Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion

This research project focuses on Somali financial flows between Kenya and Uganda. In particular, it examines the interplay between mobile money and Somali financial institutions in the transnational space between Nairobi and Kampala. The study unfolds between Eastleigh, a Nairobi-based estate, and Kisenyi, Kampala, two major hubs of the East African Somali diaspora. It will examine the little explored aspect of Kenya’s Safaricom M-Pesa usage across borders and the implications of its partnership with MTN, a Ugandan telecom, for Somali refugees and small traders (categories that often overlap). The study will also examine the relations of alternativeness and complementarity of mobile money with hawala, a widespread Somali money transfer network, and hagbed, or self-help groups. This research seeks to answer the following questions: how are new technology-driven financial products integrated within pre-existing monetary ecosystems? How do new monetary practices shape institutional and social relations, and how are they shaped in return? Using ethnographic methods of data collection, the researchers hope to contribute with their findings to the scholarship on how emerging monetary media are changing established ideas of money, financial practices, and processes of valuation.