Afiya lives in the rural Sylhet region of Bangladesh. For two days, her youngest daughter, Rubina, has been complaining of fatigue and has felt warm to the touch. Taking the child to the nearest clinic would cost Afiya a day's lost wages, round-trip bus fare, and clinic fees of Taka 200 (U.S. $3). Instead, Afiya and her husband use the family's mobile phone to dial "7-8-9," the Healthline hotline service set up by TRCL, Ltd., a telemedicine firm, and GrameenPhone, the country's largest mobile network operator. The family quickly reaches Dr. Quadri at Healthline's call center in Dhaka. After asking a few questions, Dr. Quadri tells her to give Rubina small regular doses of paracetamol, available at neighborhood shops. For the threeminute call, Afiya pays only Taka 15 (U.S. $0.21) from her family's GrameenPhone prepaid talk-time balance.Afiya is not the only person seeking basic medical advice and information by calling a health hotline. Telephone-based nurse triage, primary care, and health information have been offered in developed countries since the late 1990's, and
In early 2010, a team of entrepreneurs experienced in mobile payments and microfinance started a trial of a radically different savings product called Jipange KuSave (JKS). In Swahili, Jipange KuSave means to plan or organize oneself to save. What made this savings product unique was that it was accessible only via M-PESA, Kenya's hugely popular mobile money service, and was designed specifically to help Kenyans with low, unpredictable incomes save substantial amounts of money. The idea behind JKS was to "reinvent" microfinance in a market where millions of poor people currently move their money around in digital form rather than in cash. Combining saving and borrowing in a single convenient product, JKS embraced the attributes of mobile delivery, including small low-cost transactions, personalized programs, and rapid customer-initiated progress through a structured "lend-to-save" program. After nearly 18 months and three trial phases with about 1,000 customers, the JKS product has proven its demand among low-income customers, established scalable operational processes, and shown itself to be profitable. While the initial success of JKS must now be proven with a larger customer base, its success thus far
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