How Enabling is the Latin American Environment for Mobile Money?
This Briefing Note includes new ratings of the enabling environment for mobile financial services in five Latin American countries, namely, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru. It draws on information from a 2008 report by Analistas Financieros Internacionales (Afi). Bankable Frontier Associates developed a tool for rating the policy and regulatory environment for mobile money, and previously applied it to four diverse countries in which mobile money is active, namely Philippines, South Africa, Kenya and India. The paper extends this work to incorporate analysis and scores from Latin America. Findings include:
- Countries in Latin America currently tend to be relatively less certain and less open in key regulatory dimensions than other countries such as Philippines, South Africa and Kenya;
- There are signs of increasing interest and early deployment of innovative mobile money models in some of the Latin American countries covered here.
This paper is another step in the process of broadening country coverage and enhancing the rating methodology for tracking changes in the environment for mobile money across a wider group of countries.
