabank, a “First to Market” Award of $2.5 million for “Tcho Tcho Mobile.” Five months ago, HMMI awarded mobile operator Voila and their bank partner, Unibank, $1.5 million for “T-Cash.” While verification is still underway, data reported by the industry indicate that there are nearly 800,000 registered users. Moreover, there are over 800 agent locations now available to serve clients. In a country where there are fewer than two bank branches per 100,000 people, this represents a near doubling of accessible financial services.
These numbers are significant, but what do they mean for the people of Haiti? Why should we care about the growth of mobile money in Haiti and the rest of the developing world?
