Mobile money traceability and federation using blockchain services

This paper discusses a new approach to mobile money, a money transfer solution via mobile phone, which uses accounts associated with Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) identifiers, and which is managed by the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). The first solution M-PESA launched in Kenya in 2007 is one of the world’s major mobile money services. Mobile money becomes the new monopoly of MNOs in an economic system where the rate of unbanked adults is very high. Currently, in 2019 Orange Money makes nearly 1.5 million transactions per day, which corresponds to a monetary value of nearly 15 billion CFA francs (CFA franc, officially African Financial Community franc) per day. The Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) is the heart technology of mobile money transactions. Blockchain, which is the underlying technology of the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has drawn a lot of global attention in recent years. Blockchain does not stop seeing its field of action widen. The rate of unbanked is so high in developing countries that it does not favor economy development. According to the World Bank, mobile money contributes to skip this obstacle. In this paper, we present the state-of-the-art of mobile money and its underlying technologies in the sub-Saharan countries in general, and in Burkina-Faso particularly. We propose a mobile money solution based on the blockchain, in order to increase security, trust, and move towards a federation of mobile money platforms.