Building an in-house mobile money platform

The worldwide smartphone penetration is expected to reach 66% in 2018. Last year, the global number of mobile app downloads reached 197 billion.

In Nepal, where the mobile phone penetration rate is 73.23%, mobile phones usage has increased exponentially over the years, with use cases spanning from social networks to making grocery as well as utility payments. So, it is a natural progression for financial service providers wanting to expand their business to put their bets on developing mobile payment services.

UNCDF-MM4P programme in Nepal has been working closely with such companies to expand financial access to the financially excluded by supporting our partners with grants and technical assistance. In due course of our engagement, we have learned that almost everyone of them has once (or more than once) had a tussle with the build versus buy decision. This means that when setting up a mobile money platform, the provider faces the decision to buy an off-the-shelf solution or to develop the platform in-house. But before making such a herculean decision, the provider should first think through the long-term strategy and assess the internal capacity.

To begin with, the team needs to have a clear vision of their strategic intent to sustain their business for the long term and be mindful of their capacity both operationally and financially. The briefing note ‘Building an In-House Mobile Wallet’ maps out the steps we followed working with a non-bank financial provider to develop a mobile money platform that ensures safe and seamless transactions, preserves data privacy and offers basic as well as more complex products such as insurance, savings and credit.