Published by: GSM Association

Today the MMU team is delighted to release the final section of our handbook on mobile money agent networks. This instalment discusses managing a network of mobile money agents on an ongoing basis.

In this article, we argue that serving as a mobile money agent makes a number of unusual demands on retailers: rather than selling a product, like fast-moving consumer goods or even airtime, mobile money is a service, offered in accordance with a set of processes that agents have to learn and adhere to. To ensure that agents are fulfilling their obligations so that customers, in turn, enjoy a positive experience with mobile money, it’s essential that operators have a way to support their agent network on an ongoing basis. In this article, we discuss what support agents need and the various mechanisms that operators can employ to provide this support.

This article joins “Building a Network of Mobile Money Agents” and “Incentivising a Network of Mobile Money Agents” and completes our series on mobile money distribution. All three sections, plus an introduction, are now available online, and they will be published in hard copy as part of the Mobile Money for the Unbanked 2010 Annual Report and distributed at Mobile Money Summit in Rio de Janeiro.