By Madeline Stone | Marketing and Communications Associate
Technology efficiently and cheaply brings financial services to people in remote or rural areas. It breaks through barriers throughout the developing world, where people are excluded from financial services because of illiteracy, expensive transportation and geographic isolation. With the support of our strategic partners, donors like you and our dedicated staff, Opportunity International leverages technology to help free people from the cycle of poverty. We utilize cell phone banking, satellite bank branches, ATMs and point-of-sale (POS) devices provide low-cost, secure banking to formerly excluded clients. We are establishing points of access within one kilometer (about two miles) of a client’s home or business. We are migrating to cloud-based systems and developing of a new generation of skilled IT leaders to continue these innovations.
So, why do we do this? Because technology solutions lower cost, increase efficiencies and security for clients.
Opportunity’s strategy is based on four foundational design principles that maximize technology to engage the poor in their own communities over the next three year:
1. Closer: Distribution channel within one kilometer of client’s home or business.
2. Wider: Cell phone banking and agent banking increase financial inclusion nation-wide.
3. Safer: Cashless banking makes clients less likely to lose money from theft and more likely to retain and earn interest on money saved.
4. Cheaper: Our model removes costs at each point in the delivery chain and allows for re-engineering to utilize emerging technologies and customer feedback while reducing client costs.
In Kenya, Mobile Money Solutions (mobile phone banking and phone-enabled agency banking) are becoming more common to expanding businesses. Opportunity Kenya is implementing mobile money solutions, covering mobile phone banking, mobile enabling technologies for banking staff and ultimately, mobile payment services. This solution moves Opportunity’s banks and clients toward a cashless environment, providing low cost and secure banking to an entire tier of formerly disenfranchised clients.
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