CGAP Partnerships Explore Impact of Open APIs on Financial Inclusion

How do you connect an emerging market's most innovative app developers and startups with digital financial services providers looking for new ways to reach poor customers? Open APIs are a proven way to connect these parties for mutual benefit, but they remain an unfamiliar concept in most emerging markets. To demonstrate their potential, CGAP this week has announced partnerships with five companies that are committed to opening their systems and data to third parties.

Over the next two years, CGAP will explore the potential impact of opening up platforms to third parties through partnerships in Africa and Asia:

• Barclays Africa: To foster a pan-African financial services marketplace that delivers banking as a service to all, including low-income households.
• Wave Money, Myanmar: To enable FinTechs and others to easily incorporate seamless digital payment capabilities into their online businesses in a low-banked, high-smartphone penetration market.
• Zoona, Zambia: To enable third parties to extend the number of reasons for customers and agents to use Zoona.
• BTPN, Indonesia: To optimize their agent network and create new revenue streams using open API-enabled strategic partnerships.
• MTN, Uganda: To drive customer growth and activity by facilitating a wider range of mobile wallet applications for all customers through open APIs.