Design of a Model for Mobile Money Interoperability: the Case of Mobile Money Service Providers Operating in Ethiopia
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Date
12/5/2017
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Mobile money services have been spread rapidly in many developing countries and the service is best suited for developing nations to bring large number of population to financial services. Many mobile money service providers have deployed and providing the service by partnering with financial institutions. However, the services were deployed as a scheme with different platform, operating rules, agents and customers and operating independently. As a result, a money transfer from a customer of one scheme to a customer of another scheme is not possible. Similarly, agents are exclusive to specific mobile money operator; they cannot serve customers of other scheme. In addition, customers who do not have a SIM card with a mobile handset at hand are not being benefited from the services.
To well understand the service requirements, exhaustive literature review has been carried out and gained a better insight in the area of mobile money services. In addition, policy, procedure and operational manual of mobile money operators and guide lines of regulatory organ has been studied, challenges and the business rule of mobile money services, the way operators are doing their business has been observed. Having the objective of solving the problems in mind and understanding how the business is in operation in the market, an interoperability model that can best suit the market was proposed and detailed algorithms were designed, tested and implemented which made interoperability among mobile money platforms possible.
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Keywords
Mobile Money Interoperability, Interoperability Model, Mobile Financial Services, Digital Financial Services, Payment System Interoperability, Financial Inclusion, Cashless Economy