DFS Bulk Payments Strategy Expert, Lusaka, Zambia

Background:

NCDF makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 47 least developed countries. With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. UNCDF’s financing models work through two channels: financial inclusion that expands the opportunities for individuals, households, and small businesses to participate in the local economy, providing them with the tools they need to climb out of poverty and manage their financial lives; and by showing how localized investments — through fiscal decentralization, innovative municipal finance, and structured project finance — can drive public and private funding that underpins local economic expansion and sustainable development. By strengthening how finance works for poor people at the household, small enterprise, and local infrastructure levels, UNCDF contributes to SDG 1 on eradicating poverty and SDG 17 on the means of implementation. By identifying those market segments where innovative financing models can have transformational impact in helping to reach the last mile and address exclusion and inequalities of access, UNCDF contributes to a number of different SDGs.

Mobile Money for the Poor (MM4P) is a UNCDF programme that seeks to demonstrate how the correct mix of technical, financial, and policy support can assist in scaling up sustainable branchless and mobile financial services that reach the poor in very low-income countries. MM4P is currently present in Benin, Laos, Malawi, Nepal, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zambia.

MM4P is interested in seeing Zambia become a leading digital financial services (DFS) market, including mobile phone and other means of branchless banking. For more background about the DFS Ecosystem in Zambia and the MM4P Zambia program, please see our report on the State of the Digital Financial Services Market in Zambia here:

http://mm4p.uncdf.org/sites/default/files/Documents/9mb_state_of_the_digital_financial_services_market_in_zambia_2016_15-11.pdf

Project Background:

In 2017, UNCDF MM4P carried out a diagnostic of Zambian Government Payments Flows that estimated a pool of US$266 million in monthly government payments that is made in cash. While efforts at digitizing bulk payments are slowly taking hold, providers still struggle to build a sustainable business case such that digitizing these flows creates a positive triple bottom line for the provider, the payer and the payee.

Zoona, a third-party DFS provider (non-bank or telco), uses agents to deliver essential financial services that help communities across Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. Zoona has been operating in Zambia since 2009, providing electronic transfer services through its network of more than 1,700 agents spread across Zambia. Customers of any mobile network can visit these agent locations to send or receive money, pay bills, make loan repayments and buy electronic vouchers.

Zoona is eager to capitalize on the opportunity presented by digitizing bulk payments. To do so successfully, Zoona realizes it needs a robust strategy for bulk-payments, which is crafted with the business potential of different payment streams and payer/payee needs in mind.

Zoona also needs to remove constraints in its current bulk payments platform that facilitates bulk payment transfers through a payer-facing interface. Furthermore, Zoona seeks to propel itself from an over-the-counter money transfer business to a full-fledged financial service provider and plans to offer a customer wallet to supplement its existing wallet offerings; Sunga and Boost. Under the new wallet product hierarchy, the consumer’s wallet will become the primary channel, allowing them to easily and safely send or receive money, save and store (Sunga), access small loans (Boost) or pay for airtime and utilities.

Zoona has sought assistance from UNCDF to assess business potential of all high-volume payment streams in Zambia, and scope the competitive landscape to identify payee needs and value propositions. The assessment will lead to the development of a comprehensive Bulk Payments Strategy that will offer recommendations on partnerships models, agent structure and platform enhancements; and also provide Zoona a roadmap for transition from OTC to wallets.

Apply here: https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=79202