CICO agents are vital to the growth of digital financial services in India. Yet, they continue to face significant challenges, which include unreliable operations, limited product diversity, weak grievance redress mechanisms, and low representation of women. These issues limit customer satisfaction, reduce agent viability, and constrain financial inclusion at scale.

MSC collaborated with Airtel Payments Bank, FINO Payments Bank, Indian Bank, Bank of India, and Pay1 to design and scale solutions across three strategic pillars. The first focused on expanding the range of products and services, both existing and new, that agents could offer, with a special emphasis on reaching women and rural low-income households. The second improved liquidity management for agents, while the third enhanced grievance resolution practices to strengthen customer experience at service points.

The project applied in-depth behavioral research to develop non-CICO use cases tailored to different customer segments, such as women, gig workers, and contractual factory workers. MSC facilitated workshops to prioritize solutions, support prototype development, pilot test innovations, and develop go-to-market strategies. In parallel, frameworks were deployed to strengthen agent liquidity, streamline grievance handling, and institutionalize service quality improvements.

The engagement has enabled over 100,000 agents, 20% of them women, to offer non-CICO services, and connected more than 2 million new low- and middle-income customers. At least three new non-CICO use cases have been integrated into CICO operations, a credit screening tool has been developed to help lending partners meet the working capital needs of over 100,000 agents, and an efficient grievance resolution mechanism now serves 15,000 BC agents nationwide.

The Gates Foundation commissioned this project.

Kenya’s leadership in digital financial inclusion has been driven by mobile money and CICO agents. However, to sustain this growth commercially viable, user-centric, and high-quality services are required. While early progress in interoperability among mobile money operators is encouraging, gaps remain in network optimization, stakeholder alignment, and customer experience. Kenya needs a shared agent network model that supports multiple institutions, strengthens agent-level economics, and adapts to the evolving needs of underserved users to achieve deeper inclusion.

MSC worked with FSD Kenya to assess different approaches to building sustainable business models, governance frameworks, and market-entry strategies for an interoperable agent network. This involved analyzing value propositions for both customers and agents, ensuring that the model could maximize agent profitability, provide simple and well-supported services, diversify income sources, enhance service accessibility, ensure fair and transparent pricing, and deliver consistently high service quality.

The engagement led to capacity building and workshops to strengthen governance, business models, technology, and operational policies, alongside the development of a practical implementation plan for the interoperable network. The resulting design offers an integrated and sustainable model with the potential to expand reach, improve user experiences, and enhance the resilience of Kenya’s financial ecosystem.

FSD Kenya commissioned this project.

Ethiopia’s Somali region is facing its worst drought in four decades. The calamity has left an estimated 55% of its population in urgent need of food and water. While digital financial services present a critical channel to deliver humanitarian cash and voucher assistance, the early stage of Ethiopia’s DFS ecosystem and the limited capacity of agent networks have hindered uptake.

MSC worked with the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) to strengthen agent networks for humanitarian payment delivery. The project combined research, curriculum design, and training with action planning, pilot testing, and continuous advisory support. This included the development of tailored training toolkits, onboarding of financial service providers for agent network management, capacity building for last-mile service delivery, and on-site support for strategy execution.

The initiative enabled DFS partners to expand their reach and improve the efficiency of humanitarian interventions in the Somali region. By March 2024, MSC had developed three-year strategies and operational plans, delivered eight targeted training sessions to selected providers, trained and reactivated 500 agents, and sustained the activity of 300 agents.

 

The Pathways to Enhancing Financial Inclusion in India (PEFI) initiative tested and scaled solutions to strengthen cash-in-cash-out (CICO) agent networks in India. While CICO agents are critical to the extension of reliable financial services to underserved communities, yet many face lifecycle challenges that hinder their performance and threaten their sustainability. This initiative intended to empower agents, enhance resilience, reduce attrition, and improve agility in day-to-day operations to ultimately ensure better financial access for low-income and rural customers.

