Mobile Money Systems Research Articles

The influence of mobile money services on customers in the Bolgatanga municipality, Ghana

Mobile telecommunications can help low-income countries improve their fixed-line and internet infrastructures. Mobile phones boost information availability, reduce search costs, facilitate supply coordination, and benefit low-income people. Mobile banking, often known as m-money, uses mobile networks to allow account balance queries and money transfers without the use of physical infrastructure. Ghanaians strongly prefer mobile money transfer services because of their low cost and accessibility across all economic strata. These simple and dependable services are suitable for clients who have little financial means, as most Ghanaians do. There has been very little empirical research into the benefits and challenges of mobile money services. Because of a paucity of data at the individual level, research into the penetration of financial services in low-income countries such as Ghana is limited. This study looks at both the advantages and disadvantages of using mobile money services. The study analyzed data from a mobile money survey using Partial Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). This evidence supports the hypothesis that benefits will increase customer sentiment, while restrictions will decrease patronage. The researchers will conduct additional research into the theoretical and practical implications of mobile money systems' benefits and drawbacks for consumers. It supports the hypothesis that advantages improve consumers' perceptions, while impediments reduce patronage. Additional research will consider both the theoretical and practical implications of mobile money systems' benefits and challenges for users.

The influence of the mobile money payment on the performance of small and medium enterprises in Somalia

This study examines the influence of mobile money payment on the performance of small and medium enterprises in Somalia. A cross-sectional research design is used to explore the relationship between mobile money and business growth. Cross-sectional data collected from sample 385 business enterprises in Somalia was studied while descriptive and analytical methods were used to analyze the data. The Generalized Linear Model was employed to estimate the association between the variables of interest.This study found that mobile money promotes business growth, and 1 % increase in mobile money usage leads to about 11.14 % of business growth. The findings of this study indicate that mobile money services boost the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises by increasing access to finance, boosting sales growth, financing product development, and reducing operational risk. Mobile money services also help small and medium enterprises reduce knowledge asymmetries, eliminate market inefficiencies, and improve decision-making, ultimately contributing to enterprise performance.The findings of this study imply that the expansion of mobile money services can significantly benefit small and medium-sized businesses in Somalia; hence, the government and mobile service providers should promote a safe and effective mobile money system that prevents fraudulent transactions.

The Role of Cryptocurrencies in Shaping the Future of Mobile Money Services in Lusaka, Zambia.

Purpose: This research provides a comprehensive exploration of the intersection between cryptocurrencies and mobile money services, particularly in the Zambian context. The study illuminates both the potential and the challenges of integrating cryptocurrencies with mobile money services, providing a novel contribution to the existing body of knowledge.
 Methodology: Utilizing descriptive and inferential statistics, the study reveals a moderately strong positive correlation between cryptocurrency usage and both the volume and frequency of mobile money transactions. However, it also identifies significant barriers to adoption, including a lack of user awareness, security concerns, regulatory ambiguity, and the volatility of cryptocurrencies.
 Findings Through thematic, content, and comparative analysis, the study underscores the regulatory challenges, increased security risks, and the added burdens of compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) regulations associated with the integration of cryptocurrencies. Moreover, the research identifies the potential disruption of existing mobile money systems by blockchain technology and the significant infrastructural investments and regulatory adaptation that it necessitates.
 Unique contribution to theory, policy and practice: The research proposes two strategies for aligning the regulatory frameworks for mobile money services and cryptocurrencies in Zambia: development of specific regulations or guidelines for cryptocurrencies that align with existing mobile money rules, and establishment of a separate regulatory framework that addresses the unique characteristics of cryptocurrencies. In highlighting the transformative potential of blockchain technology and the importance of user perspectives and regional variables in the integration process, the study offers valuable insights for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. The research underscores the necessity for a responsive approach, continuous review, and update of regulatory frameworks, emphasizing consumer protection, market stability, and the promotion of innovation. While the research confirms the promising opportunities, cryptocurrencies offer to enhance mobile money services, it also emphasizes the need for careful consideration of potential adverse effects. Future research is encouraged to continue exploring this rapidly evolving field, broadening the geographical scope, and focusing on user education and robust security measures.

