Implementing Technologies for Financial Service Innovations in Base of the Pyramid Markets

This study examines how information communications technologies (ICTs) can be implemented effectively to provide financial service innovations to the poor who live in developing countries, a market collectively known as the “Base of the Pyramid” or BOP. The BOP needs—but commonly lacks—basic financial services, a situation that perpetuates poverty. With a dearth of formal banks especially in rural areas of developing countries, the BOP has almost no access to savings accounts, credit lines, and other necessary services. However, ICTs have the potential to overcome cost, infrastructure, and other barriers to service delivery, and are being used to offer new financial services such as mobile phone banking to the BOP. The purpose of this study is to determine ways of successfully implementing these technology‐enabled service innovations. The study draws on the Socio‐Technical View for theoretical girding, and uses case method to examine multiple ICT implementation projects in five sub‐Saharan African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Uganda). The projects, which were carried out by a leading microfinance banking organization named Opportunity International, provided mobile banks, point‐of‐service, and mobile phone banking services to the BOP. Several techniques were applied to gather data in the field over a two‐year period: depth interviews, direct observations, and internal document and data analysis. Multiple forms of evidence were triangulated against one another, and analyzed across cases until themes emerged and converged. In doing so, two specific forms of analysis, explanation building and cross‐case synthesis, were employed to make sense of the data. The findings, summarized as research propositions, collectively conclude that implementation is effective when the unique socio‐human, governmental‐regulatory, and market conditions of the BOP are accounted for, such that fit is achieved between the technologies and environments they are situated in. More specifically, effectiveness comes when implementation (1) addresses customer and agent limits with the technologies, and is accepted and supported by trained staff who monitor technology use and make responsive system adjustments; (2) exploits and promotes supportive governmental regulations and actions, as well as leverages sound electronic fund transfer (EFT) switches, whether government or bank established; and (3) accounts for low business capabilities and evolving market competition, along with the underdeveloped financial sector and financial literacy of the population. In sum, there are multiple factors that should be considered in the design and installation activities surrounding these technologies to ensure they provide cost‐effective, quality financial services to the poor.     

Financial inclusion,mobile money,and individual welfare: The case of Burkina Faso

Access to financial services promotes investment and facilitates consumption smoothing by enhancing resource mobilization. Over 60 percent of Burkinabe adults are excluded from financial services by banks and other nonbank financial institutions, so mobile money is expected to bridge this gap. Accounting for the importance of financial inclusion with the rapid prevalence of mobile money, this paper assesses the effects of financial inclusion and mobile money use on an individual's nonmonetary welfare in Burkina Faso by applying matching methods. The results confirm the significant role of financial inclusion in alleviating poverty. More importantly, our analysis shows that once individuals access financial services through mobile money, such favorable effects on poverty alleviation become more substantial. Financial regulators in Burkina Faso should promote financial inclusion with mobile money to ensure the efficient enhancement of individual welfare with poverty reduction.     

我国银行理财业务发展趋势研究

对国内商业银行理财业务的发展状况进行了简要概述， 进而对理财业务开展过程中的一些问题进行了分析， 强调指出市场化应该成为银行理财业务转型升级和创新发展的方向， 并提出了实现市场化发展方向的若干具体措施。     

Demand for telecommunication services in developing countries

Living standards and economic growth in developing countries are invariably linked to the availability and use of telecom services. Effective policy decisions require the best estimates of the drivers of these services. In this paper, telecommunications demand is estimated in models for residential mainline and mobile telephone service for developing countries for the period 1996–2003. The paper tests for cross-price effects between mainline and mobile service and its findings have important policy implications. It finds residential monthly price elasticity to be insignificant for developing countries, but the connection elasticity is larger than generally found in the literature. Mobile monthly price elasticities are very large. A new and important empirical finding is that although wireline phones are substitutes in the mobile market, the contrary is not true—mobile phones are not substitutes in the wireline market, and in fact may be considered complements. This lack of symmetry has important implications for properly defining telecom markets. Universal service subsidies and competitive market initiatives should be reevaluated in light of the paper's elasticity estimates. Increased competition, income growth and enhanced education may be the ultimate universal service promoters.     

