CGAP podcast with Jonathan Donner of Microsoft Research India

Leading up to the 2009 Mobile Money Summit CGAP, an independent policy and research centre dedicated to advancing financial access for the world’s poor, is running a podcast series with some of the key people involved in the CGAP/DFID Branchless Banking in 2020 scenarios work.

The process is based on one driving question: How can government and private sector most affect the uptake and usage of branchless banking among the unserved majority by 2020?

Jonathan Donner is a researcher in the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research India. Previously, Jonathan was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and worked for the consultancies Monitor Company and The OTF Group. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Communication Theory and Research.

Speaking on the side of a workshop that was held in Cape Town last month, Jonathan shared his views on how cash and electronic money aren’t so different when it comes to a question of trust, and how branchless banking is helping poor people spend less time and money to do simple financial transactions.

Listen to interview (mp3)