Resource Type: Activity Brief
Authors: Health Finance and Governance (HFG)
Published: 7/1/2013

Resource Description:

Mobile phone-based financial transactions, commonly referred to as mobile money, promote financial inclusion and can be used to address key financial barriers to health care access for the poor. Cash payments in the health system carry security risks, increased vulnerability to fraud and leakage, and lead to expensive and time consuming paperwork and administrative loads. These transactions also impose a burden on health workers who often have to leave their work stations to receive salary payments; forcing them to incur extra expenses to travel to pay stations and imposing opportunity costs in terms of time spent away from service delivery activities. Mobile money solutions can address these issues by offering a fast, safe and transparent mechanism for timely disbursement of salaries, incentives, and other payments to health workers. Mobile money can also lower costs associated with security, accounting and processing of payments for health workers.