Challenge
Preventing vulnerable populations from SMS fraud
Financial inclusion, the access to the formal economy through banking, loans, and credit, is recognized as an important development objective. As the world economy becomes more digital through services such as electronic banking, credit cards, mobile money, digital payments, and other mechanisms, development organizations promote these digital financial services (DFS) as a primary means to achieve financial inclusion. With this ongoing promotion and adoption, research has shifted to assess the myriad barriers to DFS uptake. These include network and service outages, insufficient agent liquidity, complex user interfaces, poor customer recourse, inadequate data privacy, non-transparent fees, and customer-targeted fraud. Fraud, in particular, is problematic because low income and marginalized populations are more impacted by financial loss.