The Helix Institute of Digital Finance has launched its first country assessment report in Uganda, based on over 2,000 mobile money agent surveys carried out in 2013 all over the country. Uganda is among four African countries participating in the world-class research project, selected for its contribution to the development of digital financial services globally. The report focuses on the country’s factors for success in agent network management and what the industry needs to focus on in the next stages of development.
While launching the report Kimathi Githachuri, Head of The Helix Institute of Digital Finance and former Head of Warid Pesa (before the acquisition by Airtel Uganda), commented “The insights from Helix’s Uganda Report are very critical and present some unique findings which will assist us to develop standards and best practices in achieving sustainable digital financial service delivery across the world.” Speaking at the same event, Mr. Samson Odele, the Uganda Country Manager at MicroSave noted that ‘…the financial sector in the country stood to gain immensely from the research findings and the courses offered at The Helix Institute of Digital Finance.”
The other African countries surveyed in the four-year project include Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria. In Asia the countries to be surveyed are India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan. These eight countries are considered the world’s leading providers of mobile money and mobile banking services.
The cutting-edge research project, a collaboration between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MicroSave, is the largest research project on agent networks in the world, designed to determine what drives their success and scale. The information gathered from the Uganda country report will be infused into training courses offered through The Helix Institute of Digital Finance, the first training institute explicitly designed to equip industry leaders with effective strategies and powerful tools to build, manage, and grow mobile money agent networks in their respective markets.
The Helix Institute’s inaugural Advanced Agent Network Accelerator training courses, held in Nairobi Kenya, was attended by 22 participants from 11 countries, collectively serving over 410 million customers in their core business and over 23 million in their mobile money/mobile banking business. Participants included representatives from Airtel India, Tigo Tanzania, Grameenphone Bangladesh, Family Bank Kenya, Bank Sinar Harapan Bali Indonesia and EcoBank Ghana to name a few.
Originally Publiseh on Think-Mpesa
