Lesson Learned
Key highlights about Botswana
Macro-economic review
High-level macro-economic overview

Population: 2,029,307

Population density: 3,5 inhabitants/sq km

Population:

0-14 yrs. – 34,8%

15-64 yrs. –61,4%

65 and over – 3,9%
Some Learnings for M-Banking


Potential market for unbanked is maximum 600.000
due to the:

Limited size of the population

Already developed financial sector
Botswana has a developed financial sector mainly in
urban areas. Rural areas lack adequate financial
services (63% unbanked in rural areas)
Key learnings

Population below the poverty line: 23,1%

Rural population: 35%

Literacy rate: 81,2%

People with formal bank product: 49%

People with mobile phone: 61%

Annual remittance: 124 $M (inflows), 145 $M
(outflows)
Sources: CIA, CGAP, WorldBank
•
With 35% of population living in rural areas, most
unbanked, P2P payments from urban to rural and
within local communities and G2P may make sense
•
Low population density will make agent roll-out a
challenge
•
Market size will likely not enable more than 2
offerings to be viable and critical mass will be key
•
Opportunity to jointly develop both MFS and mobile
penetration in rural areas
Overview of MFS (Mobile Mobile)
Mobile Financial Services
Mobile as a medium
Mobile as a wallet
Mobile Banking
Mobile Payment
(Mobile used to access bank
services
(Mobile as a channel to access
payment account
Transactional
Informational
• Interactive
banking
services
• Direct contact
with bank
• Alerts
• Account
balance &
history
• Bank direct
CRM
Payment
• Bill payments
• Onsite
payment/NFC
Mobile Money
Mobile wallet used as a bank
account
Money
Transfer
Payment
Money
Transfer
• P2P transfer
• Bill payment
• Merchant
payment
• Remote
payment (e.g.
: top up)
• Onsite
payment/NFC
• Domestic
transfers
• International
remittance
• International
top up
• Salary payment
Micro-Finance
Micro-Finance
• Loans
• Savings
• Integration
with bank
accounts and
debit / credit
card
FULL MOBILE FINANCIAL SERVICES - ROADMAP
10
Key Steps
Consumer
Phase 3
Full M-Banking
Services offer
8
9
Merchant
payment
Corporate/ Institutions
Basics
Phase 2
6
Phase 1
10. Work with FNB to offer a suite
of Banking services like Savings
Accounts
8 payment at merchant stores
9. offer remittances in neighbour
countries
International
Remittance
7
Loan
disbursement
and payment
Payments to
Electricity, water
4. Develop services to get critical
mass and regular “funding”
4
5
5. companies’ payments
6. MFI for loan payments
7. Contracts with utilities to collect
payments
Social benefits
and Pension
Payments
1
Mobile Wallet
(cash-in, cashout)
Company
Payments
(supply chain)
2
3
P2P Money
Transfer
Prepaid
Recharge
1. Rollout mobile wallet with
cash-in cash out
2. P2P money transfer
3. prepaid recharge (17%)
beMOBILE value proposition
CONVENIENCE
•Ease of access to Agents for Cash in/ Cash Out
•Ability to make Payments directly using MFS without withdrawing cash
•Entire Process can be done on a Mobile device
•Secure Trusted mode
•No Need for a Bank Account
COST
•Less Expensive in Transaction costs
SPEED
•Real time
beMOBILE - FNBB PARTNERSHIP RESPOSIBILITIES
Description
Marketing
Agent network
► Marketing and branding of
the product
► Recruitment, training and
management of the required
agent network
► Technology platform and
mobile channel
Technology
Customer
acquisition
Customer Service
Business
operations
► Acquisition promotions
► Bonuses to agents
► Production of starter packs
► Standard customer service
facility provided in a MFS
project
► Cash management,
settlement between
partners
► Regulatory reporting
► Reconciliation
beMOBILE
► Joint responsibility
► Branding strategy defined and
agreed
FNBB
► Joint responsibility
► Branding strategy defined and
agreed
► Recommended role for beMOBILE
► Telecentres to be leveraged
► Limited involvement by FNB, Fully
► beMOBILE will provide the mobile
► FNB to extend their merchant
channel
► beMOBILE will depend on FNB’s
technology platform, but can become
a technology outsourcer
► beMOBILE has to implement
handled by beMOBILE
acquiring platform, customize and
develop new functionalities to
support mobile money offerings
► FNB has limited involvement
aggressive acquisition strategy
► beMOBILE customer service/call
centre to be improved in order to
support this new service
► beMOBILE involved in reconciliation
for agent commissions and airtime
purchase
► Opportunity to use FNB customer
service or to outsource to third
party
► FNBB to audit beMOBILE’s KYC
adherence and AML.
PLANNED AGENT DISTRIBUTION NETWORK
Super agent
Headquarters
Sefalana Softcell
Seipone
Trans
Podder
Trident
Cash Bazar
Cash supply
agents
(cash supplier
for other
agents only)
Key offices
30 petrol
stations
120
post offices
30
petrol stations
20+ branches
138+ ATM’s
Agents
150 Telecentres
187
retail stores
Current Agent network
• 11 BTC/beMOBILE stores
49
outlets
5
?
locations
locations
6 warehouses
90 wholesalers
Potential of
3.000 locations
Tele Centre
Key Findings
Telecentres Project at BTC
•
Government supported project in remote communities
•
•
154 business centers live end of June 2012
Connected to BTC broadband and mobile
•
It offers faxes, scan, printing, phone, internet, airtime and
sim card
•
It is managed by communities (2 community supervisors
and 2 youth people to manage it)
•
BTC trains and support these 4 people in the development
of the Center
LESSONS LEARNED CONT
Accessibility
Launched with only 8
outlets
Speed
Distance to the nearest
dealer
Trust
Mobile Money
key lessons
Distribution
network
Cost
Extra costs to travel to
the nearest dealer outlet
Instability of the
platform
Partnership
model
Operator led model
Have a dedicated team
KEY CHALLENGES
Description
Marketing
Agent network/
distribution
Technology
partnership
Bank partnership
Customer Service
Business
operations
•Staff buy in of SMEGA
•Distance to SMEGA outlets (Small/limited agent net work)
•Cash availability at dealers
•limited agent net work to cash in/out
•Agents cannot transfer money from cards to SMEGA wallet as initially proposed
•system support
•System reporting tool not user friendly and sometimes not working at all
•No automation of electronic funding of virtual accounts from real accounts
•Running a bill payment which is direct competition to phase 2 of SMEGA
•Failure for the system to do a reconciliation of funds and the balances on people accounts
•Product cannibilisation (SMEGA & eWallet)
•Systems had to be manually credited from back end
•Customer facing personnel unaware of SMEGA processes
•SMEGA financial process unclear
•Processes never handed to relevant department
•No strategy for Staff Smega buy in.
•Monthly reports not carried out as per a requirement form Bank of Botswana because of system limitations
Regulatory
compliance
Organizational
structure
• There is no department that manages SMEGA as it is treated as a product like any other i.e.
Mascom and Orange have a dedicated team for their mobile money solution
THANK YOU