我国银行业监管体系分析——基于监管偏好与反管制的视角

由于政府失灵和市场失灵同样重要,如何理解中国银行业的管制现状,是构建符合中国现实的银行业监管体系的基础。与其他文献不同的是,本文首先对作为监管供给方的监管机构进行分析和假定,指出中国银行业监管者呈现出监管过度、监管租金和监管社会发展的三大偏好特征。然后从被监管者角度,探讨不同监管偏好的表现形式及相应的银行业反管制行为。以国有化、市场准入及繁杂且冲突的条文为特征的过度监管导致银行业金融稳定、指标良好但监管激励不相容,监管租金偏好产生了不同形式的金融腐败,而监管社会发展偏好导致银行业商业化运作不强且资产质量呈现不确定性。依据上述分析逻辑,本文提出构建中国银行业监管体系的建议,即银行业微观主体改造是基础,弱化监管者多重偏好是前提,监管制度的合理化与高度化是根本内容。     

Home Ownership Finance in Austria and Germany

This paper studies the financial barriers to ownership entry in Austria and Germany. In both countries the financial institutions are similar but there are differences as to public assistance, mortgage markets and risk allocation. Various risk shifting mechanisms between borrowers, banking and the state, and their impacts on social costs and social efficiency, are discussed. The findings indicate possible credit-rationing as an outcome of the current securitization methods used in Austrian and German bank intermediation and their interaction with subsidy and tax allowance instruments. The existing entry barriers have raised concerns among the current decision makers and may initiate financial reforms in the near future.     

Friends or Foes? Mobile money interaction with formal and informal finance

Access to formal financial services is a key determinant of financial inclusion and yet, informal mechanisms still dominate the financial system in developing countries. In this context, the purpose of our article is to investigate how the growing effort to harness mobile money designed for unbanked individuals may help to overcome barriers to access formal financial services. Using a unique dataset obtained from an individual-level survey conducted in Burkina Faso, we explore the interplay between mobile money innovation and pre-existing formal and informal financial instruments. Our main findings show that, overall there are no differences in the inclination of mobile money users and non-users to make deposits in formal or informal deposit instruments. However, a closer investigation reveals suggestive evidence that it may increase the probability of participants in informal mechanisms to make deposits in formal financial instruments, especially using a bank account. Moreover, considering disadvantaged groups, we find for women, irregular income and less educated individuals that mobile money may increase their probability to make deposits in a bank and/or credit union accounts. Our results are robust to using instrumental variables and propensity score matching techniques that mitigate the endogeneity problem. They also pass a number of robustness checks as well as considering an alternative dataset. Given the low access to formal financial services in developing countries, our findings taken together indicate how the increasing adoption of mobile money may act as a stepping-stone towards financial inclusion. (JEL Classification C83, D14, G21)     

Determinants of mobile broadband use in developing economies: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Broadband is seen as a vector of economic growth and social development. In the developing world, mobile technologies are widely adopted and mobile broadband is progressively rolled-out with high expectations on its impact on the countries’ development. We highlight what the determinants of mobile broadband use are in four Sub-Saharan countries. Using micro-level data coming from household surveys over 5 years, from 2013 to 2017, we show that SIM card ownership and being part of an online social community has a strong positive impact on mobile broadband use. We also highlight a positive correlation between digital inclusion and financial inclusion as mobile money users and bank account users are found to be more inclined to use mobile broadband. However, beyond apparent similarities, mobile broadband is used in different ways according to countries specificities. For instance, among the non-mobile owners in Nigeria, the unemployed are the most likely to use mobile broadband, most probably for job search practices, while it is rather used by students for information gathering in other countries. Finally we show that those excluded from mobile broadband use are the eldest, those with the lowest level of education, and women.     

新疆金融与经济发展关系的研究

通过对新疆1990年一2009年金融发展与经济增长的实证研究,发现新疆地区金融发展与经济增长密切相关,新疆银行业金融机构全力助推新疆跨越式发展。     

Technical innovation and 3.5 mobile phone generation: Lessons from Korea

In 1996, the Korean mobile communication market was the first in the world to commercialize the code division multiple access (CDMA). Since then, the voice-based mobile phone market has continued to grow and has now reached near saturation. Having recognized the potential of the mobile data service as a new source of profit, telecommunication operators are scrambling to evolve 3.5 generation (3.5G) technology in order to lead market competition. Recently, the Korean 3.5G mobile telecom market has faced stiff competition from CDMA-based EVDO Rev.A and global system for mobile telecommunications (GSM)-based high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA). In addition, the world's first wireless LAN-based wireless broadband internet (WiBro) service was commercialized in June, 2006. This paper reviews the current status of the 3.5G technology and analyzes the service standardization strategies from the viewpoint of technological evolutions. This paper also suggests implications for Korea's specific circumstances where different mobile telecom technologies complement and compete with one another. Korea's experiences may serve as important lessons for other countries or operators who try to introduce the 3G and look beyond mobile telecom technologies.     

