Supply-Side Innovations to Increase Equitable Access to Digital Financial Services: Experimental Evidence from Mozambique

Access to digital financial services has expanded in Sub-Saharan Africa, but this expansion may not be distributed equitably. Improved access may require increased engagement with traditionally under-served groups, particularly women. In collaboration with M-Pesa in Mozambique, we worked with Telephonic Sales Representatives (TSRs) to target outreach efforts towards populations that are less likely to utilize mobile money accounts. TSRs were divided into teams by gender and were trained to support clients with opening M-Pesa accounts after clients had purchased a SIM card. We randomized the market that male or female TSR teams were sent to each day. Midway through the intervention, we introduced incentives for enrolling women in rural areas into M-Pesa. We assessed the impact of gendered outreach and incentives on new SIM card registrations and clients enrollment into M-Pesa accounts. Although female TSR teams registered fewer clients to SIM cards relative to male TSR teams, they were more successful at converting clients to M-Pesa, resulting in similar overall M-Pesa enrollments. Introducing incentives to engage with female clients in remote areas also increased overall M-Pesa enrollment rates, particularly among female TSR teams. We find that supply-side innovations can be effective in increasing digital service access and utilization.