Mobile financial services at the base of the pyramid: A systemic view for cross-sector governance and embedded innovation

Mostafa Mohamad*, Trevor Wood-Harper, Ronnie Ramlogan

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Mobile financial services is one of the uprising movements to bank the unbanked by integrating philanthropic and business approaches for financial inclusion. In this chapter, the authors address how a systemic view helps integrate the Philanthropic Initiatives (PI) and the Commercial Initiatives (CI) to get a sustainable impact on the unbanked micro-entrepreneurs. However, each approach has pros and cons as they go along the stages of design, deployment, and sustainability. Using the soft system thinking, the authors theorise the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) as a business system to mix-up the relatively high start-up capabilities of the PI with the relatively sustainable impact of CI. The mobile money case shows that donors, local private enterprises, and multinational corporations follow the BoP strategy to develop an online grid that offers a reconciled balanced scorecard for economic returns, social benefits, and local impact. Such a strategy guarantees flexible, long-term investments and facilitates developing innovative financial services.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationOrganizational Innovation and IT Governance in Emerging Economies
EditorsJingyuan Zhao, Patricia Ordóñez de Pablos, Robert Tennyson
Place of PublicationHershey
PublisherIGI Global
Pages46-82
Number of pages37
ISBN (Electronic)9781466673335
ISBN (Print)9781466673328
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Nov 2014
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • FinTech
  • Mobile Money
  • Systems Thinking
  • Base of the Pyramid Market

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