Dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies play a sig­nif­i­cant role in unlock­ing the poten­tial of inno­v­a­tive financ­ing mech­a­nisms across the util­i­ties sec­tors in Africa and Asia. Across these sec­tors, access to cap­i­tal is a major chal­lenge, par­tic­u­lar­ly when enter­pris­es have out­grown grant fund­ing but do not have the scale to tap into tra­di­tion­al invest­ment chan­nels. Tech­nolo­gies like dig­i­tal plat­forms, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI), blockchain and the Internet

of Things (IoT) can bring inno­v­a­tive financ­ing instru­ments to the ener­gy, water, waste, san­i­ta­tion, recy­cling, mobil­i­ty and asset-financ­ing sec­tors. How­ev­er, the scale of inno­v­a­tive finance has yet

to reach its poten­tial, with only a small por­tion of avail­able devel­op­ment assis­tance and sus­tain­able pri­vate sec­tor cap­i­tal being mobilised through dig­i­tal­ly enabled inno­v­a­tive financing.

There is lit­tle research that focus­es specif­i­cal­ly on the role of tech­nol­o­gy in unlock­ing inno­v­a­tive finance in the util­i­ties ser­vice sec­tor in low- and mid­dle-income coun­tries (LMICs). This research serves as a first attempt to cat­e­gorise the com­plex val­ue chain con­nect­ing upstream financiers explor­ing inno­v­a­tive financ­ing instru­ments to
the mid­stream dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy providers and solu­tions and on to the down­stream imple­menters of util­i­ty ser­vice deliv­ery and their beneficiaries.

The study uses nov­el con­cep­tu­al and ana­lyt­i­cal frame­works designed to cre­ate a com­mon lan­guage in iden­ti­fy­ing and analysing instances of dig­i­tal­ly enabled inno­v­a­tive finance. The frame­work employs three dis­tinct lens­es that cor­re­spond to the prin­ci­pal stages with­in the val­ue chain con­nect­ing financiers to imple­menters. This approach acknowl­edges that the fron­tier of inno­va­tion is con­tin­u­al­ly expand­ing and con­text-depen­dent; what may be com­mon­place in one area can be con­sid­ered inno­v­a­tive when applied elsewhere.

To oper­a­tionalise this frame­work, each lens was defined through exten­sive desk-based research as well as con­sul­ta­tion with key stakeholders.Limitations to this approach are prin­ci­pal­ly around the inter­con­nect­ed nature of the dif­fer­ent finan­cial instru­ments and tech­nolo­gies which make cat­e­gories less dis­crete in real-world appli­ca­tions than in the­o­ry. Nonethe­less, the frame­work enables a com­plex land­scape to be bro­ken down into clear components.

Over 80 in-scope use cas­es were iden­ti­fied through this ana­lyt­i­cal frame­work. Use cas­es and their appli­ca­tion of inno­v­a­tive finance instru­ments are seg­ment­ed into mature, scal­ing and emerg­ing cat­e­gories based on the num­ber of imple­men­ta­tion exam­ples doc­u­ment­ed in the lit­er­a­ture, num­ber of coun­tries and sec­tors, and typ­i­cal vol­umes asso­ci­at­ed with the instru­ment. These use cas­es serve to con­cre­tise the

uni­verse of dig­i­tal­ly enabled inno­v­a­tive finance instru­ments into a cat­a­logue of exam­ples where finance instru­ments, dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies and the trans­ac­tion mech­a­nisms under­pin­ning them come to life in the real world. The study dives into five inno­v­a­tive finance instru­ments as case stud­ies — receiv­ables financ­ing, alt-lend­ing, cli­mate, rev­enue- share mod­els, and dig­i­tal­ly-ver­i­fied RBF – as a means to ful­ly explore the rela­tion­ship between dig­i­tal inno­va­tion and these evolv­ing models.

