Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion

Roughly 25% of Uruguayan MSMEs and households are bancarized. As opposed to that, the country surpassed the 100% mobile-phone penetration mark in 2008. The above facts seem to describe Uruguay as a highly fertile ground for mobile money. In that context, STRO and the Uruguayan government have launched an initiative to introduce C3 in Uruguay by the end of 2010, being C3U an innovative monetary system that will enable MSMEs to have access to cheap capital by combining the idea of a complementary currency as well as the principles of mobile money. This motivates a study that understands the demand of the Uruguayan unbanked for mobile money and that analyzes to which degree difficulties have to be foreseen and overcome to successfully introduce mobile money in the country and to be able to leverage its effects in terms of MSMEs’ growth.