Cignifi, whose big data engine uses mobile phone data to deliver consumer credit and marketing scores, last week announced an agreement with the International Finance Corp., a member of the World Bank Group, aimed at expanding the delivery and usage of mobile financial services in Uganda.

Specifically, Cignifi will be working with the IFC to help drive the adoption and growth of Airtel Uganda's Mobile Money platform, an e-commerce service that enables customers to use their mobile phones to send and receive money, make payments, make withdrawals from ATMs, check bank balances, deposit money from a phone and conduct other banking functions.

Greta Bull, IFC manager, Financial Institutions Group Advisory Services Sub-Saharan Africa, said: "Data analytics potentially offers great insights for the development of innovative products and services to extend financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa. IFC is excited to be working together with Cignifi and Airtel Uganda to further explore and enhance this area of research."

Cignifi will use its proprietary data platform to analyze billions of Airtel call detail records and Airtel Money transactions. Cignifi will score Airtel customers based on their propensity to use Airtel Money. The objective will be to identify prospective users that have not yet registered for the service and also to reactivate users that have registered but are currently dormant, according to the press release. The analysis is designed to yield a more effective, better-targeted way to market mobile money products.

Jonathan Hakim, CEO of Cignifi added: "We are excited to be working with Airtel and IFC on their initiative to accelerate delivery of financial services in sub-Saharan Africa. Our selection from an extremely competitive field is recognition of Cignifi's unique expertise in managing and analyzing huge mobile datasets. We will apply our behavioral analytics to help Airtel ramp up adoption of its mobile financial services in Uganda."