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Research, Brief
Digitization Risks & Barriers Project Implementation Technology Solutions

Digitizing Savings Groups: Experience from a project in Northeast Nigeria

Published by
Nick Meakin, Emmanuel Emeka Njoku
2025
Mercy Corps
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Through a partnership with an app provider and a local consultancy, Mercy Corps’ Rural Resilience Activity enabled more than 1,600 savings groups in Northeast Nigeria to use the MiKashBoks app to digitise their record-keeping. This has made record-keeping simpler, more accurate and more transparent, and improved trust and social cohesion within groups, encouraging groups to save more. However, groups faced a number of challenges in using the app, including phone ownership, poor network, and high data costs which caused some to stop using the app. This was exacerbated by the failure of most groups to access external credit, which was a key motivation for using the app. The challenges in reaching scale and sustainability reflect challenges experienced by other deployments, and confirm the need to continue to develop innovate business models and partnerships that sustainably deliver value to groups. This will likely require continued subsidies, structured in ways that mitigate costs and risks faced by groups and providers in the short to medium term, while incentivising models that move towards commercial viability.

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