IMTFI's Call for Proposals for Research 2011-2012

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The Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at the University of California, Irvine is soliciting proposals for original scholarly research on mobile money services to promote savings and other forms of value storage at scale for the developing world. As mobile money services are deployed around the world, they interact with longstanding, often ancient monetary cultures and practices. The Institute seeks to understand people’s diverse monetary ecologies and repertoires as they navigate new means of saving and transferring wealth.
For this call, the Institute specifically encourages proposals that explore the individual or social perspective in mobile money and agent banking systems. We seek research that uncovers people’s everyday experiences with money (broadly conceived), with the potential to spark transformative innovations in financial access.

Research proposals are especially welcomed that focus on one or more of the following broad topics:
  • Mobile money services: What is the impact of mobile money technologies on clients’ approaches to saving, storing, and transferring wealth? For example, how can mobile money systems establish trust for people in a cash-based economy?
  • Social and technological infrastructures and banking: Many second-generation banking models are based on existing retail networks. These existing networks operate within specific social and cultural relationships. What social factors go into the creation and use of retail and agent banking? How do social payments such as tribute, marriage or death payments interact with agent banking or the social and technological infrastructures of second-generation, branchless banking?
  • Value storage: How does mobile money or agent banking connect to existing or traditional methods of saving and storing wealth? Does mobile money or agent banking help resolve issues that people have had with traditional measures of storing value? Issues include risk of loss, theft, and fraud.
The Institute is interested in proposals for research aimed at impacting the design and implementation of new systems for increasing financial inclusion among the world’s poorest people. We welcome methodological and disciplinary diversity. Past recipients have included anthropologists, economists, design researchers, business school graduates and others.

Click here for detailed proposal format and guidelines.
Download pdf of the IMTFI Call for Proposals 2010 poster.

Eligibility: This call for proposals is open to all researchers who work in the developing world. Researchers are encouraged to submit proposals that involve a partnership with universities or other organizations in the developing world.

Deadline for submission: October 1, 2010. Decisions will be announced by January 10, 2011.

Proposal submission:
Proposals may be emailed, FAXed or mailed via any postal service or courier to:

Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion
School of Social Sciences
3151 Social Sciences Plaza
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-5100
FAX: +1-949-824-2285
Questions may be emailed to imtfi@uci.edu . Telephone inquiries: +1-949-824-2284
 

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