SMEs around the world are entering acrisis period in light of COVID-19, adding new urgency tounderstanding firm-level financial behaviors and challenges.At the same time, traditional methods of in-person datacollection pose a health risk to both enumerator and firmand contravene social distancing guidelines and publichealth policies. Remote data collection methods such asphone sensing offer a viable and promising alternative.Phone sensing utilizes data generated from mobile phoneusage, from GPS location to call logs to battery life – tooffer insights on firm behavior, trends, and challenges.While the technology is still new and untested, this noteexplores some of the early insights gained from a pilot ofmobile sensing technology to understand the financialbehavior of women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia. Phone sensingdata allows us to glean some insights into the lives andbehaviors of entrepreneurs which traditional data collectionmight not reveal. One of the key finding of this pilot isthat mobile phone sensing data correlates with businessoutcomes. Insights such as the ones from this pilot, ifcollected at a larger and more systematic scale, couldenhance our understanding of borrower behavior, and couldhelp lenders and policymakers better target potentialborrowers, better understand when borrowers are likely toface adversity, and better design products to meet their needs.
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