IST-Africa 2017 Conference Proceedings

Paul Cunningham and Miriam Cunningham (Eds)

IIMC International Information Management Corporation, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-905824-57-1

ICT Solutions for Financial Inclusion:

Reaching Out to the Unbanked in Low
Resource Settings
Chipo KANJO1, Yamikani PHIRI1, Frank MTUMBUKA2, Tiwonge MANDA1
1
University of Malawi, Chancellor College, Box 280, Zomba, Malawi
Tel: +265 1 524 222, Fax: + 265 1 524 043, Email: [email protected]
2
Baobab Health Trust, Box 31797, Lilongwe 3, Malawi
Tel: +265 1 750 600, Email: [email protected]
Abstract: Most of the population in developing countries remains unbanked and
financially excluded. On the other hand, mobile phones have proved to have the
potential for mobile payments in developing countries. Mobile payment is
financially inclusive, offering great potential for financial integration. Africa, by and
large, is considered to be having a higher percentage of the unbanked. This paper
concerns how the mobile payment potential can be leveraged in the context where
most of the population is financially excluded. The paper reflects results of a study
carried out in Malawi focusing on provision of ICT-based financial solutions to the
unbanked in developing countries, particularly in the low resource settings of Africa
using a technology called e-ticketing system. Mobile payments encompass a range of
different payment types, some of which may not appeal in some contexts. In this
study USSD communication mode was adopted, choice of which depended on its
affordability, ease of use and responsiveness.
Keywords: Financial Inclusion, Banked, Unbanked, Low Resource Setting, Mobile
Payments

1 Introduction
Financial inclusion entails creating access to financial services for everyone [1] and is seen
as “a policy priority to address the problem of poverty and financial exclusion” [2] pp.67.
Prior to mobile technology, banks were the main players offering financial services.
However, much as the banks have shown a growth and improvements in financial viability,
competitiveness and profitability, they have not been able to bring financial inclusion to
most of the population, particularly the underprivileged [3, 36. [4] argues that the banks
earlier focused only on rich customers and ignored the customers at the bottom of the
pyramid who belong to the low income segment. This is evidenced by the fact that one can
only open an account upon producing an Identification (ID), and most from the low income
segment do not have IDs, as a result they remain unbanked.
Discussion of the “Banked and Unbanked” – is becoming more common in the
discourse on mobile technologies [5, 6]. Apart from assumptions regarding the value of
mobile phones, Africa, by and large, is considered to be having a higher percentage of the
"unbanked" [7, 36]. Various factors such as low population of the banked and lack of
electrification for powering mobile phones have characterized the continent, and now are
joined, unsurprisingly, by low indicators for internet connectivity, and cashless modes of
payments. Most of the focus in this context is on the mobile banking and payments for the
"banked", yet a much higher population remains unbanked. The Deputy Governor of
Reserve Bank of India, Dr. K. C. Chakrabarty argued that “just as you cannot have tele-

