# No data? No smartphone?
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/blog/no-data-no-smartphone-no-problem-how-to-reach-millions-of-customers-in-the-developing-world-with-technology/index.md

Authors: Edwin Kaduki. In developing economies, mobile data connectivity is either patchy or expensive or both. We cannot be effective in developing solutions that address financial inclusion if these solutions are out of the reach for millions of potential customers. We know from research that mobile network penetration is on the rise all over the world and it is the dominant means of communication in the developing world. Millions of customers are making the switch from feature phones to smartphones. Despite all these developments, if our applications are only available as smartphone apps or websites, we may miss out on the opportunity to provide value to millions of people that are yet to make the switch. Many technology companies in the developing world have realized this and are solving this problem in two ways: Two-way SMS interfaces USSD A two-way SMS interface is where a customer sends an SMS to a short code/ number supported by the Mobile Network Operator (MNO) such as 5445. This number is wired to send all incoming SMS to an API endpoint, which then triggers some business logic that runs a process and sends the relevant response to the customer. Most of the use cases around this have been sales and customer care applications as it is a simple way to engage customers. Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) is frequently used in the developing world and is a 20-year old mobile technology protocol that is part of the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication technical specification. It was designed for technical communications between an MNO and its subscriber's handsets. USSD applications are accessed by dialing a number in the format \*123#, and for a long time were used only for applications such as checking airtime balance on prepaid handsets. In the past few years however, application developers have gone far beyond the original use cases and are using USSD to place numerous applications into the hands of customers. An example of a simple USSD flow would go as follows: Customer wants to check their water bill Customer dials \*888# PLEASE ENTER YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBER Customer enters:7755126 1: CHECK WATER BILL 2: REQUEST FOR MINI STATEMENT 3: MAKE AN ENQUIRY 4: MORE Customer enters: 1 YOUR CURRENT BILL IS: 798.50 KES DUE BY OCT 1, 2018. 0: GO BACK 1: EXIT Customer enters: 1 Current use cases of USSD are such as: Utility bill query and payment services Mobile banking Interfaces for applications such as school management and property management Security is often a concern for USSD applications as the data sent between the handset and the MNO servers is in clear text. One of the ways many applications have mitigated this risk is using the customer's phone number as an extra factor in authenticating the user. By default the customer's handset phone number is sent to the application, which will need to have been on-boarded to the application being used so that the identity of the customer is already known. The other way in which this has been addressed is by limiting the scope of operations possible via USSD so that any exploit is limited in impact. Since security is of supreme importance to Mastercard, we ensure that we not only validate the requesting phone number but also use either a One Time Pin (OTP) or a preset PIN for validation of sensitive operations being done via USSD. The Mastercard Lab for Financial Inclusion in Nairobi, being aware of the challenge most of our target customers have with smart phone applications, has also been working to provide a USSD interface where relevant. We're currently running a pilot in Uganda with our education product known as Kupaa (a Swahili word which means to fly). Kupaa is currently serving about 300 schools with a total of 150,000 students. Most of these schools are in the rural areas where large portions of the populations are unbanked (though many have mobile money accounts either from MTN Money or Airtel Money ). Many of them do not have access to smart phones. The Lab wanted to provide parents with a simple way to interact with the school without having to be physically present at the school. A smart phone app would have limited our ability to reach these parents. With this in mind we are working to provide a rich USSD interface where parents can do all this from their feature phones. Once the parent has been on boarded to the platform they can access these functionalities by dialing \*217# on any mobile network in Uganda. By dialing \*217#, a parent registered on Kupaa is able to pay school fees via their feature phone as shown below. The initial screen provides the parent with the different services that are available. School payments are the most common feature used on Kupaa. Other options available are: School fee savings A basic school fee fundraising tool Ability to view the latest exam results for their child Ability to view upcoming school events Aability to view school contact details Several options are available to the parent under the school fee payment menu, which means that they have most of what they need in terms of information needed to complete this transaction. The parent enters the amount of fees they wish to pay. Since this is a pay-as-you-go solution, in which part payments can be made, there is no minimum amount to pay. Validation of the transaction with their preset pin, which allows movement of the money on their mobile money account, which is automatically detected on account of their mobile phone service provider. Confirmation of the fee payment and transaction charges. You will note in this case that the parent is already linked to their child record, meaning that if they have one child on Kupaa they need not enter the student ID. In order to deliver this payment solution we have partnered with various organizations in Uganda including a mobile money aggregator that allows us to provide parents with the ability to transact using either Airtel Money or MTN Money. Enabling parents in rural Uganda to transact with the school in this way provides many benefits including reducing the need for parents to take time off work and spend their hard-getting information as soon as it is ready, such as accessing their child's school performance records as soon as they are published. In summary, even with the increasing number of smart phones in the market, USSD remains a relevant and important technology for Mastercard's financial inclusion agenda. We continue to think about ways we can use USSD and SMS to extend the reach of our applications to impact millions of lives.