Background

UNCDF is the UN’s capital investment agency for the world’s 48 least developed countries (LDCs). With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. This last mile is where available resources for development are scarcest; where market failures are most pronounced; and where benefits from national growth tend to leave people excluded. 

Mobile Money for the Poor (MM4P) is a programme launched by UNCDF in partnership with the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The MasterCard Foundation. MM4P provides support to branchless and mobile financial services in a select group of LDCs to demonstrate how the correct mix of financial, technical and policy support can build a robust branchless and mobile financial services ecosystem that reaches low income people in LDCs.

MM4P launched in Nepal in 2013. The preparatory phase of MM4P has been done in consultation with the Central Bank of Nepal, the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) and with the permission of the Ministry of Finance, with a focus on research, awareness raising, assistance in strategy and business planning and working with the NRB. Since then MM4P in Nepal has been extending its activities, and one of key cornerstone of the work is with NRB and MoFALD on policy.

Nepal has made significant improvements over the years in terms of financial services delivery outlets/channels offered through both formal and informal financial institutions. Despite that, the level of adults Nepalese above 18 years who are excluded from financial services remains significant. The data from the Finscope Nepal survey 2014 showed that only 40% of the population are banked, with significant disparities between the regions.

The central bank of Nepal, Nepal Rastra Bank had deployed various policy instruments to ensure that the financial services are able to make in-roads in remote and rural areas. Still financial services are concentrated in mostly urban and semi-urban areas, with Kathmandu valley region having the highest concentration.

To understand and inform the policy making, eco-system payment flow diagnosis plays an important role.  It is proposed to undertake one, with the aim of providing a macro level and micro level view on the status of electronic payments adoption and the gap that persist in market across various dimensions like customer, provider, infrastructure, and on policy front. This stock taking exercise has its own objective which are as below:

• To feed into the development of the future  strategy including the visioning exercise.
• To provide a baseline assessment on state of electronic payment service adoption and for further setting up of KPIs aligned to the vision.
• Provide a comprehensive understanding to develop a robust oversight mechanism later by NRB.

To achieve the outcomes outlined as above for this stock taking, the exercise needs to be data driven so that the policy objectives that are laid later are clearly based on evidence. With these considerations, the following is the suggested scope for the exercise.

• Quantitative Scoping
  • Eco-system payment flow mapping.
  • Mapping supply side payments data and demand side data from finscope survey of 2015.
• Qualitative Scoping
  • Regulatory readiness.
  • Market readiness mapping including quality of services or products offered by different providers and infrastructure.

As part of this ToR the consultant would focus on the quantitative assessment that though separate would feed into each other and present a detailed report from the analysis.

The first part of this consultancy is conducting the eco-system diagnosis. The eco-system mapping of payment flows will aim at dimensioning the payment grid for Nepal. This would entail answering questions like, but not limited to below:

• What are the various payment flows in the economy? How much of those payments are currently undertaken in retail payment space and broken on basis of non-electronic vs. electronic?
• What are the biggest volume of payments flows and how could priority be set-up for driving their transition to electronic?
• What share of transactions—by value and volume—are being done with different payment

Devices (such as POS, computers, and mobile)?

• Demographics- who uses which payment instrument and why?
• How are payment choices changing over time? How fast are they changing?

NRB has outlined the following priority of use cases, to bring in focus on the payment flows, which are as below:

• Order – Priority - One: P2G, P2B, P2P;
• Order – Priority - Two: G2P, B2P;
• Order – Priority - Three: G2G, G2B, B2G, B2B.

The second part of this analysis would draw on the existing data sets that NRB is in process of collecting. NRB is in process of setting up data repository that would provide estimates of various supply side data points. NRB has been collecting data on deposit value and loan values (divided at sectoral level) for last few years, and aggregate of these data are available with NRB for analysis. In addition to the existing data NRB is in process of collecting data from all the licensed institutions at the level of branch, agent/merchant or ATM. the analysis will take into account other data sets under collection by the NRB. Then we can state the supply side data.

The NRB data reporting system would assist with providing information on few supply side indicators. Which could be used to build the argument and present the same to feed the main report. The supply side mapping of data points and the data obtained from the finscope survey of 2015 would aim to answer the following and more questions:

• Which payment instruments are being used more, through which channels and in which geography?
• What is the current level of access available to the customers both rural/urban and male/female? By education levels?
• Which attributes do customers prefer in the payment instrument?
• How do the payment instrument consumers use vary with transaction amounts?
• What are adoption rates of alternate banking channels like ATM, BLB/Agent, Mobile Banking and Internet Banking?

The international expert would be fully supported by a national consultant who is also been hired with background of research and of the banking system in Nepal. The local national consultant would assist and work in close collaboration of the international expert. The international person would be responsible for providing the overall deliverable, ensure planning, collection of data and analysis and production of report. The national consultant would assist the expert in the planning process, assisting with outlining the payment flows and zeroing on the information sources that will be used to populate the flows. He/She can also support on first level of data analysis and support in report writing as required. He/She will support data gathering.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Consultant will specifically undertake the following:

• Responsible for planning the work, identifying data needs, agree with NRB on the format and report structure.
• Work with the national consultant on outlining the payment flows and zeroing on the information sources that will be used to populate the flows.
• Work under direct coordination with NRB Technical Team and use the team as guide and mentor for outlining the sources and finalizing the outcomes.
• Consultant will be entrusted with field work, that would include, conducting interviews or FGDs as required, documenting the minutes and working with the team on driving the outcomes
• Consultant will be entrusted with undertaking desk research based on the plan outlined for the completion of this work.
• The consultant will ensure that at every step the NRB technical team is well informed of the progress and details are communicated in advance for getting the right guidance.
• The consultant will be responsible for writing and finalizing the report of this exercise and provide that in a manner that it could be utilized for later phases (Development of National Retail Payment Strategy). The reports would have to be reviewed by NRB and UNCDF before it is approved.