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medicine without a doctor, you cannot have mobile banking without a bank”. The map
below (Fig.1) shows the regional average percent of banked population in the world and
indicates that Africa has the least banked population. This implies that most of the
population is unbanked and [8] assert that extending the banking services to the
unreachable and excluded areas is a daunting task.
[9] suggest utilisation of information and communications technologies (ICTs) as
helpful in the provision of essential financial services. Such ICTs can be in the form of
mobile banking, mobile money and mobile payments. Mobile banking is where you use a
mobile phone as an access channel for your existing banking relationship to transfer funds,
pay bills, check mini statement, inter alia [10]. Mobile banking is only available to the
banked population. Mobile money on the other hand is used for mobile based accounts
offered primarily to the under-banked and unbanked with mobile phone subscriptions [10].
Mobile payments
are any kind of
payments initiated
through a mobile
phone [10]. The
source of fund
could be anything -
cards, bank
account, mobile
money, etc. It
could be a part of
mobile money,
mobile banking,
Fig. 1 - Percentage of the unbanked by region
mobile wallets or
any such service. Mobile money and mobile payments do not require one to have a bank
account. Mobile payments utilise different technological interfaces, these include the Short
Messaging Service (SMS) or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), where a
message is sent by the user via the mobile phone network to initiate a payment; Mobile
internet, where the mobile device provides a means of accessing the internet; and
Contactless or Near Field Communication (NFC), where a mobile device enabled with an
NFC chip is placed in proximity to an NFC-enabled terminal and transmits payment
information using radio frequencies [11]. Research indicate that mobile payments have
offered dramatic benefits to developing economies in terms of financial inclusion and
payments system efficiency [10, 11]. Mobile payments encompass a range of different
payment types, however, not all types appeal to all contexts [12].
This paper will focus on mobile payment using Unstructured Supplementary Services
Data (USSD) as the ICT solution for financial inclusion, as this can be used for both the
banked and the unbanked population. Choice of USSD was made because it scores highest
amongst all other modes of communication in terms of ease of provisioning, affordability
and availability across various types of handsets [12].
The study was conducted in Malawi, where to date, most of the population remains
unbanked.
1.1 Motivation
The idea for this paper came from a number observations on mobile phones penetration,
availability and services provided; the banked and unbanked population ratio; and
availability of credit cards, debit cards, mobile and Internet banking. The first observation is
that despite the digital divide, which disfavoured the African continent the most [13],
mobile phones have broken the norm in terms of penetration, availability and services

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mobile phones provide in Africa. Further, mobile money, a service provided using mobile
technologies, is maturing across many developing regions [6]. For example, mobile money
services have now spread across much of Africa, with Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
accounting for the most live services globally (53%) [6]. The aspects of availability,
however, involve questions of cost, and these in turn relate to, among other things, whether
one is able to gain access to the available service.
With the availability of smart phones; Unstructured Supplementary Services Data
(USSD), SIM Tool Kit (STK) and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) services are
increasingly available through mobile applications. Of late, a growing number of mobile
network operators (MNOs) have shown interest in developing interoperable solutions as is
the case in Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Tanzania [6]. It is now being acknowledged
that non-bank providers of mobile money services are playing a huge role in fostering
financial inclusion [6, 40]. Research has also shown that an estimated 2.5 billion people in
the world lack access to formal financial services, a thing which has prompted an increase
in the use of mobile phones to increase access to low-cost financial services including
payments [6].
The section below provides brief descriptions of the different mobile payment systems
identified. It also identifies the mobile payment used in this study.
1.2 Mobile Payments
Although the term ‘mobile payments’ is used broadly, it includes a number of payment
methods that are used via mobile devices. In this study, only one of the many methods was
used. There are three main mobile payment types namely: mobile wallet, mobile money,
and mobile point of sale [14, 30]. Of the three, this study will use mobile money, a mobile
payment which is common in Africa, and the only one available in Malawi.
Mobile wallets not only bank information on mobile phones in virtual “wallets”, but
also allow users to store their credit cards, access loyalty programs, rewards points and
coupons [14]. Through the wallets, customers create a single point of access for all their
shopping-related payment needs. Payments are enabled with a Near Field Communications
(NFC), an enabled terminal at the checkout points where customers simply wave or tap the
phone, for purchases done in a brick-and-mortar establishment [14]. Online customers on
the other hand, do have the payment data tokenised into a unique code.
Mobile money utilises a mobile phone for peer-to-peer (P2P) cash transfers. It is a non-
bank based payment method, which relies solely on cash. Mobile money allows users to
charge their mobile account with cash at a designated agent or by directly depositing funds
to their mobile money account. Mobile money provides a non-banking alternative for
payments, and works from even simple phones via SMS-based transactions. Mobile money
enables these customers to make online purchases, or to pay for travel bookings. For
example, M-pesa in Kenya is one of the leading mobile money options [15, 16] which uses
STK, a programming environment embedded on the user’s SIM card together with
encrypted SMS [40].
Another type of mobile payment is done with a mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) device.
Unlike mobile wallets and mobile money, mPOS solutions extend the functionality of
mobile devices, enabling them to serve as payment card readers in place of traditional cash
registers, via a simple add-on and app. These are suited for use in restaurants or travel and
hospitality settings [14].

