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Technology and Engineering > Mobile and Wireless Communications

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Cover IMF Working Papers
Mobile Internet, Collateral, and Banking
Angelo D’Andrea, Patrick Hitayezu, Kangni R Kpodar, Nicola Limodio, and Andrea F Presbitero
Combining administrative data on credit, internet penetration and a land reform in Rwanda, this paper shows that the complementarity between technology and law can overcome financial frictions. Leveraging quasi-experimental variation in 3G availability from lightning strikes and incidental coverage, we show that mobile connectivity steers borrowers from microfinance to commercial banks and improves loan terms. These effects are partly due to the role of 3G internet in facilitating the acquisition of land titles from the reform, used as a collateral for bank loans and mortgages. We quantify that the collateral's availability mediates 35% of the overall effect of mobile internet on credit and 80% for collateralized loans.
Keywords:
Banks; Credit; High-speed Internet; Mobile; Technological Change; internet penetration; loan term; collateral's availability; loan characteristic; credit market; Mobile internet; Bank credit; Loans; Commercial banks; Financial inclusion; Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Real Effects of Mobile Money: Evidence from a Large-Scale Fintech Expansion
Manasa Patnam and Weijia Yao
Mobile money services have rapidly expanded across emerging and developing economies and enabled new ways through which households and firms can conduct payments, save and send remittances. We explore how mobile money use can impact economic outcomes in India using granular data on transactions from Paytm, one of the largest mobile money service provider in India with over 400 million users. We exploit the period around the demonetization policy, which prompted a surge in mobile money adoption, and analyze how mobile money affects traditional risk-sharing arrangements. Our main finding is that mobile money use increases the resilience to shocks by dampening the impact of rainfall shocks on nightlights-based economic activity and household consumption. We complement these findings by conducting a firm survey around a phased targeting intervention which incentivized firms to adopt the mobile payment technology. Our results suggest that firms adopting mobile payments improved their sales after six-months of use, compared to other firms. We also elicit firms’ subjective expectations on future sales and find mobile payment adoption to be associated with lower subjective uncertainty and greater sales optimism.
Keywords:
WP; control firm; control group firm; firm sale; rainfall shock; treatment firm; treatment group firm; economic activity; Mobile banking; Mobile internet; Currency reform; Fintech; South Asia; Global; payment technology
Cover IMF Working Papers
Global Smartphones Sales May Have Peaked
Mr. Joannes Mongardini and Aneta Radzikowski
Global smartphone sales may have peaked. After reaching nearly 1.5 billion units in 2016, global smartphone sales have since declined, contributing negatively to world trade in 2019 and suggesting that the global market may now be saturated. This paper develops a simple model to forecast smartphone sales, which shows that sales are likely to decline further. As tech companies shift to embedded services (cloud computing, content subscriptions, and financial services), the impact on global trade may also be shifting in favor of services exports mostly from advanced economies.
Keywords:
WP; iPhone; Apple; iPhone sale; trade; global supply chains; global trade; tech cycle; smartphone sale; ICT-enabled services; services export; PC sales; ICT services; Apple cash; Mobile internet; Service exports; Stocks; Exports; Global; merchandise export; Asia and Pacific
Cover Departmental Papers
Measuring Financial Access: 10 Years of the IMF Financial Access Survey
Marco A Espinosa-Vega, Ms. Kazuko Shirono, Mr. Hector Carcel Villanova, Ms. Bidisha Das, and Ms. Yingjie Fan
This departmental paper marks the 10th anniversary of the IMF Financial Access Survey (FAS). It offers a retrospective of the FAS database, along with some reflections as to its future directions. Since its 2009 launch, the FAS has provided granular data on access to and use of financial services. It is a supply-side database with annual global coverage based on data sourced directly from financial service providers—aimed at supporting policymakers to target and evaluate financial inclusion policies. Its data collection has kept pace with financial innovation, such as the rise of mobile money and growing demand for gender-disaggregated data—and the FAS must continue to evolve.
Keywords:
DPPP; DP; FAS indicator; FAS data; FAS usage indicator; FAS gender; FAS Coverage; FAS data collection; internet banking; agent outlet; money agent; Mobile banking; Financial inclusion; Commercial banks; Financial statistics; Global; South Asia; Sub-Saharan Africa; Mobile internet; Asia and Pacific
Cover IMF Working Papers
A New Smartphone for Every Fifth Person on Earth: Quantifying the New Tech Cycle
Benjamin Carton, Mr. Joannes Mongardini, and Yiqun Li
The enormous global demand for smartphones in recent years has created a new global tech cycle. In 2016 alone, global smartphone sales reached close to 1.5 billion, one for every fifth person on earth. In turn, this has engendered complex and evolving supply chains across Asia. We show that the new tech cycle cannot be captured by standard seasonality, but depends on smartphone product release dates. Decomposing cycle from trend, we also show that the sale of smartphones may have peaked in late 2015. Asia, however, continues to gain in importance as the global tech manufacturer.
Keywords:
WP; smartphone; China; export; electronics export order; Samsung smartphone; global supply chains; global trade; tech cycle; smartphone export cycle; export order; smartphone release; Apple iPhones; China exports decomposition; release date; Exports; Mobile internet; Export performance; Global; Asia and Pacific