Investigating Challenges of Mobile Money usage in the Central Business District of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Adum- Ghana

A descriptive cross-sectional design approach was deployed using a structured questionnaire underpinning the research objective to collect data from mobile money users and non-users within the Business District Centre of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Adum. The purposive random selection technique was used to choose a sample size of 59. This study seeks to investigate the challenges encountered by patrons of mobile money and examine their behaviour and attitudes towards the usage of mobile money transactions. The study identified seven (7) challenges, namely, financial, security, privacy, performance, time, convenience, and psychological, with performance, security, and privacy challenges being the most prevalent. The low transaction limits due to inadequate constant liquidity flow (cash and e-float) by agents affect consumers who wish to transact more than being offered; unwarranted delays experienced by customers and merchants due to incomplete payment process are some of the causative challenges of mobile money transaction; and invasion of privacy and defamation are among major. Fraudsters use the fear and anxiety of customers’ personal details in the hands of a third party, especially when the mobile money accounts are linked to clients’ bank accounts. The effect of inconvenience and delays in transactions are pointers to a duplicated transaction. It is recommended that service charges be lowered to their minimum rates, ensure a reliable mobile money system for consumers through system upgrades, and service providers ensure that personal details remain private to avoid consumer-driven fraud by inadvertently making pin codes known to third parties. Keywords: Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), Mobile Money, Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the Diffusion of Innovation Theory.

Mobile Money Operations: Policies for Managing Cash and Digital Currency Inventories in the Developing World

Problem definition: Mobile money systems—platforms built and managed by mobile network platform operators (MMPOs) to allow money to be stored as digital currency—connect millions of poor and “unbanked” people to the formal financial system. Unfortunately, low service levels because of the suboptimal management of cash and digital currency (e-float) inventory impede the development of these ecosystems. Accordingly, we seek to answer the question of how agents should manage inventories of cash and e-float. Academic/practical relevance: This paper extends inventory theory to the mobile money context, unique in that sales of cash generate inventory of e-float and vice versa. In doing so, we address a key pain point for an emerging sector that improves lives at the base of the pyramid. Methodology: We develop an analytical heuristic to determine initial stocking levels for cash and e-float and analyze its performance on simulated and actual data. Results: By partnering with an MMPO, we tested the performance of the heuristic inventory policy with data from more than 35 million transactions. The heuristic captured 99.9998% of the optimal profit on simulated data and, on actual data, we found that following the recommendations could increase agents’ profits by an average of 15.4%. Managerial implications: We develop a pragmatic inventory policy that performs nearly optimally. We also analyze under which conditions the performance deteriorates and examine heterogeneity among agents with respect to the heuristic’s impact on their performance. Thus, we equip MMPOs with guidance as to whom to target and how. By contributing to service level and profit improvements, this work can make mobile money a more effective financial inclusion tool in the developing world as well as improve the livelihoods of agents. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2022.1175 .

THE POTENTIAL INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES OF USING MOBILE MONEY SYSTEMS FOR ENHANCING FINANCIAL INCLUSION IN TANZANIA

In many developing countries in Africa, financial exclusion among the poor is a major constraint to poverty reduction ever since independence. Mobile money is a financial innovation that provides transfers, payments, and other financial services at a low or zero cost to individuals in developing countries where banking and capital markets are deficient and financial inclusion is low. In Tanzania, mobile money systems have been increasingly used as a means to overcome this constraint. However, there still existing mobile money service divide, highly skewed against the rural poor population. This paper was therefore seeking to explore the potential innovative strategies of using mobile money systems for enhancing financial inclusion in Tanzania. In this paper secondary data was used whereby, review and analysis of several documentary sources were done. The findings of the study revealed that although mobile phones have become common in Tanzania covering rural areas where there is acute poverty and lack of access to formal banking institutions is rampant, they are hardly used for financial transfers and payments due to a number of existing obstacles such as poor network coverage; lack of knowledge of m-banking users; high mobile money transaction fees; and lack of enough float, ATM breakdown and theft. As a result, the country has been losing opportunities to use mobile money systems to extend financial facilities to the poor who do not have access to formal finance. Innovative strategies are highly needed to fight the obstacles and promote financial inclusion to both rural and urban sectors. Some of the key determinants recommended that make the strategies work and therefore result into successful financial inclusion are such outreach, penetration, availability, accessibility, technology, financial literacy, trust, and income adequacy KEY WORDS: Financial services, financial inclusion, Poverty reduction, Mobile Phone Money, Mobile Phone Users, Challenges, Mobile Phone Money Use, Mobile Phone Money Adoption

