The Impact of Mobile Money on Poor Rural Households: Experimental Evidence from Uganda

Mobile money lowers the costs of financial transactions, making it a promising tool for brining financial services to rural areas. This paper studies the effects of rolling out mobile money agents in poor and remote areas in Northern Uganda. The authors randomly assigned 329 areas to receive an agent in 2017, using 329 areas as a control group. Data from a 2018 household survey and administrative transactions data show little effect of the rollout. Mobile money transactions remained low, suggesting policies focused only on opening mobile money agents will not lead to transformative effects in poor and remote areas.