How Branchless Banking Can Foster Savings Accounts for the Poor

We’ve been running an occasional podcast series with some of the voices we’re listening to this year as part of the CGAP/DFID Branchless Banking in 2020 scenarios work. The process is based on one driving question: How can government and private sector most affect the uptake and usage of branchless banking among the unserved majority by 2020? You can participate directly through this blog or posting discussions through our Mobile Banking and Microfinance LinkedIn Group. –Jim

Ignacio Mas is Deputy Director in the Financial Services for the Poor program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Ignacio has been a Senior Adviser in the Technology Program at CGAP, Vice President of Marketing and Account Management at interTouch, Director of Global Business Strategy at Vodafone Group, and Senior Manager responsible for telecoms investments in Europe at Intel Capital. Ignacio has been a Visiting Professor of International Business at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago. He holds undergraduate degrees in mathematics and economics from MIT and a PhD in economics from Harvard University. Ignacio was among the workshop participants at our event in Capetown earlier this year. Though the nascent growth of branchless banking in places such as Kenya and the Philippines is truly exciting, Ignacio explained why the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is focusing on savings as a way to ameliorate poverty, and how technologies such as card networks and mobile phones might help.

Download the Podcast – Ignacio Mas