Financial inclusion is an important indicator for a country’s economy in general, however in the
case of developing countries, financial inclusion levels are low and don’t seem to grow much
with time. A concern has risen as to what can be done to increase these numbers in third world
nations and the mobile telecommunications sector seems to have an alternative solution for
this. Mobile banking is a term that has become popular in African and Latin American countries,
but in order to fully understand its role in financial inclusion it’s important to distinguish
between the different forms of mobile banking. Currently, we can identify two main kinds of
mobile banking: additive and transformational models.

Honduras is a developing country with low levels of financial inclusion, only about 20% of the
population has a bank account registered to their name. Interestingly, mobile penetration has
increased a lot in Honduras to the point where 86.87% of the population now owns a mobile
phone and has access to a mobile network in their place of residence. This clearly shows an
opportunity of using the existing mobile network to provide alternative banking solutions to the
population as a way to increase financial inclusion.

In this thesis, we analyze four different mobile banking cases that have been successfully
implemented around the world and continue to make a detailed comparison in order to come
up with a mobile banking service design that will help increase financial inclusion in Honduras.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................1
1.1 Objectives ..........................................................................................................................1
1.2 Introduction ......................................................................................................................1
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................2
2.1 Financial Inclusion .............................................................................................................2
2.2 Mobile Banking ..................................................................................................................3
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH PROCESS .................................................................................................7
3.1 Methodology .....................................................................................................................7
3.2 Mobile Banking Cases ........................................................................................................9
3.2.1 Kenya: M-Pesa ............................................................................................................9
3.2.2 Mexico: Telcel ...........................................................................................................11
3.2.3 China: Alipay Wallet ..................................................................................................13
3.2.4 Honduras: Tigo Money ..............................................................................................15
3.3 Comparison .....................................................................................................................17
3.3.1 Technology Used ..................................................................................................18
3.3.2 Service Processes ......................................................................................................19
CHAPTER 4: OVERVIEW OF HONDURAS .....................................................................................26
4. 1 Overview of the Banking sector in Honduras ..................................................................26III
4.2 Overview of Mobile Telecommunications in Honduras ....................................................32
CHAPTER 5: PROPOSED MODEL FOR HONDURAS ......................................................................36
5.1 Overview .........................................................................................................................36
5.2 Characteristics of the Model ............................................................................................36
5.3 Model Structure ..............................................................................................................38
5.4 Service Blueprint .............................................................................................................42
5.5 Benefits ...........................................................................................................................46
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................................50
REFERENCES ..............................................................................................................................53

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