The Mobile Money Regulatory Index report

The GSMA have produced the Mobile Money Regulatory Index (MMRI), a unique tool for the assessment of the effectiveness of mobile money regulatory frameworks.

Mobile money provides arguably the most economically viable services to the world’s financially underserved. It is therefore essential that those designing policy and regulation are best able to target their interventions to maximise both adoption and usage.

Despite this, there are currently no financial inclusion indices that focus specifically on mobile money, and the MMRI has been produced to fill this gap.

The new MMRI report, which is accompanied by an online tool, includes profiles for each global region and for over 90 countries.

Each country is scored out of 100, and the higher the score the more enabling the regulation.

By enabling readers to both readily compare and contrast different countries and to track developments over time, the report offers a clear guide to those seeking to best target interventions to encourage the growth of mobile money adoption and, by extension, overall financial inclusion.

Rather than simply classifying regulations as either enabling or non-enabling, the report assesses each country against their 2018, 2019 and 2020 regulatory frameworks and gives a nuanced assessment of the impact of regulations according to a comprehensive set of indicators, with each indicator scored out of 100 and given a traffic light.

The MMRI also identifies a top ten of jurisdictions that have experienced the most significant (both positive and negative) change to their overall scores since the last assessment in 2019 and provides a summary of the contemporaneous regulatory developments for each.

Up-to-date data for each country is provided regarding, amongst other things: levels of financial inclusion, possession of mobile money accounts, GDP per capita.

The MMRI’s analysis of each country includes an individual score and traffic light for each of the following six factors (each of which comprises 26 indicators):

• Authorisation: eligibility, international remittances, authorisation instruments, and capital requirements.
• Consumer protection: consumer protection rules, deposit insurance, and safeguarding of funds.
• Transaction limits: entry-level monthly limits, maximum transaction limits, maximum monthly limits, maximum balance limits, and entry-level balance limits.
• Know-Your-Customer (KYC): permitted identifications, KYC requirements, KYC proportionality.
• Agent networks: agent eligibility, agent authorisation, agent activities, and agent liability.
• Investment and infrastructure environment: financial inclusion strategy, affordability, ID verification infrastructure, interoperability, settlement access, and interest payments.

Each country profile then sets out, in bullet points, both the positive (e.g., the existence of clear regulations are clear regarding the safeguarding of how customers’ funds) and the negative (e.g., an absence of deposit insurance protection) highlights for each country.

By providing an up-to-date guide to anyone seeking to assess the impact of regulation upon mobile money, this updated report builds upon the work of its predecessors to better further the partnership between regulation and dynamic mobile money adoption.

To download the report, CLICK HERE.

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