2 Objectives
This paper aims to provide another means of reaching out to the unbanked by expanding
into adjacent markets for mobile financial services, leveraging on use of mobile
technologies, and specifically USSD service. Unlike a situation where “you cannot have

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tele-medicine without a doctor” as argued by the Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of
India, Dr. K. C. Chakrabarty; in this paper we argue that you can have financial services
and mobile banking without a bank, especially with mobile money service availability.

3 Methodology
In this study, qualitative insights on the situation of mobile financial services and the
banked and unbanked in Malawi is done. The qualitative insights were done mostly through
secondary research using document analysis and knowledge gained through a workshop on
Technology and Financial Services in Malawi.
In addition, an experimental approach was used where a prototype system for making
payments as described in section 4 was developed using HTML, JavaScript, CSS and PHP
programming languages and MySQL database. The backend framework was done using a
PHP framework called ‘Code Igniter’. Prior to developing the prototype, a quick
assessment of businesses that require tickets for their daily operations was done. Of the
many, three were chosen, these include tickets for buses, for events and for football. This
was followed by requirements solicitation for each of the three. Finally, a system was
prototyped. The system is called e-ticketing system.

4 Technology Description
4.1 USSD as a Communication Mode of Choice
USSD is a protocol used by Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) cellular
telephones to communicate with the service provider's computers. GSM is a wireless
technology that has revolutionalised the way we communicate today and is used by over 3
billion subscribers [17]. USSD is a communication mode that was used for presentation on
the mobile side. As a communication mode, USSD has a number of advantages which
include: feasibility, affordability, menu-based (better experience for customers), interactive,
the messages are flash type (they cannot be stored) [12], provides better and fast response to
end users [12.16], convenient and accept smaller transactions unlike banks [16]. USSD
messages can have a maximum of 182 alphanumeric characters and it creates a real-time
connection during a USSD session. The connection is created by dialling a number that
starts with * and ends with # [37]. USSD is more responsive than SMS as its connection
remains open, allowing a two-way exchange of a sequence of data. Other than the
advantages presented, currently, USSD is the only architecture available for the purpose in
Malawi. In addition, every mobile phone has this architecture. However, USSD has its
limitations, customer experience is not as smooth as that offered by STK as its sessions can
be dropped. It also has limited security capabilities in comparison to STK or mobile internet
[40].
4.2 Development Tools Used
As mentioned earlier, the system was developed using HTML, JavaScript, CSS and PHP
programming languages and MySQL database. The backend framework was done using a
PHP framework called ‘Code Igniter’. Java Script and CSS were used for behavioural user
interaction and styling the web back-end system. PHP was used for the logic and
functionality of the system. MySQL was the database used to store all the data elements in
the system. The Code Igniter as a framework was used to enhance simplicity whilst
reinforcing model view controller standards.
4.3 The e-Ticketing System
This section discusses the flow of events in e-ticketing system that has been developed.
This system allows users to buy tickets for various events and pay bus fares via the USSD

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architecture. The e-Ticketing system have the following workflows: buying tickets, linking
to mobile money service provider server, checking the tickets which have been bought but
are not yet used, organizing events to verify the tickets when the users come to redeem
them.
As illustrated in
Fig 2, (1) is the
Main Menu, (2)
User selects
region s/he is
operating from,
(3) User selects
source district, (4)
User selects
destination
district, (5) User
selects bus
company and (6)
Available buses
on selected route
are displayed for
the User to
choose. Having
chosen the
preferred bus, (7)
User is asked to
confirm the
choice.

