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Marriage between economics & philosophy often falls apart

To be very frank, I like and I actually adore Amartya Sen. I really appreciate his ideas on social choice theory.  I recently read his seminal books like An Uncertain Glory: The Contradictions of Modern India, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. His views on explaining the great Bengal Feminine of 1943 were exemplary. Feminine of 1943 was hardly a problem of bad production and it was basically a problem of bad allocation. Sen believes in [...]

June 5, 2017 By BMBA 0 Comments Read more...

10-Taka No-frill account service: FGD experience

10-Taka No-frill account service is a widespread banking solution specially tailored to the marginal farmers of Bangladesh. Farmers (landless, share-croppers, agricultural labors, marginal ones) all across the country are the beneficiaries of this 10-Taka No-frill account service. As per BB annual report – 2016, around 8.93 million farmers had access to NFA – No-frill account. I was a part of a FGD (focus group discussion) team to evaluate the effectiveness of these 10-Taka No-frill accounts service. Beneficiaries of 10-Taka No-frill [...]

May 29, 2017 By BMBA 0 Comments Read more...

M-Pesa’s Journey

Initially M-Pesa was a philanthropic journey. It was intended to make the MFI (micro-finance institutions) chores efficient (focus was initially on making the payment transfer digitalized). M-Pesa was co-funded by DFID and Vodafone. The business idea did not get the desired level of response at Vodafone as Vodafone’s primary focus was still on Europe and USA. Before, M-Pesa – mobile money’s profitability experiences were not very rosy. Smart Money’s (Philippines) and Celpay’s (Zambia) results were not really convincing. By [...]

May 23, 2017 By BMBA 0 Comments Read more...

Digitize G2P and unleash synergies

Digitizing government payments to persons (G2P) serves as an enabler for financial inclusion. Digitization cuts leakages and transaction costs for government, ensures women’s economic participation and paves the way for women empowerment. It brings transparency into government welfare programs. In 2003, the government of Brazil initiated a massive reform program named Bolsa Familia Program (BFP) in its welfare payments system (replacing all the cash based transfer programs by electronic benefit card). BFP saved the government 31% in transaction costs in [...]

May 17, 2017 By BMBA 0 Comments Read more...

Regulation in MFS industry is a must, but how much?

MNOs (mobile network operators) are better endowed to provide MFS (mobile financial service) than the case with majority of financial institutions. Strong technological infrastructure and widespread distribution network is integral to develop MFS eco-system. MNO’s distribution network is widespread at the root level, even at the remotest locality. Increased competition has forced private bankers to eventually opt out for retail banking; but a banker’s branch network is straightway no match with an MNO’s distribution network. MNOs also own the [...]

May 16, 2017 By BMBA 0 Comments Read more...