Developing Electronic Financial Service Transaction System in Rural Philippines - Grameen Foundation

Описание: In 2015, Grameen Foundation and Propellerfish set out to design an electronic transaction platform for people in rural villages of the Philippines. Along the way, we discovered a much bigger opportunity. This is the story of our work together and the start of a bigger journey together. The project is funded by J.P. Morgan.
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Transcript:
in 2015 Grameen Foundation and Propeller Fish set out to bring electronic transaction services to people living in remote villages of the Philippines. We believe the right platform can make life easier for people who currently spend time and money traveling to pay bills far from home. But we had a lot to learn in terms of how to make a system like this work we spent six days on petting Island interviewed 85 women in groups, interviewed four Sari-Sari shop owners, ran 14 in-home interviews and experienced a local financial services ecosystem for ourselves. Here is what we learned; first off, this service is about making life easier for moms, while men make most of the money, mothers manage the home finances and are the ones making most of the payments on behalf of the family this service saves them time and money they could be investing in more important things like raising children and contributing to the family's income. Take Lourdes for instance, her husband works in Boracay as a builder and sends home eight thousand five hundred pesos a month along with some government subsidies add additional revenue from her dried fish sales, Lourdes has a budget of eleven thousand five hundred pesos a month to support her family. Considering her monthly expenses this isn't much. Managing her household budget is one of Lourdes’ biggest challenges. Twice a week, Lourdes has to head into town to pay bills. This costs her a few hours of time and twenty pesos each way in a tricycle today Lourdes is heading into town to pay her electric bill, collect the money her husband sends home and purchased some school supplies that her children need. This is three hours at Lourdes wishes she could spend doing other things like selling dried fish to support her family. The opportunity for an electronic transaction platform is to bring some of the services that are only available in town to Lourdes’ local village. [Taglog to English] Using this technology, everything becomes easier.

Here's how to make a service like this work: First, position this as a time saver helping mothers spend less time paying bills and more time on things that matter. [Taglog to English] It would be to save me time. [Taglog to English] I can save expenses...and I can save time. [Taglog to English] Time is Gold! Second focus on payments that are the least convenient to make in town, these are the payments that people would be most likely to adopt a new behavior in order to avoid. [Taglog to English] Electricity...Electricity...Birth Certificates...PhilHealth (healthcare payments)...Social Security...Social Security...Government Documents, for government payments it will be faster. You don’t have to go to San Jose (local capital)....