Much has been written about the advantages of the cashless society, but the barriers to going cashless are many and varied, and the importance of each can change with geography and demography. In the developing world, the issues of going cashless or cash-lite are largely about financial inclusion, i.e. access to banking services, access to technology, and cost, whereas in…
Although the need for financial inclusion is well understood, the solution has proved elusive. Access to education, communications services, and financial and banking services can pose special challenges in the Third World. And the barriers to inclusivity in developing countries are often formidable, such as distance from a financial service provider, lack of necessary documentation papers, lack of trust in…
Financial inclusion has been a major challenge for developing economies for many years. The reason it is such a hot topic, especially in Africa, is that many governments have identified it as one of the key enablers for sustainable economic growth. When too much business activity is conducted informally, outside traditional financial systems, governments lack the controls they need to…
The global payments paradigm is changing. Worldwide, the dominant international card schemes battle against ever-increasing fraud, exposing their underwhelming response to the emergence of card-not present transactions. In the developing world, banks are looking to mobile technologies to capture payments by the unbanked and remove reliance on cash. And in the first world, disruptors are carving out pieces of the…
If you plan to attend the Central Bank Payments Conference in Amsterdam 26–28 June 2017, be sure to connect with us for a preview of our new domestic payment platform and discover how it fosters cash-lite and inclusive economies, provides greater control over data sovereignty, reduces fraud, and lowers costs. Our Managing Director of Africa, Yoku Korsah will be coordinating…