On the User-centric Evolution of Mobile Money Technologies in Developing Nations: Successes and Lessons

In developing regions of the world such as Sub-Saharan Africa, access to basic financial services such as funds transfer and bill payments are unavailable to over 70% of the population. Mobile money technologies, which entail the use of mobile technology in facilitating financial transactions, have presented themselves as viable methods of reaching this segment of the population known as the unbanked. However, there is an unfortunate dearth of studies that examine the limitations of mobile money implementations and provide recommendations for improving this important tool for financial inclusion. To this end, this research provides a review of the evolution of mobile money technologies as an example of user centered innovation and identifies the important actors in the mobile money ecosystem. Through a case study of the performance of mobile money deployments in two regions of Africa (Kenya and Nigeria), critical success factors are identified and discussed. Specifically, it is highlighted that : a mobile first approach to designing the ecosystem, balanced regulatory policies, a useable base of distribution agents and alignment with the needs of the unbanked are four important factors for successful mobile money implementations in developing nations.