Offering a mobile money service for the unbanked requires the participation of both a bank and a mobile operator. That means these two parties need to align on what parts of the mobile money value chain each will carry out, agree on a way of working with each other, and decide how to split the value that is created by the service. All this is easier said than done, however; around the world, banks and operators report that it can take up to a year to hammer out an agreement to work together to offer mobile money for the unbanked.

To shed some light on the issues that can complicate bank-operator relationships, the MMU team is today releasing a new article called, “Mapping and Effectively Structuring Operator-Bank Relationships to Offer Mobile Money for the Unbanked.” The article is written not just for banks and operators that are in the process of forging agreements with each other; it has also been designed to be useful to operators and banks that are already working together to offer mobile financial services for the unbanked, providing ideas for how roles and relationship structures can be refined in order to promote cooperation.

Read more: http://mmublog.org/global/a-new-mmu-article-on-the-relationships-between-banks-and-mobile-operators/