Key trends

Matur­ing use cas­es include social enterprises’
use of finan­cial instru­ments such as alter­na­tive lend­ing, receiv­ables financ­ing and crowd­fund­ing. Dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies dri­ving the growth of such
use cas­es prin­ci­pal­ly include advances in satel­lite imagery and dig­i­tal plat­forms that per­form ana­lyt­ics on trans­ac­tion and asset usage data enabled by IoT. Trans­ac­tion mech­a­nisms that fos­ter the growth of these use cas­es include tra­di­tion­al mobile mon­ey and pay-as-you-go (PAYG) sys­tems. The most mature use cas­es across the review were prin­ci­pal­ly from the ener­gy sec­tor, with emerg­ing inno­va­tion in the cook­ing space mir­ror­ing ear­ly suc­cess­es of the PAYG solar light­ing prod­uct and solar home sys­tems (SHS) verticals.

Scal­ing use cas­es include those lever­ag­ing the growth of cli­mate finance, rev­enue shar­ing mod­els and dig­i­tal­ly-ver­i­fied results-based finance (RBF) mech­a­nisms. The dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies prin­ci­pal­ly dri­ving these use cas­es are IoT sys­tems paired with dig­i­tal plat­forms capa­ble of per­form­ing ver­i­fi­ca­tion ana­lyt­ics, increas­ing­ly lever­ag­ing AI, and dig­i­tal ledger tech­nolo­gies. Trans­ac­tion mech­a­nisms that fos­ter these mod­els include mass-pay­out elec­tron­ic pay­ment inte­gra­tions into dig­i­tal plat­forms, as
well as embed­ded finance mech­a­nisms. Use cas­es exhibit­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics of scal­ing are large­ly focused on agritech and pro­duc­tive use asset- lend­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the vehi­cle financ­ing space.

Emerg­ing use cas­es include social or envi­ron­men­tal cli­mate finance co-
ben­e­fits mon­eti­sa­tion, impact bonds and
var­i­ous appli­ca­tions of dig­i­tal tokens and cryp­tocur­ren­cies. These use cas­es increas­ing­ly lever­age inno­va­tions in dig­i­tal iden­ti­ty ver­i­fi­ca­tion like bio­met­rics and chat­bots, as well as dig­i­tal ledger tech­nolo­gies includ­ing smart con­tracts. Ledger tech­nolo­gies are par­tic­u­lar­ly well rep­re­sent­ed in the trans­ac­tion mech­a­nisms under­pin­ning emerg­ing use cas­es. Emerg­ing use cas­es were iden­ti­fied across sec­tors, with dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies sur­fac­ing as par­tic­u­lar­ly promi­nent in use cas­es focused on the co-ben­e­fits of cli­mate finance.

Accel­er­at­ing adoption

Across the use cas­es con­sid­ered, the most advanced and inno­v­a­tive organ­i­sa­tions have pio­neered a spe­cif­ic tech­nol­o­gy, instrument
or busi­ness mod­el, lay­er­ing on addi­tion­al inno­va­tions with time. Enter­pris­es or util­i­ty ser­vice providers aim­ing to lever­age dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies to unlock inno­v­a­tive finance instruments

should mas­ter the tech­nolo­gies that pro­duce tan­gi­ble val­ue in their sec­tor, and con­sid­er what oppor­tu­ni­ties are offered by off-the-shelf solu­tions providers, par­tic­u­lar­ly for IoT plat­forms, satel­lite imagery pro­cess­ing or blockchain solutions.

The inter­sec­tion of cli­mate and fin­tech finance
is an emerg­ing macro trend that will likely
impact the land­scape of util­i­ty ser­vice providers. Smart­phone pen­e­tra­tion and increas­ing maturity
in satel­lite imagery, IoT plat­forms, blockchain and AI are cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for util­i­ty ser­vice imple­menters to advance their digi­ti­sa­tion jour­neys. Trends in mobile mon­ey inter­op­er­abil­i­ty and cross- bor­der con­nec­tiv­i­ty are also poised to unlock addi­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for build­ing on PAYG mod­els across Africa and Asia, par­tic­u­lar­ly for receiv­ables finance and cli­mate finance.