Issues with mobile money in developing countries

A major criterion is the reduction of snags in the management of mobile money systems. The study was prompted by the ongoing problems with mobile money management. Previous research in underdeveloped nations concentrated mostly on technology algorithms for mobile money systems, with little attention paid to managerial issues. The research aims to reduce hiccups in the management of mobile money systems. A qualitative investigation was carried out, which was supported by activity theory and directed by an interpretative paradigm. The major data tools were semi-structured interviews and an internal document review. Expert purposive sampling was used, and data was thematically evaluated and themes were mapped onto activity theory nodes. The study's key findings included inadequate monitoring of mobile money agents, insufficient confidentiality and privacy in financial transactions, the use of general accounts for financial transactions, the use of generic guidelines and policies, third-party involvement in sensitive mobile money activities, and weak staff recruitment policies. The study's managerial implications include online customer registration, the implementation of online transaction monitoring, the online categorization of mobile money accounts, digital financial crime checks, digital validation of customer identities, and the continuous review and updating of mobile money guidelines.

Mobile Money Services: An Enabler of Development Processes in Africa

Access to finance has been a major constraint in a lot of developing countries, especially in Africa. This research seeks to explore the role of mobile money in the development of the financial sector and its role in enforcing financial inclusiveness by making banking easily accessible and convenient. We look at data of сountries which operate mobile money credit facilities. Looking closely at how these loan services are increasing financial accessibility and the intensity of entrepreneurship, we hypothesize that mobile money positively influences entrepreneurship and domestic saving by providing an avenue for financial inclusiveness. To explore our objectives, we use panel data consisting of developing countries. With repeated observations of enough cross-sections, panel data analysis permits us to study the dynamics of change with time series. Our data consists of 28 developing countries from the year 2010 to 2018. Our results indicated a positive effect of mobile money registered accounts on new business density and positive effect of transactional volume on domestic savings. We realized that the mobile money system has increased people's confidence in saving and investment since their money is easily accessible with just a click away. People now feel much safer, and this system is educating more people rapidly in developing the culture of saving. This improves how banks treat their clients in rural communities and it also creates employment for young graduates. Access to loans has become much easier by replacing the collateral system with the credit score system. We also realized that since there are no regulations regarding access to loans, mobile money operators seem to take advantage of the people by taking interest rates of more than 10% per month.

A Secure and Efficient Multi-Factor Authentication Algorithm for Mobile Money Applications

With the expansion of smartphone and financial technologies (FinTech), mobile money emerged to improve financial inclusion in many developing nations. The majority of the mobile money schemes used in these nations implement two-factor authentication (2FA) as the only means of verifying mobile money users. These 2FA schemes are vulnerable to numerous security attacks because they only use a personal identification number (PIN) and subscriber identity module (SIM). This study aims to develop a secure and efficient multi-factor authentication algorithm for mobile money applications. It uses a novel approach combining PIN, a one-time password (OTP), and a biometric fingerprint to enforce extra security during mobile money authentication. It also uses a biometric fingerprint and quick response (QR) code to confirm mobile money withdrawal. The security of the PIN and OTP is enforced by using secure hashing algorithm-256 (SHA-256), a biometric fingerprint by Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) that uses a standard public key cryptography technique (RSA), and Fernet encryption to secure a QR code and the records in the databases. The evolutionary prototyping model was adopted when developing the native mobile money application prototypes to prove that the algorithm is feasible and provides a higher degree of security. The developed applications were tested, and a detailed security analysis was conducted. The results show that the proposed algorithm is secure, efficient, and highly effective against the various threat models. It also offers secure and efficient authentication and ensures data confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation, user anonymity, and privacy. The performance analysis indicates that it achieves better overall performance compared with the existing mobile money systems.

