Modelo Peru: Unique Model, Unique Challenges, Bright Future

Modelo Peru is a historic collaborative effort to establish an inclusive national digital payments platform. Billetera Móvil (Mobile Wallet, known as Bim) launched in February 2016 and is the first of its kind in the world. Now that Bim has been operating for nearly a year, it is possible to examine the implementation challenges and potential solutions. This brief explores Bim's initial setup and subsequent implementation, its four main challenges, and what the road to success looks like for the financial institutions, government, telecommunications companies, payers and payees, all of whom have a stake in the success of Bim in Peru.

The four main challenges documented in the first year of the initiative were:

1. Double work for banking agents;
2. Focus has remained on urban areas and banked populations;
3. Lack of mobile network coverage;
4. Diverging perspectives on moving forward.