At The Helix Institute of Digital Finance, we have spent the last four years researching the different facets of strategic operations in digital finance that really drive success. We started with the Agent Network Accelerator (ANA) project which conducted large quantitative surveys of agent networks in ten countries around the world. We have interviewed over 34,000 agents in eleven countries countries namely; Tanzania, Uganda, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, Nigeria, Indonesia, Senegal, Zambia and Benin. While we release country reports on the major findings, we also aggregate the data and teach the lessons learned on how to design and develop an agent network in courses at the Helix Institute.
Blog
Cashlite Ramnagar – A Pilot on Creating ‘Less-Cash’ Ecosystems
The payment landscape in India has been witnessing a paradigm change for last few years now; this is further accentuated by a slew of policy reforms and innovations that have happened in the last few years in pursuit to make India a less-cash economy.
A Documentary – First Digitally Enabled Panchayat in Odisha
As the Government of India, under its “Digital India” campaign, continues to promote accessibility and usage of digital modes of payments across India, MSC partnered with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to transform Karangamal Panchayat (Odisha) into “less-cash” Panchayat.
Redesigning Digital Finance for Big Data
In a newly released paper from the Helix Institute of Digital Finance, titled, Redesigning Digital Finance for Big Data, we begin by offering a framework of analysis for understanding the myriad of different players in the fintech world.
This paper goes on to suggest important strategies that digital finance providers (mobile network operators [MNOs], banks and third parties) should adopt to manage the influx of fintech players in this space.
Some of these players have already begun to disrupt the digital finance space, most notably in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) markets, whilst others are inevitably preparing to. Implementing these strategies now should enable MNOs and banks to either face this emerging competition head on or build up valuable assets to collaborate with them later. Either way, these strategies should improve their options as this new wave of development breaks.
We believe that to compete or collaborate, providers, need to augment their customer data. This will involve increasing the number of customers they have registered on digital finance systems and the frequency of transactions made by those customers. This will enable providers to build much more complete data sets on consumer behaviour.
Data is one of the most valuable assets for an organisation in this era, where the design and delivery of financial services are done through technology.
This newly released paper maps out four practical shifts that digital finance providers should make in their strategic operations to refocus themselves from short-term transactional revenue to long-term growth in this impending shift in market dynamics. We believe that a combination of the four will drive digital finance providers towards building a robust client database. To read through the report, please click here.
Agent Network Accelerator (ANA) Programme: What Have We Learned?
Assessment of AeFDS (Aadhaar enabled Fertilizer Distribution System) pilot
The report elaborates key findings of the study on three major aspects —Farmer Readiness, Retailer Readiness, and Transaction Status. It also explains best practices being followed by districts based on indigenous wisdom and provides actionable solutions for smooth implementation of AeFDS initiative.