Competencies

• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment;
• Self-development, initiative-taking;
• Acting as a team player and facilitating team work;
• Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively;
• Creates networks, manages relationships and promotes initiatives with partner organizations;
• Managing conflict;
• Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of others;
• Effective spokesperson, engaging stakeholders and groupings, both Central bank, government ministers and private sector senior corporate leaders, to advance the development of data reporting system
• Excellent presentation and representation skills in multicultural contexts;
• Ability to translate complex technical ideas to a non-technical audience in both verbally and in writing.
• Excellent attention to detail, a proactive approach to achieving key results, and a high level of thoroughness in a complex multitasking and matrix management environment;

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• A Master’s degree in Business Administration, Economics, Payments System and Banking, Public Policy or Public Finance other relevant field is mandatory.

Work experience:

• At least 5 years of progressive experience in their space as reflected in the title of this position is mandatory.
• In-depth knowledge of payment flow analysis and working with numbers is mandatory.
• A good understanding of payment flows in the economy and of banking space.
• Background of conducting and documenting research studies.
• Ability to manage a public and private sector dialogue between stakeholders to drive towards required outcome.
• Experience in project management.
• Understanding of issues related to financial inclusion.
• Working in team settings in previous work would be preferable.

Language:

• Excellent communication and written skills in English is mandatory.

Timeline, duration of assignment, duty station and expected places of travel:

• Timeline: 1 June 2017 to 14 July 2017;
• Duration of assignment: 20 working days;
• Location: Kathmandu, Nepal;

Travel:

• The consultant will be required to travel to Kathmandu, Nepal once, therefore 1 return air ticket from home station to duty station is to be quoted in the financial proposal;
• For unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.
• Please note that UNCDF cannot guarantee residence permits or visa´s for consultants. Consultants are responsible for securing their work documentation. In the case of national consultants, applicants that are not nationals of the duty station requested will have to prove their residence status. Please note that consultants residing in the duty station will not be compensated for living expenses. 

Provision of Monitoring, Progress Controls & Payments:

• The consultant will work under the direct supervision of the MM4P Country Technical Specialist and NRB lead as appointed by the technical team for the above exercise
• Payment will be made on periodical basis in accordance with number of days worked and upon satisfactorily achieved deliverables. All payments are subject to the clearance and approval of the direct supervisor.
• Final payment shall require a signed performance evaluation of the consultant.

Application:

Interested individuals must submit the documents mentioned below as proposals in order to demonstrate their qualifications (NOTE: the system does not allow multiple uploads of documents. Applicants must make sure to upload all documents in one PDF file).

All applications must contain the following information:

• Cover letter with a summary statement of competencies in relation to the Terms of Reference (TOR);
• Earliest availability and proposed schedule for consultancy;
• Curriculum Vitae;
• Fully completed and signed Personal History Form (P11) with names and current contacts of 3 referees (available from http://sas.undp.org/documents/p11_personal_history_form.doc);
• Signed financial proposal for the full months assignment outlining: Total professional fee (including professional fees, per diems in Kathmandu, Nepal (if applicable); Other professional expenses (such as insurance, taxes, etc.) Travel related costs (1 return air ticket to home station to Kathmandu, Nepal, if applicable);

The financial proposal form is available at http://procurement notices.undp.org/view_file.cfm?doc_id=29916).

Incomplete applications will not be considered. Please make sure you have provided all requested materials.

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

Step I: Screening;

Step II: Technical Evaluation Weight - 70% (Step 1: 20 Points + Step 2: 80 Points = 100 Points);

Step III: Financial Evaluation Weight - 30%.

Step I: Screening

Applications will be screened and only applicants meeting the following minimum criteria (listed under education and experience) will progress to the pool for shortlisting.

Step II: Technical Evaluation:

• Shortlisting (20 points)

UNCDF will produce a shortlist of candidates and technically evaluate candidates as per experience requirements in the Terms of Reference. As applicable, only the first top 3 ranked applicants shall be considered for a desk review.

• Desk Review (80 points);

A technical interview shall be conducted for the top 3 shortlisted candidates.

The financial evaluation of those candidates who have reached 70% of the Technical Evaluation will take place.

Step III: Financial Evaluation:

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal: lowest priced proposal/price of the proposal being evaluated x 30%.

Award Criteria

The contact shall be awarded to the applicant whose offer have been evaluated and determined as:

Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and Having received the highest combined weight (technical scores) 70% + financial 30%= 100%.

Both individual consultants and individual employed by a company or institution are welcome to apply. 

Any individual employed by a company or institution who would like to submit an offer in response to a Procurement Notice for IC must do so in their individual capacity (providing a CV so that their qualifications may be judged accordingly). Women candidates or women-owned businesses are strongly encouraged to apply.

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.