Bangladesh toward Digital Financial Inclusion: FinTech Experience

Digitalization in financial services, in another way financial technology or FinTech, has drastically extended financial intermediation while customers are experiencing and engaging with the development of new digital products and competencies. Nevertheless, over two billion people worldwide remain out of accessing financial services that make financial inclusion an equally important concern for all economies, including Bangladesh. Over the last few years, a good number of academic literature has been made on FinTech covering how essential it is to serve the unbanked and underbanked countries. This study tries to provide an inclusive survey of relevant literature on FinTech and its potential to disruptive financial intermediation globally and nationally. Therefore, a descriptive research design has been adopted entirely based on secondary resources and mostly relying on the Global Findex database, International Monetary Fund (IMF) releases, and Bangladesh Bank reports. It has been evident that digital financial inclusion is connecting more and more people to the financial system at a growing pace resulting in substantial welfare benefits throughout the nation. Even if the active use of mobile money systems, digital banking, especially internet banking, is reshaping our bank. However, there is much work to be done compassing the challenges and the threats of FinTech as important policy issues for the existing financial landscape. In conclusion, this study provides an insight into the country's digital financial system and contributes to further study in relevant disciplines.

Memoirs from Bukhalalire: a poetic inquiry into the lived experience of M-PESA mobile money usage in rural Kenya

ABSTRACT M-PESA is the world’s leading mobile money system which supports the person-to-person transfer of money. While the institutional meaning of M-PESA concerning financial inclusion and market access is well documented, the meaning attached to M-PESA by users, particularly in rural communities, has received less attention. This study examines the meaning of M-PESA to the rural poor in villages in Busia County, Western Kenya using the approach of poetic inquiry in which the expressions of local people are rendered as poetry in order to draw out affective and lived experience. A reading of the poems of seven participants reveals the perception of M-PESA as a means of empowerment for women, alignment with their social identity and access to education. This contrasts sharply with the meaning of M-PESA as seen by commercial and non-commercial institutions which focuses on connecting the unbanked to formal banking systems and the exploitation of M-PESA as a primary revenue stream. The paper concludes by highlighting the need for regulation which is delicately balanced between independence from institutional control and the exposure of the rural poor to exploitation.

Trajectories through temporal networks

What do football passes and financial transactions have in common? Both are networked walk processes that we can observe, where records take the form of timestamped events that move something tangible from one node to another. Here we propose an approach to analyze this type of data that extracts the actual trajectories taken by the tangible items involved. The main advantage of analyzing the resulting trajectories compared to using, e.g., existing temporal network analysis techniques, is that sequential, temporal, and domain-specific aspects of the process are respected and retained. As a result, the approach lets us produce contextually-relevant insights. Demonstrating the usefulness of this technique, we consider passing play within association football matches (an unweighted process) and e-money transacted within a mobile money system (a weighted process). Proponents and providers of mobile money care to know how these systems are used—using trajectory extraction we find that 73% of e-money was used for stand-alone tasks and only 21.7% of account holders built up substantial savings at some point during a 6-month period. Coaches of football teams and sports analysts are interested in strategies of play that are advantageous. Trajectory extraction allows us to replicate classic results from sports science on data from the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Moreover, we are able to distinguish teams that consistently exhibited complex, multi-player dynamics of play during the 2017–2018 club season using ball passing trajectories, coincidentally identifying the winners of the five most competitive first-tier domestic leagues in Europe.

