Four Ways to Make Digital Money Adoption Accessible

What we’re learning from imagining farmers, delivery drivers, digital gig workers, and neighborhood merchants as CICO agents

There’s an old saying in business — “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” This adage highlights the power of networks: an individual’s skills and subject matter knowledge are important, but it’s really the connections you have with others that set you (and the work that you do) up for success.

This concept is equally important for the digitization of money. As millions of people come online, the opportunity to deliver financial services via their mobile phones is expanding. Over the last decade, countries like Kenya and India have seen significant rise in adoption of digital financial services, yet in these markets and many others cash still remains king.

And while a world that’s entirely run on digital money seems distant, there are pathways to accelerate its use — and grow financial opportunities for underserved individuals in the process. One such opportunity lies in creating a robust, accessible and viable cash in/cash out (CICO) network, where people can easily convert cash to digital funds, and vice versa. CICO points are generally operated by mobile money organizations or banks, and franchised by agents. Today, growing financial access through CICO has been challenging because traditional models often:

• Don’t reach the last mile effectively or viably
• Aren’t relevant to low-income people’s needs or lives
• Aren’t tailored to who end users are or whom they trust

Because accessing CICO services largely depends on an individual’s ability to connect with trusted agent networks, design can play a role in ensuring these networks are both attractive and viable. As Emilio Hernandez, a Senior Financial Sector Specialist at CGAP, writes: “In most emerging markets, customers who want to use digital financial services (DFS) can do so only if they’re able to convert cash into e-money and back again, as needed. In other words, the expansion of DFS among a larger clientele base depends not only on providing more attractive DFS use cases to people but also on building out broader, more convenient CICO networks that enable more people to start using DFS.”

Building on unexpected last-mile networks

This is what led Last Mile Money (LMM), a program of global design firm IDEO and funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to experiment with a range of CICO models that could have better reach and uptake. Informed by CGAP’s research on the role of CICO in financial inclusion, we believe that unlocking access to this fundamental piece of infrastructure can go a long way in including those who are digitally underbanked or unbanked.

One way we’re doing that is by re-imagining traditional CICO networks. Over the last year, we’ve piloted and tested ways to embed CICO within existing, trusted last-mile networks, including imagining what it might look like to have:

• Farmers as CICO agents to other farmers
• Delivery drivers as CICO agents to their communities
• Digital gig workers as CICO agents
• Neighborhood merchants as CICO agents

Keep reading to learn what we’ve learned from these projects and pilots — and what we’re excited to explore next.

Growing financial inclusion through farmer networks

“I’ve been a cocoa farmer my whole life. When I heard about using an app to be an agent, I wasn’t sure about it — I’d never heard of Grab. But the app isn’t hard to use and the training I received on Whatsapp helped. I like being an agent for other farmers. The money I make as an agent adds to my income in between harvests.”

— Suharni, cocoa farmer in Bulukumba, Sulawesi

For farmers like Suharni, income is seasonal and often unpredictable — dependent on when crops can be harvested and sold. This unpredictability tends to get aggravated when farmers have to accept digital payments that require them to travel long distances to cash out. In collaboration with Cargill and Grab, we decided to test the viability of onboarding farmers as agents, to serve other farmers in their vicinity.

In a three week experiment, we onboarded, trained, and distributed a small premium through ten farmer agents to their community of fifty farmers. The farmers received their payments in just a few days, instead of waiting months. The agent farmers were also able to earn a supplemental income that instantly eased their cash flows.

Our insights:

• Being an agent is a lucrative side hustle for farmers, especially those who have unpredictable cash flows: Agents are able to earn approximately $7 or 15% of their average monthly income by being an agent. 20% of the agents continued to transact three months post pilot, providing bill payment, top up, and cash out services to their community
• Onboarding new internet users to financial services requires a level of trust building: We were able to reduce the cost of customer acquisition and retention in deep rural markets by entering with a known and trusted partner like Cargill.
• Farmer loyalty towards Cargill increased as a result of convenience: Farmers who otherwise missed their premium payments or spent more than they received to collect it, were now thrilled to receive it instantly without the hassle of traveling, increasing their willingness to work with Cargill
• Women farmers tended to be more active and productive agents: Women farmers in Indonesia demonstrated much higher levels of entrepreneurial activity and were on average earning income from 2–3 sources including farming. As a result, they performed much better than male agents after the pilot.

After the success of the micro-pilot, we’re excited to test this at scale and are planning to launch a pilot with 100 agents and 1,000 farmers later this summer. Stay tuned!

