The Regulation of Mobile Money Agents in Africa

A so-called ‘digital revolution’ is beginning to sweep across Africa. What regulatory frameworks are needed for this revolution? Get these frameworks right and technological innovation can benefit millions of Africans. Get them wrong and societies can suffer.

Hitachi Faculty Fellow Jonathan Greenacre will explore this topic by focusing on the regulation of mobile money ‘agents’. These are corner stores and other retail outlets that operate on behalf of phone companies providing electronic payment systems. Many systems are large – there are over 277 million mobile money accounts in Sub-Saharan Africa and Kenya alone has almost 200,000 agents – making their effective regulation of considerable importance.

Dr. Jonathan Greenacre holds a Masters and PhD in Law from Oxford University, and has advised central banks, the United Nations, and World Bank on financial regulation and development. During the presentation he will introduce a new course at the Fletcher School, called ‘Technology, Development and Regulation’ which will be taught in Spring 2019.