Snags in mobile money in developing economies

AbstractLessening snags in the management of mobile money systems is a fundamental prerequisite. The study was motivated by the continuous mobile money management snags. Previous studies in developing economies focused mainly on technological algorithm for mobile money systems with untraceable attention given to management matters. The study aimed at lessening snags in the management of mobile money system. Underpinned by activity theory and guided by an interpretive paradigm, a qualitative inquiry was conducted. Semi‐structured interviews and internal document review formed the key data instruments. Expert purposive sampling was adopted, data thematically analyzed and themes mapped on activity theory nodes. The study revealed inadequate monitoring of the mobile money agents, insufficient confidentiality and privacy in financial transactions; use of general accounts for financial transactions, use of generic guidelines and polices, third party involvement in sensitive mobile money activities and weak staff recruitment policies as the key findings. Managerial implications for the study include online registration of customers, introduction of online transaction monitoring, online categorization of mobile money accounts, digital financial crime checks, digital validation of customer identities and continuous review and updates of mobile money guidelines.

An assessment of technological capabilities and deposit-mobilisation technologies in selected micro-finance banks in Southwestern Nigeria

Despite the limitations peculiar to Nigerian micro-finance banks in deposit-mobilization initiatives, some banks have managed to deploy technologies to mitigate these constraints. This paper identifies the capabilities responsible for enabling the acquisition and deployment of technologies for deposit mobilization activities with a view to inform policy and management practice. Using data collected from questionnaire administration on the managers of 100 selected micro-finance banks, we identify the technologies deployed; measure investment, operational, marketing and linkage capabilities in the sector using a five-item scale (1 = none and 5 = very high) and examine the technological capabilities that influence the deployment of the technologies. We found out that 28.2% of the banks used Point-of-sale (POS) machines, 10.3% deployed mobile banking technologies, while 33.3% and 20.5% used mobile money and card system technologies respectively for deposit mobilisation activities. The study revealed that technological capabilities in the sector ranged from moderate to high. Our regression model showed that capabilities to penetrate markets, procure and install equipment, negotiate and recruit skilled personnel were 21, 15.24, 5.75 and 0.03 times respectively more likely to influence the deployment of the POS. In addition, ability to link external agents to troubleshoot, test and train staff was 0.08 times more likely to influence the deployment of the POS machine. Capability to assess, procure and install technologies was 0.13 times more likely to influence the deployment of mobile money technologies. The study recommended training through professional bodies and regulatory and knowledge institutions to upgrade technological capabilities in the sector

Securitizing the Climate Crisis: Racial Geographies of Empire and the Agri-Fintech Frontier

Securitizing the Climate Crisis:Racial Geographies of Empire and the Agri-Fintech Frontier Aaron Eddens (bio) I was at the 2014 World Food Prize Conference when I first heard about a novel insurance technology designed to cover millions of farmers on the frontlines of the climate crisis. I had gone to the conference—the annual gathering in Des Moines, Iowa, centered upon the bestowal of the self-described "Nobel Prize in food and agriculture"—to learn how, backed by the U.S. government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest agricultural biotechnology/seed companies were working to cultivate a "Green Revolution in Africa." They were targeting the continent's tens of millions of "smallholder farmers," who farm small plots of land largely outside of commercial seed markets. The most important crop for these farmers—and the focus of the Green Revolution projects I had traveled to Des Moines to research—was maize. So I was particularly struck by the argument of a panel called "the smallholder's lifeline," that the key to bringing Africa's smallholders into commercial maize markets was to "bundle" seed sales with a kind of microinsurance called weather index insurance. Marco Ferroni, the executive director of the Syngenta Foundation, the philanthropic branch of the third largest ag-biotech company, described how farmers in rural Kenya used their cell phones to enroll in his organization's index insurance project. As he explained, when farmers bought a five-kg bag of maize seed from their local agro-dealer, they would now find a small card with a code that they could enter into their phone, linking their phone to a nearby weather station and activating the insurance policy. If the weather station measured less than a predetermined amount of rain during the growing season, the farmer would receive an automatic payment for the value of the seeds through Kenya's [End Page 63] mobile money system, M-Pesa. The Syngenta Foundation was finding that insured farmers were much more likely to buy hybrid seeds, such as those sold by Syngenta. Ferroni explained that index insurance could also prove lucrative for multinational reinsurance companies (insurers who insure insurers), such as SwissRe and MunichRe. Most of the "risk" captured in his foundation's project was transferred to these companies, in which it held the potential to be securitized as a tradeable financial instrument—pooled together with risk captured from thousands of other microinsurance policies to form an insurance-linked security. For farmers, seed companies, and insurers, index insurance promised to be a triple win. The Syngenta Foundation's pilot project led to two Nairobi-based for-profit companies, Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise (ACRE) and Pula. These agricultural financial technology (agri-fintech) companies use digital platforms such as M-Pesa to link millions of smallholder farmers to broader data and risk transfer markets. They have garnered industry awards and glowing coverage in Western media outlets, such as The New York Times, The Financial Times, and The Economist (Bird 2018; "In Africa, Agricultural Insurance Often Falls on Stony Ground" 2018; Mayersohn 2019). In the words of Pula's mission statement, it aims to use "technology and parametric insurance to insure the previously unbanked, uninsured, untapped market of 1.5 billion smallholders worldwide" (Pula n.d.). This approach exemplifies the broader development paradigm of "financial inclusion" in which an increasing number of financial companies are using new digital technologies to tap into frontier markets (Gabor and Brooks 2017). Pula and ACRE's agri-fintech expansion operates along two fronts: first, they transform large pools of previously uninsured "risk" into commodities that can be traded by reinsurance companies, and second, they harvest data from farmers' phones, which they can sell to their "upstream" agribusiness partners. To date, both companies have partnered with some of the largest seed companies working in the region, including multinationals such as Corteva (the agricultural branch of the company resulting from the 2017 mega-merger of Dow and DuPont) and Bayer (which became the world's largest agricultural biotechnology company when it acquired Monsanto in 2018). Both companies explicitly brand their financial services in terms of the climate crisis, marketing their insurance products as tools...

