On Tuesday 18 October 2016, ADA held its 36th “Midi de la Microfinance” as part of Financial Inclusion Week in Luxembourg.During the event, organised by ADA and the InFiNe.lu network, international guests from the mobile banking sector in the southern hemisphere presented the benefits and risks of developing these services in the microfinance sector.
Digitalisation in general and mobile banking in particular have recently become essential elements of the Institution de microfinance’s (IMF) strategy. James Onyutta, the manager of Musoni Kenya’s IMF, explained at the event that “Any financial institution not looking towards going digital will have a very limited future.” Deloitte’s manager of Information & Technology Risk, and moderator of the meeting, Laurent de la Vaissiere, added that “it is, above all, a question of efficiency.”James Onyutta claimed that agencies should use new technology to reduce their costs and increase the speed of their treatment of information. Indeed, the move towards mobile banking services allows IMF agents to deal with more information whilst retaining good customer relations. Moreover, clients are able to use the service at any time of the day. In fact, in Kenya, a transaction is made every 30 seconds.However, the event also dealt with the risks associated with mobile banking, for instance data protection and security issues.
On this topic, a representative from the M-Pesa network assured that data could only be shared with the permission of the client involved. As for the possibility of telecom operators one day replacing IMFs, the event likewise concluded that this is unlikely.