Fig. 2- e-ticketing system workflow

The Main Menu in (1) is displayed after User dials service
code, in this case *500#. This system can be used to buy tickets
for different things – buses, events, football. The user will be
able to respond by replying with the number against the menu
items. In the illustration below we use bus tickets as an example.
To buy a bus ticket, the User will enter option 1.
After choosing the type of ticket to be bought, the User will
then be requested to select the region he or she is coming from as
presented in Fig. 2 part 2. This helps control the number of
districts displayed on the screen. Malawi has three regions and
28 districts spread across the different regions. Suppose the user wants to travel from the
central region, User will enter option 2. Only districts in the central region will be
displayed. After providing the source region, then all starting points for buses in that region
will be displayed. The system, in its current form handles routes between districts and not
within a district. Part 3 of Fig.2 shows the source districts in the central region (and in this
case only Lilongwe district may be selected because so far it is the only one defined in the
system currently).
When the User enters the source district, a list of destination districts will appear as
shown in part 4 of Fig. 2. These districts are those that can be reached from the selected
source district on the routes defined by any bus company that is registered with the system.
When the user selects the destination district, a list of buses covering that route will be

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displayed as shown in part 5 of Fig. 2. In this demo, the only bus company that covers the
Lilongwe-Thyolo route is AXA. After selecting a bus company in the previous menu, then
a list of bus types on the selected route will be displayed as shown in part 6 of Fig. 2. The
items on the list will include bus category (e.g. commuter, coach, etc.), bus fare and
departure time.
After selecting the desired bus type, departure time and fare, the system will check if
seats are still available and notify the User accordingly. If seats are available, the User will
then be requested to confirm his or her choice before proceeding to processing the
payments as shown in part 7 of Fig. 2.
4.4 Payment Processing
Having gone through the processes of selecting routes, events and matches, the User will be
requested to select the mobile money service provider to process the payment for the ticket
as displayed in Fig. 3. All mobile money service providers will
appear on the screen. When the mobile money service provider
has been chosen, the User will be
requested to enter the PIN for his/her
mobile money account as shown in
Fig. 4. These details will then be
posted to the chosen mobile money
service provider’s server to check it
the user’s account balance is sufficient
to purchase the ticket. The user will be
Fig. 3
notified accordingly. If the balance in
the user’s account is sufficient, the purchase of the ticket will be
processed and will be presented with the details of the event and
Fig. 4
the ticket ID as shown in Fig. 5.
4.5 Other System Functionalities
In addition to buying tickets, the system allows users to check the tickets they have bought
and not used. The system also allows those organizing events to verify the tickets when the

Fig. 5
users come to redeem them by a particular dialling code. When the user dials the service
code, for example, *501#, the User will be presented with a list of tickets bought using that
phone number as shown in Fig. 5(a). When the User selects a choice, he/she will be
presented with the details of the tickets.
When the user selects the ticket on the previous menu, he or she will be able to view
the ticket details as shown in Fig. 5 (b). To verify the tickets, agents from various
committees that organize the events will dial some code, for example, *502*24325#, where
the number 24325 is the ticket number. And after dialing, the agent will be presented with a
screen as shown in Fig. 5 (d).

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4.6 Implementation Problems
With all the advantages of USSD as a communication mode listed in section 4.1,
implementation of e-ticketing using USSD encountered some challenges. The main
challenge was on the mobile operators’ side. MNO’s applications interface with third party
applications via Application Programming Interfaces (API). As this means giving access to
their core assets, mobile operators must weigh the risks before opening their APIs. In this
case, however, the challenge was not on weighing the risks, but on the fact that the APIs in
use currently are hard-coded and they were outsourced. Therefore, the modifications to
connect to the API had to be made where the initial API code was developed.