Delivering CICO safely with driver networks

“I always look for what my customers need from me, picking up products they run out of at their shop. It’s easy as I’m always on my bike and checking my phone for gig jobs. Now, I can save the shop owners a trip to the bank, too.”

— Kwame, delivery driver, Ghana

In Ghana, Boost delivery drivers like Kwame keep a steady flow of goods moving throughout the city. Constantly scouting for motorbike delivery gigs, Kwame is often on his smartphone, using Whatsapp and social media to communicate with friends, family, and customers. The merchants he delivers to are often busy and can’t leave their shops to deposit their cash earnings at a bank for safekeeping, and drivers like Kwame often won’t work after dark, fearing attacks.

In 2021, through our annual startup accelerator, we worked with Boost to enable drivers like Kwame to serve as roving agents, who could convert cash into digital balance during a delivery stop or on-demand. We explored how we might make the experience of picking up and dropping off cash feel safe for Boost drivers and brought in concepts for a platform that left a digital trail, allows for better cash hygiene, and ensures the agent feels well equipped to transport cash without feeling their safety has been compromised.

Boost has integrated this service within the app and spent the early part of this year training their delivery riders on cash management and safety. According to Joseph Kuvor, CEO, Boost Ghana, “Previously, only 22% of Boost Ghana merchants paid for stock digitally due to barriers in confidence, product and process. Through the LMM design sprint, two experts supported us to prototype solutions focusing on the CICO interaction between independent delivery agents and merchants. Within six months, 74% of Boost merchants were paying for their stock digitally, enabled by CICO agents. It was a successful project and a great experience working with the LMM team!”

Enabling CICO through a digital storefront via gig workers

“I have a network of friends who are all Uber drivers; we’ve come to Mumbai to work and our families live in other states in India. Every week we have to travel to the nearest agent to send money back home. Now as an Eko agent, I’m not only able to earn an additional income but also provide instant support to other drivers in my network.”

— Digital gig worker, Mumbai, India

Available in India, the Eko Store is a digital storefront where customers can purchase a variety of digital services and products, including remittances, streaming subscriptions, insurance, and more. Hesitant to pay for these services directly because they don’t have a mobile money account, unbanked and underbanked customers feel more comfortable cashing in through an Eko agent to make these purchases, and the agent earns extra income in the process.

We partnered with Eko to redesign the Eko Store experience so that anyone can become an agent — from gig workers to stay at home parents. With the aim to democratize agent access, we developed principles like “Let Eko agents look before they leap.” We also reduced the number of steps to sign up to the app, reducing the onboarding time by 40%, helping more agents get up and running — and earning income.

Building trust with neighborhood merchants

“A positive impact is helping customers who don’t don’t have an ATM nearby or a bank account under their name. By coming to me, I can help these customers save. They know me and trust me. I see them everyday. A customer asked me, is it okay if I only have 5000 IDR to save? This is because if he goes to a bank, it’s embarrassing because that’s too small to deposit. And he has to spend on transport. When he walks by my warung and he has 5000 or 10000 IDR, I can just put that into his savings account.”

— Halimah, small shop owner and shared-agent, Indonesia

Opening a bank account is a challenge for many rural and semi-urban Indonesians — many banks have minimum deposit amounts or don’t feel friendly to unbanked customers, making it hard to even get started. Merchants like Halimah are the perfect trusted access points to help their customers save money at their own pace.

In partnership with BNI and Grab, we developed a save-as-you-go product, and on-boarded merchants as banking agents. This enabled customers to save their small amounts through an account with a merchant until they reached the minimum balance required to open a bank account — all from the comfort of their neighborhood store, saving them the time and effort of traveling to a bank. At the same time, this prototype allowed merchants to earn an additional income within their agent service portfolio, and build loyalty and credibility among their customers.

By leveraging shared networks, the bank was able to significantly reduce the cost of acquiring agents, Grab was able to provide a new business opportunity for their agent network, and customers were able to save in a trusted and convenient way.

Watch the video below to hear from merchants about the experience.

Networks within networks

As we continue to explore other ways to embed CICO within existing networks to serve last-mile users, we want to hear from YOU, our network, about what you’re seeing. What networks do you work with that would be ideal to partner with? What opportunities do you see for helping to grow financial access across unbanked and underbanked communities? Do you have other ideas? What are we missing? At Last Mile Money, we embrace collaboration — bringing different perspectives to the table helps us design better, together.

Contact us at lastmile.money and subscribe to our latest stories at medium.com/last-mile-money. We look forward to hearing from you!