Reaching Half of the Market: Women and Mobile Money

To reach scale and impact in their operations, mobile money operators cannot ignore women, who make up half of the potential customer base. However, penetration of services within this group remains low and there are many barriers that keep women from adopting and using these services, such as low levels of literacy and mobile phone ownership. This report from the GSMA looks at how operators can use a number of tactics to overcome these gender-specific barriers, particularly changing their approaches to marketing and distribution. This includes product offerings tailored to the unique financial needs of women; updated marketing campaigns that women can relate to; and hiring quality female agents who help to build women’s confidence and trust in mobile money services and turn them into loyal customers.