数字普惠金融与商业信用二次配置

商业信用二次配置是企业充当信用中介,将银行信贷等资金通过商业信用的渠道为供应链的上下游中小企业提供融资支持,这会导致资金供给链延长,加剧了供应链系统性风险,而数字普惠金融发展的重点在于为中小企业提供直接融资,因此,其能否抑制商业信用二次配置,对于防范金融风险和促进实体经济稳定发展具有重要意义。本文深入探讨了数字普惠金融对商业信用二次配置的影响及其作用机制,研究发现:数字普惠金融有助于降低商业信用二次配置,有效减少了企业利用商业信用把长期借款资金进行二次配置的行为,而且该抑制作用对于外部融资能力较强的企业更加明显。机制检验表明,数字普惠金融通过减少上市公司超额银行信贷抑制商业信用二次配置。进一步分析显示,在外部市场竞争程度较低、内部风险较低、现金持有水平较高以及非高科技企业中,数字普惠金融对上市公司商业信用二次配置的抑制作用更加明显;而且,数字普惠金融在降低商业信用二次配置的同时,对于促进企业创新投入具有一定的积极作用。本文研究表明,数字普惠金融通过增加中小企业直接融资,减少了资金供给的中间环节,进而抑制大型企业充当"影子银行"进行资金的二次配置。     

Serving the poor: Multisided mobile service platforms,openness, competition,collaboration and the struggle for leadership

Four billion people at the base of the economic pyramid live on incomes below $3000 a year in local purchasing power, and more often than not, lack consistent access to services, such as water, healthcare, banking or agricultural know-how. Rapid advances in mobile technology offer the potential to mediate access to essential services. Through this research, the answers to the following question were explored: will mobile service platforms bridge the gap between service providers and people living at the base of the pyramid in developing countries? Anchored in interviews with 31 experts in the field of mobile and ICT, qualitative analysis starting from platform leadership to explain the role of mobile service platforms is presented: how operator, device and service provider centric platforms compete, collaborate and open up (or not) for delivering scalable services to the poor. Based on the analysis in this paper, it is portended that although operator centric platforms are in pole position, device centric platform providers, being astute innovators, are positioned to close the lead by presenting alternatives to bridge the gap in developing countries. This paper frames the current debate on M4D through the lens of platform theory, and aims to provide guidance to policy makers to improve access to services for the poor.     

浅谈私人银行业务在我国内地商业银行的发展

私人银行业务是指以商业银行为主的金融机构面向社会富裕人士提供的以财富管理为中心的一揽子专业化的高层次金融服务.而随着中国经济金融的全面开放和内地富裕群体的日益壮大,外资银行纷纷企图在这一利润丰厚的财富蛋糕上沾点甜头.这项涵盖银行、保险、证券、信托、遗产安排、艺术品收藏与拍卖等领域的多元化服务,将成为中资银行丰厚利润的新...     

Mobile money,family assistance and welfare in Cameroon

This paper aims to investigate the effect of mobile money services on the welfare in Cameroon. It specifically verifies whether the welfare of people benefiting from family assistance is improved via the mobile money services offered by the two main operators in the country, namely: Orange and Mtn. The data used come from the « FinScope Consommateur Cameroun » Survey carried out in 2017 by the National Institute of Statistics (INS). Based on the propensity scores estimations, this study shows a positive and significant effect of mobile money on welfare. However, among the operators, Orange has a better impact compared to Mtn which does not present a significant effect. These results call on the authorities in charge of the development and implementation of financial inclusion policies to recognize the interest of digital financial services at the heart of financial inclusion strategies for the welfare of the poor.     