MSC led the design and implementation of behaviorally informed pilots that addressed critical lifecycle inflection points for agents. The team provided coaching and mentoring support through the Indian Institute of Banking and Finance (IIBF) module, strengthened agent communication with rural women customers to encourage savings, evaluated new pricing models to lower merchant costs and increase transaction yields, enhanced product and service offerings to boost agent revenues, and improved agent channel performance for leading banks. MSC also developed credit underwriting models and assessment tools to help financial institutions evaluate the creditworthiness of their agents to further support network stability and growth.

These interventions delivered measurable improvements in onboarding, retention, and trust within agent networks. The pilots served as proof of concept for behaviorally informed strategies to produce positive results that supported their scale-up under the Scaling Agent Viability and Sustainability project. By enabling agents to operate more effectively and sustainably, the initiative has contributed to the expansion of reliable, inclusive financial services in underserved areas.

The Gates Foundation commissioned this project, in collaboration with partners such as the State Bank of India (SBI), NITI Aayog, India Post Payments Bank (IPPB), Fino Payments Bank, Jharkhand Rajya Gramin Bank (JRGB), Eko India Financial Services, Spice Money, Arth Digital, and the Centre for Development Orientation and Training (CDOT).

 

The female agent representative (FAR) research examines the barriers and opportunities to grow and retain female cash-in and cash-out (CICO) agents across nine emerging markets. Female agents play a vital role in the expansion of digital financial services, especially for women, yet remain underrepresented due to structural, operational, and cultural challenges.

MSC conducted a study to identify macro, meso, and micro variables and how these affected female agents. The study developed and tested hypotheses in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Uganda. The study also informed strategies that can strengthen and diversify agent networks.

MSC led the end-to-end research process to design and execute diagnostics, develop and test key hypotheses, and engage with stakeholders to validate actionable strategies. The work included identification of market-specific challenges, revealing barriers to entry and retention, and formulation of evidence-based recommendations to increase the number and quality of female agents.

The findings from MSC’s study titled, “Breaking Barriers: A study on female cash-in-cash-out (CICO) agents and their potential to drive financial inclusion”, highlighted three key gaps: Financial support, gender data, and strategic recruitment. The research demonstrated that well-supported female agents can deliver comparable lifetime value to male agents to validate higher onboarding investments. Peer influence, tailored credit, improved onboarding, and community engagement emerged as critical levers for inclusive agent networks. These insights are now guiding strategic scale-up in priority countries.

The Gates Foundation commissioned this project.

 

Mobile money agents are vital to expand financial access for underserved populations across sub-Saharan Africa. However, these agents face many challenges. Increased digital transactions threaten traditional CICO activity. Rural areas have weak distribution networks. Declining withdrawal fees also continue to erode agent commissions.

MSC assessed the sustainability of agent networks in Kenya, Mozambique, and Côte d’Ivoire to better understand these shifting dynamics. We conducted an in-depth, mixed-methods assessment of agent networks across the three countries. The study examined agent satisfaction, perceived challenges, and evolving business models in increasingly digital financial ecosystems. MSC analyzed agent-level data to uncover systemic barriers through direct engagement with agents and ecosystem players. We also reviewed these findings against market realities. The project moved beyond diagnostics to recommend customized approaches that support agent resilience, business continuity, and investment readiness.

The research revealed context-specific insights with broader implications for the mobile money industry. In Côte d’Ivoire, low commission rates were the most pressing concern. More than 80% of agents described these rates as a big challenge. In Mozambique, the shortage of working capital needed to maintain sufficient float was the primary constraint. Kenya presented a different model of resilience. More than half of the agents earned most of their income from non-mobile money activities.

These findings identified strategic recommendations to diversify agent use cases, build viable business cases for disbursements and government payments, and design targeted financing solutions. These steps will support agents in both established and emerging markets.

GSMA Mobile Money Program commissioned this project.