Accelerating the adoption of mobile wallets for remittances in Senegal: Insights from Wizall Money

The first article on UNCDF’s research insights from Wizall Money in Senegal explored the differences in behaviour and financial outcomes for customers receiving remittances in cash versus in a digital wallet. The article highlighted the potential of digital wallets to reach more women through reduced Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, the increased loyalty of customers who switch from using cash to digital remittance channels, and the positive impact of remittances on financial resilience, especially for digital and women customers.

This second article in the Wizall Money series builds upon those findings, presenting statistics from a 427-customer phone survey conducted in March 2022, which is representative of 56,981 of Wizall’s customers, overlaid with insights from 36 qualitative interviews conducted in July 2022. The article draws on this information to identify two customer archetypes: the cash carrier and the digital shopper, each of which reflects a set of customer behaviours and attitudes. These archetypes contextualize the social and emotional dimensions of customers’ experiences, offering a deeper understanding of their financial needs, wants, aspirations and motivations. While these personas do not represent an average of all cases, they do summarize the main findings of the research in a way that captures the complexity of remittance recipients’ daily lives.

Using the customer journey framework, the UNCDF Research Team traced the journeys of these two customer types, identifying their pain points and anxieties, and identified opportunities to improve their experiences. The findings from this process will inform the design of innovative digital financial services that intentionally solve customers’ problems.

Access to digital remittances: The Cash Carrier and the Digital Shopper archetypes​

Remittance recipients’ access to digital channels depends on a variety of contextual factors and preferences, which are often gendered. The following two customer archetypes represent men and women Wizall customers, broadly.

Moussa sends their remittances through Taptap Send, choosing Wizall as the collection method, and shares with Aminata the confirmation via WhatsApp. Given that Aminata does not have a wallet with Wizall, she receives an SMS from Wizall informing her about the transaction and providing her a code needed to withdraw the money in cash at Wizall agents. Aminata visits a Wizall agent near her home to collect the remittances in cash, free of charge, a process that a trusted friend showed her when Moussa first left Senegal. Aminata likes the comfort and security of physically carrying cash. She is now comfortable with and is used to using this transaction method, being reluctant to explore other options. Unfortunately, sometimes Aminata’s Wizall agent does not have enough liquidity to give her the cash on the day Moussa sends the remittance. To prevent wasting time and money travelling only to be turned away, Aminata now calls the agent in advance before leaving home.

Aminata struggles to save—it seems that a need always arises—and she has little knowledge about formal financial services. Although she does not feel comfortable using the internet and new technologies, Aminata does own a smartphone that she primarily uses to communicate with her friends and family.

“I trust the money I have in my hand. I do not have time to go around looking for the best deal, especially if I have to travel. The major obstacle is to find a Wizall point that can perform the transaction and give me my money. Every time I am told that there is no network. Checking with the agent for the availability of cash in advance suits me because it saves me unnecessary trips to the withdrawal point.” – Aminata​

Aminata’s story highlights one of the primary barriers inhibiting the adoption of digital remittance services that emerged from the research: a lack of digital financial literacy, characterized by limited awareness of and trust in digital channels. Women, in particular, tend to use transaction methods with which they already feel confident, seldom branching out to adopt a new tool with which they are unfamiliar. Women are also less likely to seek support to help them adopt new tools than men. On the customer surveys, only 45 percent of women receiving cash remittances reported that it would be helpful to have support to access or use Wizall’s services compared to 52 percent of women receiving digital remittances and 60 percent of men.

Oumar is tech-savvy; he owns a smartphone that he uses for social media and for researching personal finance topics. He has ambitions of being an entrepreneur and is familiar with many financial services. Compared to the archetype of the Cash Carrier, the Digital Shopper feels more comfortable experimenting with different digital financial services and often requests support in the process. Oumar is more likely than Aminata to say that he needs support in either opening an account or knowing that his money arrived safely.

“I explore different tools, and I feel confident using different appli-cations.”
– Oumar​

Usage of digital remittances and payments​

“I don’t use apps to pay my bills, but I rather seek support from agents of Orange Money to pay the tuition fees of the little ones.” – Aminata​

Digital remittances can serve as an on-ramp to the digital payments highway, though more so for men than for women. Among the surveyed customers in Senegal, digital recipients were about 50 percent more likely than cash users to transfer money or pay utility bills with their phones. Among digital customers, 10 percent more men than women used their phones to pay utility bills.

The Senegalese market is saturated with wallet providers that offer a variety of domestic payment services. Like Aminata and Oumar, many customers use other digital wallets to meet certain needs.

For instance, after receiving her remittance in cash, Aminata, the Cash Carrier, walks to an Orange Money agent, who processes her children’s school fee payment using the service’s USSD feature. She does not know that Wizall’s mobile app offers digital bill and school tuition payment options. If she were aware, she would likely use the Wizall app instead of Orange Money, saving herself a step.

Comparatively, Oumar, the Digital Shopper, conducts financial research online and is aware of the various services offered by each provider. He maximizes the benefits of each, juggling multiple wallets for different purposes. For instance, he generally uses his Wizall wallet to pay school fees, withdraws cash for his family members, and transfers most of his balance to a Free Money wallet which allows him to shop online using a debit card.

“I don’t pay bills on the Wizall app other than school fees. I take some of the money from Wizall and send it to another application where I can use the money for more services.”- Oumar​

Financial resilience​

Overall, 94 percent of the surveyed customers said they felt that international remittances have the ability to improve their families’ financial lives. This feeling of optimism was pervasive across customer groups: men and women, cash and digital users, household incomes and ages.

When asked which dimensions of their families’ lives had changed as a result of Wizall remittances, financial resilience was far and above the most common response, reported by 82 percent of men using the digital wallet, 81 percent of men receiving cash, 61 percent of women using the digital wallet, and 48 percent of women receiving cash. We cannot infer from this that women are less financially resilient given that 26 percent of women said their housing situation had improved compared to 19 percent of men, and 16 percent of women reported an improvement in their family’s health compared to 11 percent of men.

A 2020 research report published by MicroSave Consulting with support from Mastercard Foundation found that women in Senegal access and use resilience-building financial products such as savings and loans at rates commensurate with the national averages [1]. Thus, further research is needed to understand the differences in perception of financial resilience between men and women, to see if men tend to focus on the financial impact while women focus on the result.

Both Aminata and Oumar feel that the remittances they receive through Wizall put their families at ease, reduce their stress, and improve their ability to withstand financial setbacks. Aminata is grateful because she can pay for her children’s education and make improvements to her house so that it is safer and more comfortable for her family. Oumar feels that remittances have changed his life, enabling him to continue with his studies. He is looking forward to putting his online research on budgeting and investing into practice once he saves enough to launch a small business

“When I receive the money, I don’t withdraw everything, but I leave part of it in the account, sometimes for a long time. But it must be said that it’s not often that it happens like that.”- Oumar​

Conclusion

The survey and interviews with Wizall customers allowed UNCDF to better understand the challenges, needs, and desires of Aminata, Oumar and all the customers they represent. Putting these findings into action is the key to accelerating the adoption of digital remittances and continuing to enable positive outcomes for men and women migrants and their families.

[1] MicroSave Consulting and Mastercard Foundation, ‘Inclusive FinTechs in Francophone Africa’.
Available at: https://www.microsave.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/MSC_SE_Landscape-study-1.pdf.