From The Guardian:
For many of Thomas Duveau’s customers in rural, off-grid communities in Tanzania, buying a solar panel system for their home will be their first big commercial transaction, and probably the largest of their life... The increasing adoption of mobile money across east Africa has made it easier for other start-ups such as Grundfos Lifelink (GLL) to begin to plug the gap in service provision to the poorest communities... But Bill Maurer, director of the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at the University of California, is sceptical about how replicable and scalable businesses like GLL and Mobisol are. “For those who are in areas where mobile money hasn’t really taken off yet, people are reluctant to put all their faith in new mobile based services – they’re buying water from a local vendor, getting some from a well, and also sending a child to fetch some because they want a diversity of sources.” “From our research, we learned that if the fees on money transfers start to hurt even a little bit, they’ll turn off.”

For the full story, please visit http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014....
 

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