Zoona Case Study
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Extending Financial Choice and Access to the Last Mile: Developing a Digital Financial Services Product for Zambian Smallholders Zoona case study JANUARY 2020 AGRIFIN ZOONA CASE STUDY • Mercy Corps’ AgriFin programming (MCAF) represents USD 35 million in innovation funding from the Mastercard Foundation, Bill and AgriFin Program Melinda Gates Foundation and the Swiss Development Corporation to support development, testing and scale of digitally- Introduction enabled services to more than 3 million smallholders by 2021 • Our objective is to develop sustainable services that increase farmer income and productivity by 50%, with 50% outreach to women and youth • MCAF works as an innovation partner with private sector scale partners and such as banks, mobile network operators, agribusinesses, as well NIGERIA as technology innovators and governments ETHIOPIA committed to serving smallholders at scale UGANDA KENYA INDONESIA • We help our partners develop, prototype and scale bundles of digitally-enabled financial and non-financial services supporting partnership TANZANIA development between market actors that leverage their strengths ZAMBIA • We combine MCAF team expertise with strategic ZIMBABWE subsidy to jointly implement iterative, fail-fast engagements with partners on a cost-share basis, sharing public learnings to drive market ecosystem growth • Since 2012, we have completed more than 150 engagements with over 70 partners • Currently, our work reaches more than 2.8 million smallholders AGRIFIN ZOONA CASE STUDY Introduction & Project Context BACKGROUND PROGRAM APPROACH SCOPE OF ENGAGEMENT • Mercy Corps’ AgriFin • AgriFin is leveraging the power, • Zoona is a mobile financial services Accelerate Program convenience, and prevalence of mobile technology (FinTech) company (AFA) is a USD 25 phones to help smallholder farmers boost developing products such as money million, six-year initiative their harvests and incomes. transfers, electronic voucher supported by the • AgriFin employs a market facilitation payments, and agent payments. Mastercard Foundation model to drive scalable, commercial • Over the past 2 years, AFA has to support delivery of product innovation for SHF with supported Zoona through a series of digitally-enabled agricultural ecosystem partners who engagements to (i) develop their services to more than 1 include mobile network operators, banking strategy, (ii) establish million smallholder financial institutions, service providers, channels for last mile delivery of farmers across Kenya, farmer networks, technology innovators, their latest product, Zoona Plus, to Tanzania and Zambia. agriculture value chain players, smallholder farmers (SHF) and rural • Our objective is to government and other stakeholders. customers. To-date, Zoona has support service • AFA works as an innovation partner with reached 83,577 users on Zoona Plus, development and scale private sectors scale partners such as 17% of whom are smallholder that helps smallholders banks, mobile network operators, farmers. increase income and agribusinesses and technology • This case study highlights productivity by 50%, companies committed to serving learnings from this partnership working to ensure 50% smallholders at scale and recommendations for other outreach to women. • We help our partners develop, prototype financial service providers and scale bundles of digitally-enabled targeting rural markets / smallholder farmers. financial and non-financial services. AgriFin Accelerate: AFA; SHF: Smallholder Farmer AGRIFIN ZOONA CASE STUDY Executive summary Zoona Plus is Zoona’s holistic digital wallet offering that allows customers to send money, pay bills, save and borrow through their platform and strategic banking partnerships. Since launching this product, Zoona has transitioned from a customer-facing DFS provider to a partnership-led DFS market enabler. This evolution has allowed Zoona to continue advancing in an increasingly competitive mobile money market. REACH & IMPACT: KEY LEARNINGS ON STRATEGIES FOR REACHING • Since the Zoona Plus launch in April 1st, THE LAST MILE: 83,577 customers have been registered; we • Go-to-market strategies need to include touchpoints closest to estimate 14,222 are farmers (17%), of which SHFs, such as agrodealers, in order to ensure both product uptake 4,978 are women smallholder farmers (SHFs) and continued use. Brand ambassadors are more effective when in (34%). close contact with SHFs and live within the same community. • In addition, Zoona has recruited and trained 60 • Mass market product can still be relevant to SHFs if they speak agrodealers as agents, increasing the rural directly to the needs. For Zoona Plus, the strongest value DFS access points. proposition for SHFs is the ability