Telecommunications services and economic growth: Evidence from India

This paper estimates the growth contributions of telecom services by public and private sectors and distinguishes it from the information technology services. Socio-economic determinants of demand for telecom services are estimated for fixed and mobile phones in the framework of a Logit model and using data from a small-household sample survey in India. Estimation results show a significant negative impact of price and a positive impact of income variables; distinguish the importance of social caste, education level, nature of occupation, age of household head and family size between fixed and mobiles phones and offer evidence for substitutability of mobile phones for fixed phones. These results add to the empirical knowledge of socio-economic determinants of telecom demand and have implications for selective design of policies towards promotion of higher demand and attainment of higher economic growth by fixed and mobile services in India and other developing countries.     

Consumer protection in the telecommunication sector: A comparative institutional analysis of five African countries

The telecommunications sector has proliferated in recent years, especially in developing countries. However, little attention has been paid to consumer protection issues. As more people get connected to telecommunication networks and competition becomes increasingly fierce, it becomes essential to revamp institutions that ensure consumer protection in the telecommunication markets. This paper analyses the current status of institutions that protect consumers in the telecommunications sector in five African countries from the perspective of three pillars of sound institutional design. The findings indicate that while all cases analysed herein have some form of institution that upholds consumer protection, in most cases, such protection is limited to mobile communications. Furthermore, in most cases, there are only general sanction provisions that are either too weak to bind service providers or that leave overly discretionary powers to regulatory agencies, which can lead to corrupt practices, hence weakening consumer protection. This paper describes current affairs with regard to consumer protection in the telecom industry, identifies its weaknesses, and proposes areas of improvement to attain a healthier telecommunications sector.     

Evaluating the efficiency change and productivity progress of the top global telecom operators since OTT's prevalence

The telecommunications industry has undergone significant evolvement from fixed to mobile substitution (FMS) to fixed mobile convergence (FMC) and now to over-the-top (OTT) services due to the huge rise in data usage. This paper explores efficiency variation during the period 2012–2017 for the top 41 global telecom operators in Forbes Global, 2000. Based on the data envelopment analysis (DEA) meta-frontier approach to reflect differences in production functions, the empirical results herein show that the number of operators achieving technical efficiency with respect to the meta-frontier fell from 13 firms in 2012 to 10 firms in 2013 to 8 firms in 2014 to 8 firms in 2015 and then to 7 firms in 2016, but then rose to 11 firms in 2017, displaying the impact from rise in OTT. For the mobile-only group, the average technical efficiency with respect to the meta-frontier is 0.841, which is superior to the fixed-mobile group's 0.774 and the fixed-only group's 0.714, and the group difference is significant among the three facilities-based groups. The meta-frontier estimation suggests that the fixed-mobile group has the highest meta-technology ratio (MTR) of 0.901 versus the mobile-only group's 0.886 and fixed-only group's 0.718. The empirical results offer policy implications for regulators to encourage telecom operators to have fixed-mobile operations. We further suggest that telecom operators cooperate with OTT service providers and invest in them in order to take advantage of people's more personalized digital life.     

基于企业竞争力视角的物流金融服务研究

作为顺应市场发展、实现多方共赢的创新型物流服务,物流金融不仅有利于中小企业融资和银行金融业务的创新,也是提高物流企业竞争力的重要方式。本文以我国物流企业的未来竞争力为视角,对发展物流金融服务的具体策略和路径进行深入探讨,指出物流金融服务必将推动物流企业的管理创新和业务发展,成为我国物流企业决胜未来和物流产业迅猛发展的重要手段。     

Strategic Complementarities in Bank Branching Decisions*

I study how complementarities between rival banks’ branching decisions impacts banking deregulation. I use an instrumental variables approach to separately identify a bank’s strategic response to rivals’ branching decisions from common market factors. The results indicate that some bank types are more likely to open additional branches if their rivals do. This has important implications for expansion and merger policies. These are explored using a model of consumer demand for bank services and bank branch network choices. I find that strategic complementarities in branching decisions augment the effects of a merger or expansion, leading many banking markets to become over-branched.     

吉林省金融机构对中小企业金融支持的对策分析

近年来,吉林省金融机构将开展中小企业业务作为改善业务结构、客户结构和调整战略方针、履行社会责任的重点,中小企业贷款满足率不断上升,但融资难问题,仍是制约不少中小企业进一步发展的障碍.加强对中小企业的金融支持,广大金融机构应提高服务中小企业发展的水平,增强金融创新能力,完善中小企业信贷考核体系,建立中小企业贷款风险补偿基金,发展多层次中小企业信用担保体系等,为中小企业的发展提供更有力的金融支持.