Mobile Money and Consumer Protection: An Analysis of Regulatory Environments To Enable Mobile Money

Since its rise in the early 2000s, mobile money has become one of the most successful innovations of the emerging economies. This paper provides an overview of the many benefits that mobile money provides within the context of emerging economies and makes the argument that enabling government regulation is crucial to the development of successful mobile money systems. More specifically, we find that within the context of sub-Saharan Africa, consumer protection is the most important aspect of government regulation that predicts the spread of mobile money. The paper also recommends a set of policy tools such as third-party fiduciary requirements and pass-through deposit insurance to safeguard customer funds.