Business
Mobile money gains traction in Haiti despite slow start
The project began months after the January 2010 earthquake when the Gates Foundation announced that it was creating the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative with a US$10 million donation. Other donor agencies contributed another US$5 million for technical assistance.
The idea was to help the 90 percent of Haitians who don’t use banks by replicating a mobile money-transfer system that has gained popularity in countries such as Kenya, Uganda and the Philippines.
Two local cellphone companies, Digicel Group Ltd. and Voila, rushed to compete for the money by setting up their own mobile money transfer systems, and so far have been awarded a total of US$6.8 million from the foundation.
The system is essentially an account linked to the telephone. Users can transfer up to US$250 at a time to another subscriber, who can then withdraw the money from a network of shops ranging from auto-parts stores to internet cafes. As much as US$1,500 can be transferred in a month. So far, international transfers are not yet allowed.
Digicel-Haiti’s former CEO, Maarten Boute, said at a Barcelona conference in February that it wasn’t easy to explain the system.
“Our main lesson learned is how difficult it is to educate customers,” said Boute, who is now a senior adviser to the Jamaica-based company. “When we launched the service we assumed it would be something like selling a mobile phone, where you stick a mobile phone into someone’s hand and almost anyone can start using it quite quickly because it’s very easy to understand. With a mobile banking service or a mobile money service it’s not quite that easy.”
The Christian charity World Vision joined the program, seeing it as a simple, cash-free way to pay small rental subsidies to help people move out of the gloomy settlements that sprang up after the earthquake.
