Qualcomm
Incorporated, through its Qualcomm® Wireless Reach™ initiative, formed a
partneship Hapinoy, a Filipino-based social enterprise that has developed
programs for small, neighborhood
retail stores in the Philippines,
run by women microentrepreneurs from their homes. Quite often these
microentrepreneurs mothers – or Nanays – who engage in this microbusiness in
order to generate additional income and provide financial services to their
communities.
MANTOSH MALHOTRA
Senior Director,
Business Development Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
Through the collaboration, micro-business owners are
supplied with mobile literacy training, access to capital via microfinance institutions
(MFIs), and technology through mobile money operators and technology
developers.
Around the globe,
2.5 billion people lack access to financial services such as banks and credit
cards, making it difficult for them to make payments and transfer money1. The
Hapinoy Mobile Money Hub project supports micro-entrepreneurs who own and
operate mostly home-based stores, known as sari-sari stores. Since its
inception, 3,000 of these store owners in the Philippines, mostly mothers have
been trained by this program.
The Hapinoy project began with a focus on educating these
micro-business owners on how they can use mobile technology to expand their business.
Collaborating with Qualcomm Wireless Reach, Smart, MasterCard and Grameen
Foundation, Hapinoy sari-sari owners are able to use dual-sim smart phones
powered by Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 200 processors to access mobile financial
services such as mobile money, remittances, and bill and loan payments.
Hapinoy
with its Co-Founder and President , Mark Ruiz
strated this enterprise earlier in 2007 with the vision of sustainably
uplifting the lives of those at the base of the pyramid by empowering Nanays to
become more effective micro-entrepreneurs, with the goal of eventually
harnessing the store network to provide communities access to high impact
products. Since inception, the program has trained and partnered with 3,000
amazing Nanay micro-entrepreneurs.
In 2013, the Hapinoy Mobile Money Hub project introduced
mobile financial literacy to Hapinoy storeowners. The mobile literacy program
helped entrepreneurs view a mobile phone as more than a communication tool –
they now understand the business value in owning a smartphone and acquiring a
mobile wallet. For these communities, this advanced wireless solution not only
increases traffic and revenue for the sari-sari stores, but it also contributes
to community growth and allows these Mobile Money Hubs to serve as potential
branches for banks, MFIs and other remittance providers.
Mobile technology has the power to change the way we
communicate, and interact. It has the power to connect anyone to anything and
everyone. And for Hapinoy, it has the power to positively impact the lives of
millions of Filipinos. Hapinoy sees mobile technology as the key to continuously
empowering Nanay micro-entrepreneurs and the communities they serve. With the
connectivity that mobile technology brings, various high impact initiatives,
such as financial services can now be made available in the country’s largest
distribution channel which is the sari-sari store network. This means that more
than ever, financial inclusion is closer to becoming reality for more and more
Filipinos.
With this vision, the Hapinoy Sari-Sari Store Program
aims not just to train individual store owners, but to create a COMMUNITY OF
NANAYS from different parts of the Philippines empowered to run and grow their
own sustainable businesses and to build a NETWORK OF STORES capable of
providing communities access to financial services and other high impact
products through the power of mobile technology.
People
behind the success of QuallComm and Hapinoy partnership – 3rd from
the left, Mr. Mark Ruiz, 3rd from the right, Ms. Pia Roman , Head of
Inclusive Finance Advocacy Staff, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the three
Nanays of Hapinoy; Nanay Estela L. De Villa, Nanay Leilani M. Rebong and Nanay Belen F. Jiminez
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