Util­i­ty ser­vice enter­pris­es need to recog­nise the val­ue of digi­ti­sa­tion in lever­ag­ing inno­v­a­tive finance. Digi­ti­sa­tion process­es typ­i­cal­ly begin with a desire to improve oper­a­tions, with inno­v­a­tive finance oppor­tu­ni­ties often emerg­ing as a byprod­uct. Devel­op­ing a sec­tor-spe­cif­ic under­stand­ing of which tech­nolo­gies are best suit­ed to improv­ing oper­a­tions is often the first step towards tap­ping into the most appro­pri­ate inno­v­a­tive finance mechanisms.

Financiers across the impact-return spec­trum need to lever­age the data-shar­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties unlocked by dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies to gen­er­ate sec­tor stan­dards. The use of inno­v­a­tive finance spe­cif­ic to the util­i­ties sec­tor is poor­ly char­ac­terised in the avail­able lit­er­a­ture. Grant, equi­ty and debt financiers can lever­age the expo­nen­tial increase

in data gen­er­at­ed by util­i­ty ser­vice providers to devel­op and share sec­tor-spe­cif­ic bench­marks that can gen­er­ate, bench­mark and socialise both com­mer­cial and impact indicators.

Glob­al cor­po­ra­tions need to sup­port trans­par­ent, and acces­si­ble finan­cial inter­me­di­aries and instru­ments that can effec­tive­ly allo­cate impact- ori­ent­ed cap­i­tal flows. Increased atten­tion on cor­po­rate cli­mate and ESG impact met­rics means that cor­po­ra­tions need to dri­ve dig­i­tal­ly enabled mech­a­nisms that can enable stan­dard­ised, time­ly, and reli­able impact data.

Mobile net­work oper­a­tors (MNOs) have a key
role to play across the land­scape of use cas­es. Increased atten­tion to util­i­ty ver­ti­cals represents
a sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­ni­ty for oper­a­tors to
devel­op addi­tion­al rev­enue streams and move towards a posi­tion­ing as a tech­nol­o­gy part­ner for organ­i­sa­tions in the ecosys­tem. Laser-focused atten­tion on facil­i­tat­ing third-par­ty access to mobile mon­ey inte­gra­tions across mar­kets can addi­tion­al­ly sup­port util­i­ty ser­vice providers’ abil­i­ty to digi­tise oper­a­tions in their financ­ing journeys.

Part­ner­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties high­light­ed through the land­scape empha­sise the need for blend­ed finance. Devel­op­ment financiers and impact- ori­ent­ed investors can unlock new pri­vate cap­i­tal by de-risk­ing invest­ments into tech­nol­o­gy- enabled sec­tors through guar­an­tee mech­a­nisms and con­ces­sion­al forms of invest­ment. Such part­ner­ships rep­re­sent the oppor­tu­ni­ty to include nov­el play­ers like local banks and pub­lic agen­cies in pio­neer­ing oth­er­wise poor­ly under­stood finan­cial instru­ments across new geographies.

Achiev­ing an inflec­tion point in inno­v­a­tive finance using tech­nol­o­gy will require ded­i­cat­ed efforts in break­ing down silos across the invest­ment land­scape. The returns on invest­ing in dig­i­tal inno­va­tion can take years to be realised, and typ­i­cal­ly require time and effort to under­stand for those not already immersed. This report serves to cap­ture some of the most sig­nif­i­cant inter­sec­tions of tech­nol­o­gy and finance trends that will guide the need­ed deploy­ment of cli­mate-resilient, pro- poor cap­i­tal in the util­i­ty ser­vice sec­tors in the com­ing decade.