Lessons from WING Cambodia

This report reviews various key elements of the mobile money business model. It compares the experiences of WING, the first mobile money business in Cambodia, to those of other mobile money deployments elsewhere in the world. It also discusses the social impact of WING and possible future research issues. Lessons learned include:

• Mobile money businesses can benefit from a bank host on several levels: investment capital, technical expertise, brand recognition, and initial source of customers;
• Acquiring agents requires the business to invest in significant training in identifying and selling the proposition to potential agents;
• Value based incentive system helps agents to focus as much on stimulating customer use of mobile money;
• Regulatory framework that allows banks to ‘outsource a function are effective;
• Low-end customers are better able to access mobile money ‘over the counter when they deal with an agent who operates the technology and receives the money, rather than independently by operating their phones;
• Cost savings seems the easiest to measure and serves as a good proxy for general positive impact because clients cite cost-savings as a key benefit of the service.