Social Value Creation in Institutional Voids: A Business Model Perspective

The literature on Base of the Pyramid (BoP) strategies emphasizes that creating social value requires collaborative, multi-stakeholder business approaches. However, there is limited understanding of how businesses can successfully coordinate such value creation processes in the developing economies that face significant institutional voids. This study adopts a business model perspective for analyzing social value creation processes that span organizational boundaries. We introduce a novel, theoretically grounded business model framework that helps conceptualize social value by locating the various loci of value creation, and the stakeholders that partake in creating and capturing this value. We subsequently analyze the mechanisms of social value creation in M-Pesa, a renowned boundary-spanning mobile money system that has advanced financial inclusion among tens of millions of users in Kenya. The results show that information and communications technology can help advance social value creation by reducing the cost of coordinating boundary-spanning business models that integrate diverse societal stakeholders. The results further point to uneven distributional outcomes in self-governing social value creation strategies where the focal firm plays a coordinating role.

Mobile money system and market risk mitigation: an econometric case study of Kenya's farm business

PurposeThe study presents and evaluates a proposition that there is market information bundled with the mobile money (m-money) system. Also, that such information is disseminated to farmers in the process of their normal financial transactions and business interactions. This market information is important to mitigate the price uncertainty of farm products.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical analysis is conducted with a two-stage econometric procedure. First, a probit model is used to estimate the likelihood of m-money take-up by farm entrepreneurs. Second, the ordinary least squares model is used to regress the farming price uncertainty index on the m-money take-up, which is quantified with a set of predicted values from the probit model in the first stage. The data used in econometric estimation come from Kenya's FinAccess Household Survey published in 2016.FindingsThe results of this paper show a negative effect of m-money service take-up on the price uncertainty index. A one unit increase in the m-money system is associated with a 12% reduction in the price uncertainty index. The authors interpret this as saying that access to the m-money system by farm business has a beneficial spillover effect on product risk mitigation, ceteris paribus.Research limitations/implicationsThe implication of this research is that policy initiatives which support farm entrepreneurs to access the m-money system should be encouraged not only for their financial inclusion advantage but also for their positive externality on product risk amelioration for rural farm businesses.Originality/valueThe paper introduces an idea that the m-money system is bundled with relevant information for mitigating price risk to the benefit of rural farm businesses.