5 Developments
This study started with a situation analysis of the banked and unbanked, and assessed the
barriers and drivers. “The unbanked are usually the very poor, or at the bottom of the socio-
economic pyramid, without formal earnings, rely on farm income, or live on ‘welfare’ from
friends and family [18, 19]. They operate primarily in cash. In Malawi, over half of the
adult population remain unbanked [20, 31, 32], and according to the Finscope survey 2014
report, 67% of the adult population are unbanked [20]. For a long time, the country had
only two, then three commercial banks and a central bank. The customer base for each of
these banks was less than 500,000 [21]. The customer base was limited by the fact that most
potential customers could not satisfy all of the banking requirements to open an account
such as ID, letter from employers, minimum amount [21]. In the recent years, one of the
new players –in terms of banks, removed the barrier by introducing biometrics and this
opened the banks to a population of up to 7 million, particularly those who registered for
voting and had voter’s ID. Despite introducing biometrics, out of the eligible 7 million, 5
million remain unbanked [21]. The 5 million that remain are a big market for other
possibilities.
As the world is working towards a ‘networked society’ with the huge increase of mobile
technology, there is great potential for other popular options in financial inclusion such as
those delivered by mobile network operators and service providers [19]. For example, in
Africa alone, mobile subscriptions have gone from almost no subscribers in the year 2000
to around 950 million [19] and it is projected that by 2021, over 90 percent of the world’s
population will be covered by mobile broadband networks [22, 33].
The proliferation of mobile phones and services have given room to a number of
systems to be developed over the last few years that allow the unbanked to use their mobile
phones to pay for goods and services [19]. Out of the four mobile payment systems models
that exist (direct mobile banking, mobile web payments, and contactless near field
communication and SMS/USSD), the most common is for unbanked populations tends to
be SMS/USSD-based transactional payment system [23]. The SMS/USSD-based
transactional payment model is usually a premium service that allows a customer to send a
payment to a seller via SMS text or USSD (or a short code), and the seller releases the
goods or services once payment is confirmed [19, 30]. The amounts paid, either are
reflected on the subscriber’s phone bill, or in the case of pre-paid customers, are
immediately deducted from their calling credit.
Literature review revealed that use of mobile technology is very common in other
countries such as the Philippines, where more than 95% of the population are using mobile
phones to take out and repay loans, pay bills, buy goods, make donations, transfer cash and
even purchase fast-food burgers” [24]. In Africa, it was found that there are a number of
challenges and uncertainties in this regard, which include: reaching a deeper understanding
of demand, usage, and impact amongst lesser-off market segments; balancing the regulatory

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evolution between openness towards new entrants and approaches on the one hand, and
consumer protection and market confidence in financial systems on the other.
In Malawi, despite breaking the barrier by introducing biometrics, most of the
population reside in rural settings where they cannot easily access the traditional banking
institutions due to distances, transport problems, low income levels, coupled with issues of
understanding of demand. However, it was found that what is demanded across income
levels is the need to “move money”, i.e. remittance that is a common phenomenon in SSA,
which includes remittance from abroad as well as from urban to rural areas [22]. For this
study, the remittance include paying for services i.e. buying tickets of sorts using mobile
phones. Currently, Malawi has three mobile phone service providers – Access, Airtel and
TNM. Access was the last of the three and does not provide mobile money services. Airtel
was the first to roll out mobile money with Airtel Money followed by TNM with TNM
Mpamba. Between these two mobile phone service providers there are more than 10,000
touch points compared to a total of 800 touch points for the 13 banks across the country
[21].
The system used in this study was developed following an assessment of the
situation on the ground, where it was found that most of the population are unbanked,
therefore they do not own credit cards. In addition, in most rural areas there is no
infrastructure that would allow customers to make payments through banks. Further,
smartphone applications still exclude majority of the less privileged [37], whereas USSD as
a technology accommodates both feature and smart phones [37, 38].

