Max Mattern

Senior Financial Sector Specialist

For over a decade, Max Mattern has sought to improve the lives of the economically and socially excluded through inclusive finance. Max currently leads CGAP’s Financial Services for Inclusive Carbon Markets Project, which explores how financial services can support climate mitigation, adaptation and a just transition by enabling low-income households and communities to participate in and benefit from voluntary carbon markets. Over the years, Max has also led and contributed to CGAP’s efforts to design better digital financial services for smallholder farmers, support innovation in inclusive asset finance, address social norms preventing rural women’s access to financial services, build more inclusive digital public infrastructure, and expand access to essential services such as energy.   

Before joining CGAP, Max worked at the World Bank. In addition to his experience in financial inclusion, his previous roles include consulting and research in rural and agricultural development, nutrition, and food security. His work has spanned countries and continents, with regional concentrations in the Middle East, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Max holds an M.A. in Development Economics and International Business from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Arizona. He is fluent in French. 

By Max Mattern

Blog

How Ghana Became One of Africa’s Top Mobile Money Markets

Mobile money account ownership tripled in Ghana from 2014 to 2017, making the country one of the fastest growing mobile money markets in Africa. How? Smart regulations played a key role.
Research

Building Inclusive Payment Ecosystems in Tanzania and Ghana

Across Sub-Saharan Africa, new success stories are playing out, yet little is understood about the approaches many countries in the region have taken to develop inclusive payment ecosystems. CGAP set out to examine pathways to inclusive payment ecosystems in two Sub-Saharan African countries, Tanzania and Ghana, to learn from their experiences.
Blog

More than Human ATMs: The Potential of Empowered Agents

Using mobile technology to empower agents to do more than collect payments, a Senegalese agridealer grew sales, cut costs and made its customers happier.
Blog

Digitizing Smallholder Finance for the 93 Percent

Most digital financial services for smallholders target the 7 percent of farmers who already have buyers for their crops. What about services for the other 93 percent?
Research

Digitizing Value Chain Finance for Smallholder Farmers

The digitization of value chain finance—financial services that flow to or through any point in a value chain—is changing the way smallholders access the financial tools necessary to invest in their farms, manage risk, and transact with markets. CGAP explores opportunities and emerging models in digital value chain finance.