Financial Inclusion Services in Myanmar SDG 1-8-10-17
Description
Wave Money is a joint venture between Telenor and Yoma Bank to provide accessible, safe and convenient mobile financial services via a nationwide agent network or via a wave account on your phone.<br />
<br />
Wave Money is the first Mobile Financial services provider in Myanmar with the vision to Create a fairer future for Myanmar by increasing access to financial services in the country. Wave Money facilitates remittance of funds across the country easily and conveniently either over the counter at Wave shops or via a simple to use mobile app. Services were rolled out in August 2016
Less than 10% of the Myanmar population are banked or have access to formal financial services. This results in hard earned income being kept at home making people vulnerable to crime. In emergency situations, lack of formal lending necessitates the majority of people to borrow from loan sharks, driving them into a never ending cycle of debt
Other partners: Save the Children, World Food Program, Myanmar Economic Bank
Before this service was availed the primary mode of remittance was banks. However banks in Myanmar open from 9am to 2pm and are closed on weekends. There’s a saying in Myanmar, ‘You can either have a job or a bank account’ as it is not possible to utilize bank services without negative impact to one’s job. For contract workers paid hourly rates, a simple bank visit means reduced income. However, with Wave Money’s services available 24/7 there no longer needs to be a difficult choice between sending money home to family and working to earn a living.
Specific projects with organizations such as Save the Children and World Food Program where Wave Money worked with the NGO’s to disburse funds via Wave Money’s mobile money platform to women from low income households and Internally Displaced Persons in refugee camps. Overheads were vastly reduced for the NGO’s enabling more funds to be disbursed rather than used to cover expenses. Efficiency was increased enabling funds to be sent faster and easier. The recipients benefited as well. One woman, an IDP living in a refugee camp in Mytkina was quoted as saying, ‘I have my dignity back. Before I had to queue and wait for someone to put money in my outstretched hand, it was humiliating. Now, from the comfort of my home I can receive money to support my family.’
Wave Money trains and educates people on how to use digital platforms. One of the female recipients from the Save the Children projects said that previously, she and her friends only knew how to make calls from their phones. But after the training they received, they are now using other mobile apps in their daily lives.
Wave Money is leveraging its mobile money platform to facilitate humanitarian aid disbursements from World Food Program (WFP) to Internally Displaced Persons in the north of Myanmar. Not only does this massively increase efficiencies for the WFP, it enables access to formal and regulated financial services that the beneficiaries would otherwise not have.
In collaboration with Myanmar Economic Bank, Wave Money began enabling pension payments via mobile money in the first quarter of 2018. Previously, pensioners would need to be present in person and wait for long hours to receive their pensions in the banking hall, a challenge for those who are elderly and sometimes sickly and weak. Wave Money also worked with the bank to educate pensioners on digital financial services, assisting them to open accounts and training them on usage. The pensioners now receive their pensions into their Wave Money wallets while in the comfort of their homes.
Shwe Toe, financial education mobile gaming application, meaning ‘Grow Gold’ in Myanmar aims to educate women on complex financial concepts in a simple, fun and memorable way. Practical financial concepts are inculcated among the Myanmar general public. Women are a specific target group for financial education, given the key money management and education roles they provide within Myanmar households. Wave Money’s innovative mobile app will lead to strengthened household finance management and enable women to better access and use formal financial services.”
SDGS & Targets
Deliverables & Timeline
Resources mobilized
Partnership Progress
| Name | Description |
|---|
Feedback
Action Network
Share
Timeline
Entity
Region
- Asia and Pacific
Geographical coverage
Website/More information
Countries
Contact Information
Zainab Hussain Siddiqui, Director Sustainability