Cash for fish: potential applications of mobile banking on Haiti's southern trade route
Cash for fish: potential applications of mobile banking on Haiti's southern trade route
- April 4, 2011
Marigot is a small, leafy fishing village on Haiti's south coast whose size belies
its importance on a land/sea trade route stretching from the Dominican Republic to
Port-au-Prince. Twice per week, on Tuesdays and Saturday mornings, a fleet of small
wooden boats arrives in Marigot from the border town of Anse-a-Pitres and the coastal
town of Belle Anse. These boats come laden with salami, flour, coconuts, and bundles
of used clothes from the Dominican town of Pedernales. Approximately fifty fishermen
from Belle Anse and Anse-a-Pitres send coolers full of conch, fish and lobster to
be sold in the market along with the catches of Marigot's two hundred resident fisherman.
When the boats arrive at four am, they unpack their cargo and set up a market on the
shore.
Three or four days until payment might not seem like much of a delay, but profit margins
in the fishing industry–and, indeed, the entire town–are tight. Until they are paid
for their catch, fisherman can't pay for the fuel they bought on credit or buy more
to go fishing again. The entire town experiences a knock-on effect because fishermen
must also purchase their household supplies on credit. Buyers are much better off
because they can use their surplus cash for a few days before they have to repay the
fishermen. But upon returning to Marigot they face the security issue of carrying
from 20,00 to 40,000 gourdes (US$500-1000) with them. One fisherman told us that the
risk of carrying cash sometimes serves as an excuse for delaying payment. He said
that sometimes buyers will pay for their entire purchase the first time they buy;
pay half the second time, and the third time they will claim to have been robbed while
travelling over the mountain. So, even if robbery remains merely a threat, it can
damage trade and profit in the fishing industry.
Mobile banking provides obvious benefits in this situation. If there were agents in
the major towns along the entire trade route (in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, Marigot,
Belle Anse, and Anse-a-Pitres) then buyers could send money directly to the fisherman
on the same day that they bought the fish. Fishermen could then pay their bills and
immediately start fishing again. Money would not have to undergo the risk of crossing
the mountains; nor would it have to travel back to Belle Anse and Anse-a-Pitres on
open wooden boats that occasionally sink.
Mobile money's wallet size does not present a problem for the majority of small traders
who inhabit the region, such as the many peasant women who travel down from the mountains
to the market to sell plantains, beans and corn. Jacmel's artists could receive their
pay directly from Port-au-Prince. Rapid payment would allow small traders and merchants
around the towns to pay their debts and buy more stock. Customers, knowing that they
can receive money quickly from other parts of the country, might have more confidence
and buy more than they normally would. And families who currently conduct money transfers
by boat could rest assured that their relatives are receiving their money quickly
and safely. A simple piece of already-existing technology could greatly enhance the
prosperity of the towns along this trade route.
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