6 Results
As mentioned in section 4.3, e-Ticket system is meant to allow users to buy tickets for
various events and pay bus fares via the USSD architecture with workflows for (i) buying
tickets, (ii) linking to mobile money service provider server, (iii) checking the tickets which
have been bought but are not yet used, and (iv) verifying the tickets when the users come to
redeem them. This far, the system started with phase 1, developing functionality for buying
bus tickets and this has been has completed, with complete functionality for buying bus
tickets, checking the tickets which have been bought but are not yet used, and verifying the
tickets when the users come to redeem them. The three complete workflows have been
tested. What is remaining is customisation of the three workflows for buying bus tickets to
work for events and football tickets. Workflow number (ii), linking to mobile money
service provider server is still work in progress. Implementation of the link between the e-
Ticketing system and mobile money service provider had challenges with the available
application program interface (API) on the provider’s side. An API is a set of tools and
standards that dictate how different software components interact and it can be open or
closed [39]. Currently the API of the mobile service provider used fails to integrate with the
e-Ticket system. Although a go ahead was granted to open the API for the e-Ticket system,
the API was hard-coded and needs to be modified to suit and interface with the e-Ticket
system. The challenge now is the fact that the API was not developed in-house, it was
outsourced.
Currently, what is common in Malawi is payment of services using a mobile phone
through bank APIs. The e-Ticket system would then provide an alternative platform for
payments that bypasses the banks. This study therefore introduces a way of payments
without involving the banks. This will allow for the unbanked to enjoy financial services
which they are otherwise deprived of.

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7 Business Benefits of Mobile Payments
“Global payment trends show a clear shift to mobile payments” [14, 37]. In the USA for
example, PayPal, a dominant mobile payment player has grown beyond eBay users with
117 million active registered users across 190 markets and a quarterly revenue of $1.37
billion in 2012 [25]; in Kenya, M-PESA has gone viral registering 40% of the Kenya’s
adult population as its users [26]. Worldwide, there are fewer than one billion bank
accounts, but more than three billion cell phones [24]. This provides mobile operators an
opportunity to fill the gap to bank and provide services otherwise provided by banks to
some of those currently not served – the unbanked, including making payments such as
buying tickets. This opportunity is evidenced by the M-Pesa in Kenya that proved that a
bank account is not needed as customers get M-Pesa account. M-Pesa hit 1.6 million
subscribers in 2008, only 12 months after its launch [27]. In addition, there are other
leading mobile network providers that offer mobile payments including bKash in
Bangladesh, WING in Cambodia, EasyPaisa in Pakistan, Zaad in Somaliland, Tigo in
Tanzania, and EcoCash in Zimbabwe [40].
Further, there are several other benefits which apply to both the customer and the
service provider. For the customers, they do not need to have a bank account to be able to
access and use online payment; the mobile payment is convenient and secure as customers
can make payment anywhere at any time using their mobile devices as long as they are
connected to the Internet, customers do not have to have cash in their wallet all the time or
swipe a card [28, 29].

8 Conclusions
Today, the market is changing with the introduction of mobile phones, a thing which
enabled most of those previously unbanked become banked. The introduction of e-ticketing
system was confirmed to be a very useful initiative as it brings about financial inclusion to
the unbanked. Those who could otherwise not have access to credit cards, could still afford
to make electronic payments using their mobile phones. However, for Malawi, this also
proved to be a complex, multi-dimensional process as it involved several players, the
system developers, the mobile payment service providers, and other players where the
mobile phone service providers outsource the payment APIs. Globally, providers are
strengthening their internal capabilities to address transactions through platform migrations
and extension of application programming interfaces (APIs) to third party users [6], this is
yet to be implemented in Malawi.
8.1 Lessons Learnt
Lessons learnt in this study include the following:
x Success of mobile payment in the context of study does not only depend on MNOs,
there are other external stakeholders involved that play a crucial role of opening the
API. These include outsourced organisations.
x To achieve financial inclusion, mobile payments have to be bank independent.

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