Digital Payment Ecosystems Archives - G2P Network

Africa’s Journey Towards an Integrated Digital Payments Landscape and How the EU Can Support It

Brian Webster — Mon, 15 Aug 2022 22:31:20 +0000

This policy brief outlines why cross-border interoperability of payment platforms across Africa is important, where the opportunities and challenges lie, and how international partners such as the EU can support African efforts. It traces some of the solutions that are being applied both at the continental and at the regional levels, explores some of the lessons to be learned from these different cases, and proposes initial policy recommendations for the EU on how it could support Africa as it works towards developing inclusive interoperable instant payments systems.

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A Digital Stack for Transforming Service Delivery: ID, Payments, and Data Sharing

Brian Webster — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 18:36:39 +0000

Digital technologies are changing how the world interacts and transacts. From opening bank accounts to parents enrolling their children in school and social safety net programs verifying a new beneficiary, to businesses applying for licenses, day-to-day activities are becoming increasingly automated and integrated. Apart from reducing costs and spurring innovation, this creates opportunities to make better services available to more people, such as by removing the need to physically go to offices during business hours to complete a paper form or to distribute cash for payments. To enable this, countries are reforming institutions, regulations, and processes and building technology and infrastructure to facilitate trust between parties and to exchange information, payments, and other resources.

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Can Digital G2P Transfers Drive Financial Inclusion and Digital Payments? Evidence from India

Brian Webster — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 16:35:33 +0000

Does channeling government-to-person (G2P) payments through bank accounts encourage financial inclusion and use? This paper explores the factors that have driven the adoption of digital payments in India by beneficiaries of PMGKY, the large-scale COVID-19 relief program launched in May 2020. India’s 2013 move to pay social benefits through direct transfers into bank accounts significantly increased account ownership, but uptake of digital payments has been slower, although it has accelerated more recently through smartphone-based apps. Recipient survey data shows that personal and household attributes influence the likelihood of adopting digital payments. Smartphone ownership and digital literacy improve the odds while being a woman reduces them. The strength of the local digital payments ecosystem also exerts significant influence on household adoption; favorable personal and ecosystem factors are needed for widespread use. The historical progression shows that G2P transfers create an entry point but that widespread access to low-cost mobile telecommunications, interoperability, and the entry of new players offering convenient payments interfaces have been vital to the growth of digital payments.

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Beyond India’s Lockdown: PMGKY Benefits During the COVID-19 Crisis and the State of Digital Payments

Brian Webster — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 20:26:52 +0000

India imposed a lock-down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 and began a gradual re-opening in June. A telephonic survey in April examined the early effectiveness of information and the massive PMGKY social protection program (Policy Paper 217). This paper analyzes a second-round survey, conducted six months later. Logistical and information constraints had relaxed, and incomes and jobs had begun to stabilize for some. There were not strong indications of differential access to benefits by income or location, but constraints to providing public employment had tightened in the face of increased demand, resulting in greater job rationing. Men made more use of digital channels, with a clear smartphone ownership hierarchy between men and women; this divide carried over into the growing autonomous use of digital payments which is conditioned on access to smartphones. Survey results confirm strong local agglomeration effects in digital payments, mirroring the general pattern with higher use in states hosting India’s major technology hubs. At the same time, trust-based concerns reduced the use of assisted digital cash-outs through agents.

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National Digital Payments Roadmap – Bangladesh 2022-2025

Brian Webster — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 20:19:53 +0000

Investment in the digital infrastructure of the country has been a priority for the Government of Bangladesh in the past decade, ever since the vision for Digital Bangladesh was launched.
Digital payments are critical to the government’s vision and ensuring these are scaled responsibly is now critical. The National Digital Payments Roadmap (‘the Roadmap’) provides
a high-level plan to expand the adoption of responsible digital payments in a way that is agile, inclusive, and helps achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is designed to
accelerate collaboration between the public and private stakeholders and present a framework for using new approaches and technologies to transform the payment ecosystem. The
Roadmap builds on the UN Principles for Responsible Digital Payments (‘UN Principles’) and recommends drivers for foundational elements: environment, infrastructure, processes, policies,
and actions. The solutions are mapped to the national vision and aligned with the capabilities of the ecosystem participants.

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Digitalization: A Safe Path to a More Inclusive Recovery in Indonesia?

Brian Webster — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 19:39:12 +0000

There are two key longstanding structural constraints to inclusive growth in Indonesia—low financial inclusion and limited access to finance—resulting in a large financing gap. Indonesia’s digitalization— growing rapidly in the e-commerce and financial services sector, the latter facilitated by fintech—is helping close this gap. The COVID-19 pandemic will likely serve to further accelerate this digital transformation: adoption of e-commerce and digital payments has increased amidst lockdowns and social distancing. Digitalization can also help counter the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, including through the delivery of government support measures, and support longer-term growth. However, attempting to scale up digitalization quickly as a response to a crisis, is not merely challenging but also potentially risky (e.g., risks to financial stability or cyber risks). Hence, important challenges need to be addressed first (e.g., infrastructure, skills, regulations) to ensure an inclusive and stable recovery.

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South Asia’s Digital Opportunity: Accelerating Growth, Transforming Lives

Brian Webster — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 21:58:04 +0000

The report presents both the opportunities of and the bottlenecks for furthering the digitization of South Asia’s economies. It emphasizes the importance of integrating digital ID, payments, and data sharing systems into “digital stacks,” as well as fostering digital businesses and skills. Within this broader framework, the report discusses the experiences of regional governments with digital g2p payments.

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Identification for Development (ID4D) and Digitalizing G2P Payments (G2Px) 2021 Annual Report

Brian Webster — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 15:00:35 +0000

This annual report summarizes the work produced by the World Bank’s Identification for Development and G2Px initiatives in 2021. It highlights individual country experiences such as in Togo and Lesotho, as well as their insights regarding gender.

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Digitalization of Social Protection Systems Policy in Indonesia as a Step Towards Society 5.0

Brian Webster — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 22:21:02 +0000

This paper discusses efforts to digitize Indonesia’s social protection systems in the context of Japan’s Society 5.0 initiative. It summarizes the trajectory of database development and use in Indonesia, as well as the country’s 2017 mandate that all government benefits be distributed in a cashless manner.

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Digital Cash Transfers in LAO PDR

Brian Webster — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 21:52:33 +0000

The use of cash as a modality for delivering humanitarian and social protection assistance in Lao PDR is nascent. Up until recently, cash in hand has been the only feasible way to deliver transfers to targeted recipients. This scoping exercise highlights how mobile money could redress some of the drawbacks linked to cash in hand for both cash actors and beneficiaries. These include: access constraints, lack of traceability, and the inherent risks associated with manually distributing large sums of cash.

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