With support from the ILO, Kabalikat para sa Maunlad na Buhay, Inc (KMBI), an NGO-MFI in the Philippines launched a digital finance pilot to train and equip its members to act as merchant-agents for digital transactions. KMBI facilitated the enrolment of its members as merchant agents with fintech vendors. Members used the vendor’s software platforms to offer premium contributions to the government social protection schemes. The digital finance pilot enabled KMBI to offer a complementary business opportunity for its members and at the same time educate them about digital finance.
When selecting digital payment partners, factors such as transaction fees, proximity to clients and ease of top-up facilities for the mobile wallet were crucial. For instance, Digipay, a digital payment platform, is the most profitable scheme for client-agents, but agent liquidity remained an issue for the most part. Part of the reason for liquidity difficulties was that reaching banks to deposit funds was a challenge, especially during the COVID-19 induced lockdowns. The most successful members were able to use online banking services (for example, one member used her daughter’s bank account) or ATM deposits to top-up their payment account, but these services were not available to all agents.
