Fintech, Open Source, and Emerging Markets

Chapter 2. Mobile Enabling Broad Change

Wallets stuffed with credit cards, ATMs on every corner, meals ordered up through Seamless, vacations via Airbnb, the Uber app ready to get us where we want to go. Why carry cash? It’s no longer necessary. Swipe, point, and click. Need to see your balance? How about a loan? No problem. This is what normal looks like for most of us today. This is inclusion. It is hard for those of us living in first-world, industrialized nations to picture anything other than the digitized convenience to which we have become accustomed and the privileges afforded by access to financial services.

For Others, a Very Different Story

But, here’s what exclusion looks like. In third-world or developing countries, for those living at the base of the economic pyramid, cash still reigns supreme. Buying something requires carrying cash around or hiding it somewhere around the house at the risk of being robbed. Sending money to a friend or relative in need can mean taking a day off from work without pay, or, perhaps, taking a child out of school or not bringing the child to school at all if that can’t be arranged. Delivering the cash in person is dangerous because a robbery could happen along the way. Trusting someone with delivery carries the risk that it might never reach its destination. In an emergency, borrowing money incurs extortionate usury rates from moneylenders. Investment means buying another chicken or goat which will lose value over time. If your money ...