Mobile Banking may accelerate progress towards Millennium Development Goals

Microfinance Focus, May 17, 2011: The UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and the Australian Agency for Internation Development recently organized the “Branchless Banking in the LDCs: the challenges and possibilities for donor organizations, regulators” within the Fourth UN Conference on Least Developed Countries. The event took place in Istanbul from 9 to 13 May, 2011.

The event discussed challenges and possibilities for donor organizations, regulators and private sector corporations to scale up mobile money in the LDCs.

Bob McMullan, Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of Australia, said that, “the immense potential of branchless banking as a mechanism that enables vulnerable people to participate in society and economy and that, from an international perspective, can constitute an effective measure to reduce costs linked to transfer of remittances.”

The cases of Branchless Banking programs in Cambodia, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Island presented during the side event have illustrated the important role and opportunities that institutions, such as UNCDF, can play as supporting and neutral actors in the launching of platforms for mobile money business and Branchless Banking services in LDC.

Panelists agreed that the key to making branchless banking a success is “how well the agent network is set up, incentivized and managed”. Efforts should not be centered into the technology factors but in enabling agencies and financial institutions to properly manage and assure the service through functional and reliable networks