Mobile Money in Latin America - A Case Study of Tigo Paraguay
This case study provides a summary of the Paraguayan mobile financial ecosystem, highlighting the favorable conditions which have contributed to its development. It then examines the key success factors of Tigos mobile money product. There has been a notable absence of mobile money programs in Latin America. This seems to be changing in 2011 with mobile network operators (MNOs) in both Central and South America getting ready for launches. Its findings include:
- Enabling regulatory environments for mobile money platforms holds the key for the development of mobile money in Latin America;
- Tigo's success factors include deep market knowledge, a successful distribution network, effective marketing tactics, and collaboration with an aligned bank partner;
- For operators seeking to layer on additional products and services to their mobile money platform, customers lack of experience using the e-wallet puts up certain limitations.
The study concludes that the mobile money sector has yet to identify a clear roadmap of how to drive electronic wallet usage once customers are accustomed to doing all their transactions at the agent point. At the same time, the success of Tigo in Paraguay shows that there are many ways to deploy and scale mobile money platforms.
