In inclusion circles, the issue of digital identity tends to be dominated by the perspectives of law enforcement (anti-money laundering and – terrorist financing), legal compliance (how long records need to be kept), and technological implementation choices (phones or cards, biometric or not)....

This report contains an initial evaluation of the opportunities for spreading financial services through business networks in local communities across sub-Saharan Africa. The central premise is that small, local business that are able to establish a data-rich, trusted relationship with financial...

Technology, and in particular the spread of real-time communications networks, permits banks to delegate last mile cash management and customer servicing functions to third-party retail outlets. By making basic deposit, withdrawal, and payment functions available securely through retail shops...

We explore five different transition paths to the realization of an inclusive, affordable, real-time money grid that connects all citizens. The five paths represent different ways to deal with the business model challenges of defeating the tyranny of scale and the construction of fuller customer...

We document the variety of ways in which digital financial service providers in developing countries have assembled and managed networks of retail stores as their agents for cash in/cash out payments and for account and product sales. We use seven case studies to illustrate how optimal channel...

This paper explores how the broad financial decision-making practices commonly employed by poor people (as depicted in the companion paper “Money Resolutions, A Sketchbook”) could be supported through a digital financial service platform. We focus on two particular practices: money animation...

We define ‘business primitives' as low-level operations from which higher-level, more complex operations can be constructed. We set out to understand what most businesses in Kenya -- the land of the ubiquitous M-PESA -- do every day that could be simplified and reinforced through software. We...