Mobile financial services at the base of the pyramid :
a systemic view for cross-sector governance and embedded innovation

Mohamad, MRA; Wood-Harper, T; Ramlogan, R

Abstract

Mobile financial services is one of the uprising movements to bank the unbanked by integrating philanthropic and business approaches for financial inclusion. In this paper, we address how a systemic view help integrate the Philanthropic Initiatives (PI) and the Commercial Initiatives (CI) to get a sustainable impact on the unbanked micro-entrepreneurs. However, each approach has pros and cons as they go along the stages of design, deployment, and sustainability. Using the soft system thinking we theorise the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) as a business system to mix-up the relatively high start-up capabilities of the PI with the relatively sustainable impact of CI. Our mobile money case shows that donors, local private enterprises, and multinational corporations follow the BoP strategy to develop an online grid that offers a reconciled balanced scorecard for economic returns, social benefits and local impact. Such a strategy guarantees flexible, long-term investments and facilitate developing innovative financial services.

Citation

a systemic view for cross-sector governance and embedded innovation. In J. Zhao, P. De Pablos, & R. Tennyson (Eds.), Organizational Innovation and IT Governance in Emerging Economies (46-82). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-7332-8.ch003

• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2015
• Deposit Date: Jan 4, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: May 9, 2017
• Publisher: IGI Global
• Pages: 46-82
• Book Title: Organizational Innovation and IT Governance in Emerging Economies
• ISBN: 9781466673328
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-7332-8.ch003
• Publisher URL: http://www.igi-global.com/chapter/mobile-financial-services-at-the-base-of-the-pyramid/123646
• Related Public URLs: http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-7332-8
• Additional Information: Funders : National Science Centre USA