Events

In 2009 CARE’s Save Up program launched three pilot projects to provide non-financial linkages in the three Save Up countries: bank accounts in Malawi, mobile phone banking in Tanzania and funeral insurance in Uganda. This publication describes the process of linking VSLA members in Tanzania with “mobile wallet” accounts that provide safe money storage and instant money transfer services.

CARE’s Wekeza/Save Up program, which has established some 4,800 VSLAs in northern Tanzania with a total of more than 100,000 members, launched its M-Pesa linkage pilot project with a small number of VSLAs in early 2010 to test how the groups can use M-Pesa to store excess cash temporarily, pay bills and transfer money to any other mobile customer in the country.