What impact will Digital Money have on employment?

The chief executive of Barclays, suggested during investor meetings that Barclays aims to become a self-oriented company, allowing staff to focus on added value. Antony Jenkins envisages a future in which the bank employs as few as 100,000 people (current strength ~140,000).  

While this is being positioned as blue-sky thinking rather than a statement of potential job cuts, it got me thinking about how the advent of Digital Money is likely to impact what is closest to our hearts at Shift Thought, namely the creation of jobs world-wide.

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The case of Liberty Reserve – Identifying “The weakest link” in Digital Money Services

The news on the shutdown of Liberty Reserve money transfer raises concerns for the potential knock on impact on legitimate users – of that service, and of new ones like it, that are springing up around the world. What then is the most effective way in which this kind of use of digital money can be segregated from the daily transformative use of Digital Money as a tool for financial inclusion?

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Branchless Banking Pakistan versus Mobile Financial Services Bangladesh

In two previous blogs I discussed how branchless banking(BB) has taken off in Pakistan, and the way that the mobile and banking industries in Bangladesh are coming together to launch mobile financial services (MFS). This brings us to the logical question – how do they compare against each other? How is BB Pakistani style different to MFS a la Bangladesh? Which is likely to take off faster, and how are the people in each of the countries likely to benefit from the services?

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Mobile Financial Services take off in Bangladesh

Will Bangladesh, a pioneer of microfinance, be able to make a success of mobile financial services?

As part of their vision of Digital Bangladesh, they are engaged in rolling out services to the unbanked segment. This is part of a larger move towards Digital Money, with the Digital Money SAGE registering over 33 Digital Money initiatives, from over 46 players across a wide range of industries. Interestingly, these are not just local players. In September last year PayPal entered the country, on the initiative of freelancers who wanted a way to accept payments from people around the world.

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Branchless Banking in Pakistan

Since the last update of the Branchless Banking regulations in Pakistan in June 2011, there has been an impressive growth in the number of BB agents so that they now overshadow other channels apart from POS. It seems Pakistan is poised to prove to the world that mobile operators and banks can work effectively together within a bank-based model to achieve the desired traction in banking the unbanked.

At Shift Thought we recently released two comprehensive 200+ page reports on Digital Money in Pakistan and Bangladesh. This blog shares some of our findings. This first post shares some thoughts on Pakistan. It will be followed by a post on Bangladesh and next a comparison of the development of mobile money in both countries.

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