Many members of the private sector make cash payments to small producers, farmers or people working in their factories. Cash payments are costly for the private sector and don’t give people opportunities to access financial services or save for the future.
Private Sector Transition Success Stories
- Indian Railways is the largest rail system in the world. Yet when ticket purchases required cash, it was time-consuming and expensive, costing Indian Railways 25 Rupees per ticket. By accepting electronic payments, Indian Railways has lowered infrastructure, cash-handling and staffing costs, and reduced the time taken to buy tickets by hours. Indian Railways now sells almost 250,000 tickets online a day, making it the largest eCommerce merchant in India.1
- Juhudi Kilimo is a social enterprise that provides asset financing and technical assistance to smallholder farmers and small‐to‐medium agro‐businesses throughout Kenya. Given the rural nature of its clientele, there is typically little access to bank branches. Juhudi used to send check and/or cash via courier to disburse loans, requiring customers to travel to bank branches to collect their funds. Juhudi now uses mobile technology through M-Pesa to collect payments. Juhudi’s mobile technology allows for reduced travel distance for cash in transit, faster loan disbursement and real-time office processing cutting posting time down from five days to five minutes.2
Achieving the full benefits at each stage of the transition from cash to electronic payments requires the leadership, resources and technical expertise that the Better Than Cash Alliance is dedicated to providing for the private sector.
2 USAID, “Kenya Case Studies in e-Payments,” November 2011.
