Improving profitability through digital payments

McLeod Russel is the world’s largest tea production company with tea estates in India, Rwanda, Uganda, and Vietnam.

The company recognized there are many challenges with cash payments: dropping cash by plane on their tea estates every 15 days lost staff time, human effort, and theft. As a result, MRUL partnered with local mobile network operators (MNOs) Airtel and MTN, as well as UNCDF Mobile Money for the Poor Program (MM4P), to move its worker payroll from cash to mobile payments at two of its tea estates in Uganda.

If fully optimized across all estates, mobile payments could reduce the costs of cash currently estimated at 6.5 percent of employee salary costs.