Featured on the SEEP Network: Our Work on E-Payments and Financial Inclusion

Earlier this year, Chemonics joined the SEEP Network—a global network of international development organizations dedicated to fighting poverty by promoting inclusive markets and financial systems. SEEP is active in 170 countries and reaches nearly 90 million households around the world.

For years, we have been attending the annual conference and working side-by-side with SEEP Network members in the field. Now, as new members ourselves, we are eager to join in many of SEEP’s initiatives. Joining the network expands our abilities to share, learn and contribute to collaborative efforts such as Women’s Economic Empowerment Working Group and Market Facilitation Initiative (MaFI).

Chemonics’ first blog for the network, by Director for Economic Growth and Trade Eileen Hoffman, featured one of our newest programs, the USAID-funded E-PESO in the Philippines. As she explains:

“E-PESO will address challenges facing the infrastructure and enabling environment that underpin the e-payments ecosystem and simultaneously drive e-payment demand and improve product supply. The program seeks to remove barriers and address challenges in the e-payment front- and back-end infrastructure that prohibit consumers from using an e-payment product. For example, a challenge occurs when an m-money user associated with one mobile network operator (MNO) might not be able to transfer funds (or might be able to do so only at a prohibitive cost) to a bank that is not partnered with the same MNO. By tackling challenges such as this, E-PESO aims to increase the value proposition for consumers while offering e-payment providers an opportunity to conduct customer acquisition at a lower cost. As an early member of the Better Than Cash Alliance, Chemonics is committed to globally championing e-payments as a means of promoting financial inclusion, in addition to enhancing accountability and transparency.”

E-PESO follows the USAID Microenterprise Access to Banking (MABS) project, which facilitated the adoption of mobile money in the Philippines and increased rural and low-income households’ access to a range of financial services.

Want to know more? Read the full piece, “The Latest from Chemonics: E-Payments and Financial Inclusion,” on the SEEP Network blog.