Risk Management And Mobile Money Regulation In The Sub Saharan African Region

Background

With the advent of the new technologies in the field of science and development, new opportunities have opened in the field of commercial services and the banking mechanisms. Transactions between two parties or the involvement of the multiple parties in the transactional mechanism has been facilitated with the help of the onset of payments through mobile money (Di Castri, 2013). Payments through mobile has not only provided a boost to the fiscal exchange system but also has opened a new doorway for the business processes to experience a fluency in the transfer of the funds (Iddris, 2013). These transactional exchanges are also associated with several risks that are required to be mitigated at any cost.

Payments made using the mobile services are fast and easy. Due to the fluency in the services, it is also time efficient. Although there are a lot of benefits of the using the mobile payments for monetary exchanges, there are several risks such as the systematic risks or the operational risks or the reputational risks or the legal risks or the liquidity risks or the fraudulent risks or the regulatory risks that are associated with the online transactional processes (Jack & Suri, 2014). These risks are required to be seriously considered while implementing the services as these risks may prove to be fatal in due course of the processes. To mitigate these risks effectively the authority should take enough initiatives to formulate a risk management plan by which a fair idea about the concerned risks can be developed along with their probability of impact in the system (Njenga & Ndlovu, 2013).

The main aim of this dissertation proposal is to highlight the risks that are often associated with that of the mobile payments and the online transactional mechanisms through the mobile financial services or the MFS. These highlighted risks shall be subjected with effective management strategies that are dedicated towards marking the impact and the probability of the associated risks in the mobile money transactions. A risk management plan is highly required to mitigate the risks so that the safeguarding of the transactional process can be easily attained keeping the future prospect in mind.

The main objectives of the dissertation proposal has been stated as the following:

• To understand the various types of risks that may be associated with the transactional processes of the mobile financial services.
• To understand the impact of the associated risks in mobile money regulation and also the probability of those risks in the upcoming stages.
• To recommend effective strategies and techniques through which the associated risks can be minimised and can be easily mitigated through a risk management plan.

According to Hanafizadeh et al., 2014, encouraging the users to use vehemently the cell phones for the transactional processes and the risks associated with the transactional process makes it obvious to understand the associated risks and develop a risk management plan to counter the impacts of those risks in future. The study builds on the idea of the mobile banking and the adoption of those practices. This study has been towards a specific region in the country of Iran. The study found that the mobile banking services are widely adopted in this area due to the ease of use, personalised life style, perceived expenditures and the credibility (Oscar Akotey & Abor, 2013). The study is based upon the mixture of the primary and the secondary sources. Although the study has done in depth analysis, it is concentrated towards a particular region for which it cannot be highly relied upon for all cases of the mobile banking industry.

According to Govender & Sihlali, 2014, the increased usage of the mobile technologies makes the mobile services more appealing among the students who have intensions to remain technically updated all the time. The study revolves around the adoption of the mobile banking services among the students. This study is highly reliable since it is based upon the application of the quantitative approach in the collection of data through the distribution questionnaires among the students. The study particularly depends upon the implementation of the Trans Acceptance Model or the TAM. It has been stated in the study that the risks and the privacy issues are found to considerably low among the students since they are well updated about the risks through an effective risk management plan (Osei-Assibey, 2015). Further the study also addresses the risks that are associated in the mobile banking and recommends way to mitigate the associated risks in the transactional processes.

The research is intended to be conducted by the application of the certain principles and guidelines of the risk management in mobile banking and the mobile money regulations. The data for the effective framing of the dissertation shall be completely based on the primary data regarding the associated risks and their effective management strategies in mobile money regulation. As this proposal is concentrated towards the association of the several risks and their management procedures, a qualitative primary data will be used in the dissertation. The qualitative data will be collected through the help of several interviews of the people who has been subjected to either the systematic risks or the operational risks or the reputational risks or the legal risks or the liquidity risks or the fraudulent risks or the regulatory risks.

Outline Number	Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Predecessors
0	Research Project	48 days	Tue 10/23/18	Thu 12/27/18
1	Research Proposal	16 days	Tue 10/23/18	Tue 11/13/18
1.1	Choosing a topic for research	3 days	Tue 10/23/18	Thu 10/25/18
1.2	Background Study of the Research	6 days	Fri 10/26/18	Fri 11/2/18	2
1.3	Development of the Research Question	3 days	Mon 11/5/18	Wed 11/7/18	3
1.4	Designing the Conceptual Framework	2 days	Thu 11/8/18	Fri 11/9/18	4
1.5	Development of the Research Question	2 days	Mon 11/12/18	Tue 11/13/18	5
1.6	Research Proposal Submission	0 days	Tue 11/13/18	Tue 11/13/18	6
2	Review of the Literature and Collection of the Data	25 days	Wed 11/14/18	Tue 12/18/18
2.1	Reviewing the available literature	10 days	Wed 11/14/18	Tue 11/27/18	7
2.2	Selecting target population for collecting the data	2 days	Wed 11/28/18	Thu 11/29/18	9
2.3	Collecting the Data of the Research Study	9 days	Fri 11/30/18	Wed 12/12/18	10
2.4	Analysing the gathered data	4 days	Thu 12/13/18	Tue 12/18/18	11
2.5	Submission of the Draft Research paper	0 days	Tue 12/18/18	Tue 12/18/18	12
3	Submission of the Final Project Paper	7 days	Wed 12/19/18	Thu 12/27/18
3.1	Critical Analysis of the findings	3 days	Wed 12/19/18	Fri 12/21/18	13
3.2	Concluding the Findings of the Study	3 days	Mon 12/24/18	Wed 12/26/18	15
3.3	Recommendations	1 day	Thu 12/27/18	Thu 12/27/18	16
3.4	Submitting the Final Project Report	0 days	Thu 12/27/18	Thu 12/27/18	17

                                                           

References

Di Castri, S. (2013). Mobile money: Enabling regulatory solutions.

Govender, I., & Sihlali, W. (2014). A study of mobile banking adoption among university students using an extended TAM. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(7), 451.

Hanafizadeh, P., Behboudi, M., Koshksaray, A. A., & Tabar, M. J. S. (2014). Mobile-banking adoption by Iranian bank clients. Telematics and Informatics, 31(1), 62-78.

Iddris, F. (2013). Barriers to adoption of mobile banking: Evidence from Ghana. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 3(7), 356-370.

Jack, W., & Suri, T. (2014). Risk sharing and transactions costs: Evidence from Kenya’s mobile money revolution. American Economic Review, 104(1), 183-223.

Njenga, K., & Ndlovu, S. (2013). On rational choice, risk and utility in mobile banking: building the information society. The African Journal of Information and Communication, 2013(13), 42-61.

Oscar Akotey, J., & Abor, J. (2013). Risk management in the Ghanaian insurance industry. Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, 5(1), 26-42.

Osei-Assibey, E. (2015). What drives behavioral intention of mobile money adoption? The case of ancient susu saving operations in Ghana. International Journal of Social Economics, 42(11), 962-979.