Amanda Awadey

A

Towards a Cash-lite Economy: Mobile Money and Retail Payments

Ongoing, Columbia University with Rowena Cornelius, Western University, Ontario.

Increased penetration of mobile phones, a large unbanked population, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic have advanced the rapid spread of mobile money usage in sub-Saharan Africa. Predominantly used for person-to-person transfers (P2P), mobile money is yet to gain significant traction as a mode of payment, particularly in retail. Empirically, evidence of the constraints and the factors that promote using mobile money as a payment tool is scant and was obtained before the COVID-19 pandemic. We are collecting data on these constraints and factors from micro and small firms in Ghana after the surge of digital transactions triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. With this, we hope to design informed interventions to address the constraints of using mobile money for retail payments.



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