Key questions this article answers:
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India crashed the cost of 1GB of data by 92% in two years (2016-2018). Can Nigeria replicate these successes?
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Compared to USSD, mobile banking applications offer more user-friendly interfaces. But are there any drawbacks to pushing a mobile-app-led distribution model for the financially underserved?
The past few weeks have busted some of the big assumptions we’ve made about financial inclusion.
In 2005, expectations were high on the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) bet that Microfinance banks (MFBs) would be the vehicle for bringing banking services closer to the financially vulnerable. 18 years later, CBN’s mass suspension of 179 MFBs (~20% of MFBs) in May confirms many have fallen far from this objective.
Another interesting debate concerns the digital rails banks use to deliver banking services to the financially excluded. With banks and telcos at loggerheads over who pays USSD fees, some bank execs propose junking
