Haiti’s first mobile money service has been launched by Voilà and Unibank, following a successful nine month pilot which provided the international relief and development agency Mercy Corps with a secure, cost-effective method of distributing money across Haiti to support reconstruction efforts.
The service, named T-Cash, is enabled by the Mobile Commerce and Financial Services (MCFS) platform from the solutions provider MoreMagic Solutions. Voilà customers are able to make peer-to-peer money transfers, pay bills and receive payments via T-Cash’s electronic wallet; funds received can be converted into cash or used to purchase items such as food and shelter materials.
Robin Padberg, CEO of Voilà, commented: “MoreMagic’s experience in other developing markets with mobile banking and their deep understanding of our needs, coupled with a very secure and yet flexible technology platform, enabled us to launch this service within two months of the earthquake last January as a pilot and go fully commercial after nine months”.
“We have been working with Voilà in Haiti since 2008 when they launched their eTopUp program for airtime sales which has given over 15,000 foot soldiers the opportunity to become airtime re-sellers and make a living out of selling airtime from their own sub-$10 phones”, said Pankaj Gulati, CEO of MoreMagic.
“We’re excited to extend our relationship and to be the technology partner behind the first mobile money service in Haiti. They have skipped all the legacy steps and created the ultimate mobile banking experience with T-Cash, thus demonstrating strong collaboration between the mobile operator, the bank and the relief organization”, he added.