Security Model for Tracking Creation of Mobile Money Using Transport Layer Security Protocol

Mobile Network Operator (MNO) financial service model has security vulnerabilities in addressing verification of cash and mobile money. For instance, monthly returns are transferred in plain text from banks and MNOs to financial regulators. This may result to failure of financial regulators in detecting creation of fake mobile money. This study was conducted to develop a security model for tracking creation of mobile money using Transport Layer security protocol as a way of protecting returns in transit from banks and MNOs to financial regulators. The proposed model was developed using insights from literature, function decomposition and composition techniques and was tested by prototyping the system for tracking creation of mobile money using Laravel PhP framework, apache webserver, JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) server and PhP programming language. The proposed model has eight components, namely; certificate authority, financial regulator server, bank server, MNO server, bank system, mobile money system, super-agent and mobile money issuer components.
 Keywords: Security Model; Public Key Infrastructure (PKI); Tracking Creation; Transport Layer Security; Mobile Money;

Two-Factor Authentication Scheme for Mobile Money: A Review of Threat Models and Countermeasures

The proliferation of digital financial innovations like mobile money has led to the rise in mobile subscriptions and transactions. It has also increased the security challenges associated with the current two-factor authentication (2FA) scheme for mobile money due to the high demand. This review paper aims to determine the threat models in the 2FA scheme for mobile money. It also intends to identify the countermeasures to overcome the threat models. A comprehensive literature search was conducted from the Google Scholar and other leading scientific databases such as IEEE Xplore, MDPI, Emerald Insight, Hindawi, ACM, Elsevier, Springer, and Specific and International Journals, where 97 papers were reviewed that focused on the topic. Descriptive research papers and studies related to the theme were selected. Three reviewers extracted information independently on authentication, mobile money system architecture, mobile money access, the authentication scheme for mobile money, various attacks on the mobile money system (MMS), threat models in the 2FA scheme for mobile money, and countermeasures. Through literature analysis, it was found that the threat models in the 2FA scheme for mobile money were categorised into five, namely, attacks against privacy, attacks against authentication, attacks against confidentiality, attacks against integrity, and attacks against availability. The countermeasures include use of cryptographic functions (e.g., asymmetric encryption function, symmetric encryption function, and hash function) and personal identification (e.g., number-based and biometric-based countermeasures). This review study reveals that the current 2FA scheme for mobile money has security gaps that need to be addressed since it only uses a personal identification number (PIN) and a subscriber identity module (SIM) to authenticate users, which are susceptible to attacks. This work, therefore, will help mobile money service providers (MMSPs), decision-makers, and governments that wish to improve their current 2FA scheme for mobile money.

Evaluation of Key Security Issues Associated with Mobile Money Systems in Uganda

Smartphone technology has improved access to mobile money services (MMS) and successful mobile money deployment has brought massive benefits to the unbanked population in both rural and urban areas of Uganda. Despite its enormous benefits, embracing the usage and acceptance of mobile money has mostly been low due to security issues and challenges associated with the system. As a result, there is a need to carry out a survey to evaluate the key security issues associated with mobile money systems in Uganda. The study employed a descriptive research design, and stratified random sampling technique to group the population. Krejcie and Morgan’s formula was used to determine the sample size for the study. The collection of data was through the administration of structured questionnaires, where 741 were filled by registered mobile money (MM) users, 447 registered MM agents, and 52 mobile network operators’ (MNOs) IT officers of the mobile money service providers (MMSPs) in Uganda. The collected data were analyzed using RStudio software. Statistical techniques like descriptive analysis and Pearson Chi-Square test was used in data analysis and mean (M) > 3.0 and p-value < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. The findings revealed that the key security issues are identity theft, authentication attack, phishing attack, vishing attack, SMiShing attack, personal identification number (PIN) sharing, and agent-driven fraud. Based on these findings, the use of better access controls, customer awareness campaigns, agent training on acceptable practices, strict measures against fraudsters, high-value transaction monitoring by the service providers, developing a comprehensive legal document to run mobile money service, were some of the proposed mitigation measures. This study, therefore, provides a baseline survey to help MNO and the government that would wish to implement secure mobile money systems.