Improving the Financial Lives of Refugees -

recommendations from the dfi Evaluation Committee 

In your new role as members of the Evaluation Committee charged with proposing ways
to support refugees to the dfi Management Board, you focused your recommendations
on four key challenges. Here is the Executive Summary of the Committee’s report,
highlighting the most common themes you identified and recommendations you made to
the Board:

Challenge 1: Accessing bank accounts from abroad

In the worst cases, banks cease operations and strictly limit the type of transactions that
can be carried out. But even when banks are functioning more or less normally, it’s not
easy for refugees to access their bank accounts from abroad. Refugees often cross
several borders before they reach their final destination, and in each country relevant
solutions for accessing accounts are different. In addition, refugees are often seen as
temporary residents, which can make them unattractive as clients for the local financial
service providers who would otherwise be in a position to develop specific solutions to
meet their needs. 

Recommendations to the dfi Management Board:

 Expand the adoption of mobile money;

 Distribute basic smartphones; 
 Promote interoperability between banks and mobile network operators in
receiving and sending countries; and
 Reduce language barriers at ATMs.

Challenge 2: Converting cash into digital form

Refugees often sell their assets before leaving home and carry cash along with them on
their journey. Converting this cash into digital form can reduce the significant risks
involved in holding and physically transporting cash.

Recommendations to the dfi Management Board:

 Set up agents from donor agencies or mobile money networks to collect cash,
jewellery, and personal belongings of value, and deposit the value into prepaid
cards or mobile money accounts, so that funds can be accessed via ATM, POS,
or mobile money agents; and
 Work with donors and NGOs to deliver cash transfers to beneficiaries via mobile
money. [This is a topic we discuss extensively in our “Digitizing Humanitarian &
Social Assistance,” course jointly developed with MercyCorps, so if it interests
you, please consider joining that conversation].

Challenge 3: Having the required documentation

Proper identification is a key element to satisfy KYC requirements to open or access

bank or mobile money accounts, but it’s not an easy hurdle for those fleeing conflict or
disaster.  

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Recommendations to the dfi Management Board:

 Adopt tiered KYC requirements;

 Allow alternative means of identification (such as refugee IDs). Note that this
measure has already been implemented in some places like Zambia, where
refugees are allowed to open bank and mobile money accounts using refugee
permits issued by the Zambian immigration authorities; and 
 For refugees without any form of ID, track their digital footprints to establish a
unique digital identity (stored on a blockchain), an approach followed by Taqanu,
MONI, and the World Food Program among others.

Challenge 4: Finding affordable formal remittance channels  

The challenges faced by refugees sending and receiving remittances were also
highlighted by some committee members. Prof Wilson talks to Shirley Mburu from
Bankable Frontier Associates about this issue in this short video, and it’s also a topic we
cover in our course on Remittances in the Digital Age. 

Recommendations to the dfi Management Board:

 Promote digital channels to send and receive remittances

  Establish money transfer agents in the refugee camps 
 Allow mobile money networks to offer international money transfer services

Thanks to the evaluation committee for their research and recommendations!