to save. • Zoona has partnered with 3 DFS providers, • Through agency banking/partnerships with banks, Zoona is offering an enabling platform that allows lowering cost-to-serve and unlocking the peri-urban and rural product interoperability and increased markets by strengthening its distribution channel. customer access as well as agent profitability. To date, Zoona’s interoperable • As the Zoona business (and the Zambia DFS market) transitions platform has allowed 230,000 unique from over-the-counter (OTC) transactions to wallets, Zoona and customers to transact across the different other FSPs can build a stronger base for customer retention and the service providers, 40,635 of whom are SHFs. ability to begin to cross-sell other financial services. DFS: Digital Financial Services; SHF: Smallholder Farmer; OTC: Over-the-counter; FSP: Financial Service Provider AGRIFIN ZOONA CASE STUDY Table of Contents AGRIFIN PROGRAM INTRODUCTION PROJECT CONTEXT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 Zoona Company Overview and Project Background Zoona: Company Overview Zoona: Reach to-date Overview of Joint Engagements 2 Human Centered Design Research Insights for product development and go-to-market strategies for the last mile Key HCD Insight 1 Key HCD Insight 2 Key HCD Insight 3 3 Summary of Insight on Banking Partnerships from Case Studies Partnership Insights for Zoona Case Study 4 Case Study 1 Case Study Insights Case Study 2 Value Proposition for Zoona Case Study 3 4 Key Learnings on Reaching the Last Mile Journey to the Last Mile AGRIFIN ZOONA CASE STUDY Zoona company overview (1 of 3) • Zoona is a mobile money operator started in 2009 as a pilot focused on digitizing bulk payments in the cotton sector in Zambia. The mobile money provider’s agent network grew steadily to become the most robust in the country, making Zoona the go-to provider for over-the-counter money transfers. • Today, Zoona offers a suite of digital financial products in partnership with banks and other mobile money operators. 1.5 million customers in Zambia and Malawi. 3000+ agents: with a drive to further expand retail agents in the rural market. 3 products: over-the-counter money transfer, Zoona Plus, Z-code (inter-operable DFS platform). 3 partnerships with banks and other mobile money operators AGRIFIN ZOONA CASE STUDY Zoona company overview (2 of 3) Zoona’s evolution has allowed the provider to remain relevant in an increasingly competitive mobile money market 2019 Interoperability 2019 • Zoona enters into an Bulk payments agreement FSPs and 2018/9 3rd party providers (Kazang, Mukuru, 2nd generation DFS • Zoona leverages its strong brand, agent Atlas Mara) to allow 2009 products network and digital bank account and Zoona wallet Over-the-counter • Zoona partners with a wallet offering to interoperability. This (OTC) money transfer bank to provide a provide bulk payment enables bank clients to mobile wallet that systems to public and • Zoona partners with cash out, deposit and serves as a digital private sector partners. USAID to digitize transact at any Zoona store of cash, micro- cotton payments • Key partnership with booth. savings (Sunga) and the Ministry of • Robust agent network loans (Boost). Agriculture to provide • Zoona business grows to support OTC model evolves to • Zoona bundles these e-voucher payments to money transfer serve as a platform offerings into one farmers under the services to the mass that allows other platform launching Farmer Input Support market. Network grows market players to plug Zoona Plus Programme (FISP). to be one of the most in and serve more robust and profitable customers. DFS: Digital Financial Services FSP: Financial Service Providers AGRIFIN ZOONA CASE STUDY Zoona company overview (3 of 3) Zoona has (i) leveraged partnerships with banks and rural businesses and (ii) evolved its product offering from OTC to wallet-based to drive customer uptake and improve agent liquidity & profitability SCALING TO THE LAST MILE REACHING WOMEN MASS MARKET REACH (RURAL) SMALLHOLDERS • Zoona Plus has been well • Zoona’s approach to reaching farmers • Zoona has been deliberate received on the market; and expanding to rural locations has about increasing women’s reaching 20,000 customers been through partnerships with access and use of DFS by in its first month of pilot. The rural agribusiness. Zoona has onboarding and training product has since grown to recruited Agrodealers to serve as female agents and tellers. To- reach over 85,000 customers agents, providing touch points for date, 80,000+ female across Zambia. transactions in rural areas. customers have transacted on the Zoona Plus platform or • Introducing 3rd party • The shift in Zoona’s agent network through 3rd parties. providers on the Zoona from standalone agents to rural platform has allowed the businesses