10 Ways to Accelerate Mobile Money

Mobile money can transform the lives of 1.8 billion people who have access to a mobile phone but not a bank. It can connect the last mile to basic financial services. Yet despite the over 100 mobile money deployments around the world, only a handful have reached economies of scale. We have learned from these deployments that the private sector cannot do it alone. Neither can governments, nor the donor community. Mobile money deployments require the coordinated action of all ecosystem participants to achieve scale. The most successful mobile money markets sound like a polished symphony orchestra, where the various industry and government participants show up at the same time with the same sheet of music and play in harmony. But that is not today’s reality. Instead, participants appear at different times and places with their own music and tempo. These ten accelerators represent a call for coordinated action. They encapsulate a set of lessons that both the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Citi have learned by engaging governments, banks, companies, mobile network operators, and practitioners.