Branchless banking, which aims at delivering financial services beyond
traditional bank branches, has enjoyed great success in the last years,
especially in developing countries. As with other mobile technologies
adoptions, security and privacy concerns have emerged, and, to address
these, several secure branchless banking solutions have been proposed. In
this work, we identify the design assumptions that have been made in the
literature and in the field, and highlight how participatory approaches
can help determine more realistic assumptions. We suggest a participatory
approach to be used in Ghana, a country which is embracing mobile
technology and for which such results would greatly impact the lives of
the unbanked.