Cesar Fabian Orellana Echeverria
Title: The Failure of Mobile Money as a Public Policy in Ecuador: An Explanatory Evaluation
Supervisor: Dr. Egert Juuse
Opponent: Nastassia Harbuzova
Defense: 6 June 2023
Abstract: Given the broader impact that information and communication technologies have had on financial inclusion in developing countries, some national governments have tried to promote the adoption of mobile money payments technology to replicate the socio-economic improvements seen in the most successful cases. The Government of Ecuador approached this through the novel conception of a central bank-led mobile money payment system implementation. The project was highlighted by the authorities as one of emblematic characteristics that was going to drastically reduce the levels of financial exclusion in the nation and even bring people out of poverty. However, something did not work as expected and in the year 2018 the last account of the system was closed. This paper tries to identify what are the factors that played the most influential role in the collapse of one of the most important programmes for mass technology adoption and financial inclusion in the recent history of Ecuador.
Keywords: Ecuador, mobile money, payment systems, public policy failure, technology adoption
