CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 5, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Cignifi, whose proven big data engine uses mobile phone data to deliver consumer credit and marketing scores, today announced an agreement with the International Finance Corporation ("IFC"), a member of the World Bank Group, aimed at expanding the delivery and usage of mobile financial services in Uganda. Specifically, Cignifi will be working with the IFC to help drive the adoption and growth of Airtel Uganda's Mobile Money platform, an e-commerce service that enables customers to use their mobile phones to send and receive money, make payments, make withdrawals from ATMs, check bank balances, deposit money from a phone, and conduct other banking functions.
Greta Bull, IFC Manager, Financial Institutions Group Advisory Services Sub-Saharan Africa, said: "Data analytics potentially offers great insights for the development of innovative products and services to extend financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa. IFC is excited to be working together with Cignifi and Airtel Uganda to further explore and enhance this area of research."
Cignifi will use its proprietary data platform to analyze billions of Airtel call detail records and Airtel Money transactions. Cignifi will score Airtel customers based on their propensity to use Airtel Money. The objective will be to identify prospective users that have not yet registered for the service and also to reactivate users that have registered but are currently dormant. The analysis is designed to yield a more effective, better-targeted way to market mobile money products.
Jonathan Hakim, CEO of Cignifi added: "We are excited to be working with Airtel and the IFC on their initiative to accelerate delivery of financial services in sub-Saharan Africa. Our selection from an extremely competitive field is recognition of Cignifi's unique expertise in managing and analyzing huge mobile datasets. We will apply our behavioral analytics to help Airtel ramp up adoption of its mobile financial services in Uganda."
About Cignifi
Cignifi is helping to meet the needs of an estimated 2.7 billion people worldwide who have mobile phones but no access to formal financial services. The company has developed the first proven analytic platform to deliver credit and marketing scores for consumers using mobile phone behavior data. The Cignifi platform qualifies millions of underserved consumers who lack traditional credit histories, unlocking a massive opportunity to provide access to credit to these same consumers. Cignifi, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is led by a management team with significant data analytics, financial services and global business experience. For more information, visit www.cignifi.com.
About IFC
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector. Working with private enterprises in about 100 countries, we use our capital, expertise, and influence to help eliminate extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity. In FY14, we provided more than $22 billion in financing to improve lives in developing countries and tackle the most urgent challenges of development. For more information, visit www.ifc.org.
About Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 4 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 305 million customers across its operations at the end of October 2014. For more information, please visit www.airtel.com.
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