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Does Branchless Banking Reach Poor People? The Evidence from Mali

This is the third posting in a mini-series in which we present new evidence from three countries on whether branchless banking is reaching poor people. This post looks at Orange Money in Mali. Previous posts looked at India and Pakistan.

Does Branchless Banking Reach Poor People? The Evidence from India

This is the second post in a mini-series in which we present new evidence from three countries on whether branchless banking is reaching poor people. This post looks at banking customers acquired and serviced by Eko as a Business Correspondent of banks in India. The first post looked at EasyPaisa customers in Pakistan.

What Caused Mass Defaults in Karnataka, India

While the origins of mass defaults may be rooted in cultural and political considerations, in this post we focus solely on customer behaviour and the lending practices of MFIs that operate in these towns.

The State of the Branchless Banking Sector

As part of our efforts to promote branchless banking as a way of reducing the cost and expanding the reach of financial services, the Technology Program monitors the uptake of branchless banking around the world.

Branchless Banking Gains Momentum in India

Over the past several months, we have taken a close look at the branchless banking industry in a few key countries. We have presented our learning from Brazil and Mexico over the last few weeks. Today we offer a snapshot of the conditions for branchless banking in India drawn from a summary note of the Indian scene completed at the end of 2010.

Regulation at Last for Indian MFIs

The proposed guidelines introduce customer protection within regulatory framework of credit-only institutions for the first time.

Matching Types of Accounts to Types of Needs: Lessons from India

By and large, these problems boil down to one issue: lack of convenient access to ‘accounts’ where one can receive, store and withdraw flexible amounts of value in a safe and remunerative way.

Can Data and Transparency Strengthen Microfinance?

We have come to expect that consistent, reliable data strengthens microfinance performance and policy dialog.

We Need to Keep Learning about Overindebtedness

We need to look more carefully at the interactions between microfinance institutions and their clients, examining how MFI practices play out in lives of clients on an everyday basis. Stuart posed two specific hypotheses: if a lender needs clients to borrow continually, it incentivizes overselling and overindebtedness, and that insistence on immediate, in-full repayment drives some clients to begin bicycling loans.

Some Insights into Over-indebtedness in India

Microfinance Institutions in Andhra Pradesh and elsewhere in India are keen to avoid over-indebtedness or place clients in distress.

Branchless Banking Has a Volume Problem

CGAP’s Branchless Banking Database synthesizes a mass of data into a short 12-image “story” about what branchless banking is and the key hurdles we face in 2011. We’ve converted that into a three-part series, which we continue today.

Can Branchless Banking Be Profitable?

The Agent Network Management toolkit comes with a financial model to help providers project the revenues generated in a branchless banking implementation for each member of the supply chain.

No Single Recipe When Structuring Agent Networks

When providers are planning the launch of a branchless banking service, one of the critical decisions facing them is how to structure the agent network.

How Do Migrant Workers Move Money in India?

To better understand just how costly making remote payments can be for poor households, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation commissioned the Centre for Micro Finance at the Institute for Financial and Management Research (IFMR) and the Reserve Bank of India’s College for Agricultural Banking to survey 274 domestic Indian migrants and their families living at opposite ends of four domestic remittance corridors.

A Way Out of High Growth and Multiple Lending Indebtedness Trap

The global debate on over-indebtedness tends to focus on the role of high rates of growth as its cause. The argument is that growth is sustained by the less responsible MFIs who target easy to reach clients – the low hanging fruit – encouraging them to borrow and inadvertently getting them into trouble as a result.

How Agent Network Managers Have Fueled M-PESA’s Success

As CGAP’s new Agent Management Toolkit emphasizes, managing an agent network is complicated. There are a lot of different pieces of the puzzle to get right.

Microcredit Yatra: A Very Indian Journey

Vijay Mahajan, oft described in the Indian media as the “high priest of microfinance,” has set off on a spiritual and literal journey across India to explore the reality of what microcredit has done for poor people.

Boosting the Business Case for Agents

FINO was founded on 13th July, 2006 with the single objective of building technologies to enable financial institutions (FIs) to serve the under-served and the unbanked sector and also to service the technology requirements of entities engaged in servicing the bottom of the pyramid customers.

CGAP Releases Agent Management Toolkit

CGAP’s Agent Management Toolkit aims to demystify the process of building a viable agent network. The toolkit is based on more than a year of research that yielded data on more than 16,000 agents with institutions in Brazil (Banco do Brasil and Banco Postal), India (EKO and FINO), and Kenya (M-PESA).

Driving Fast on Indian Country Roads: Learning from the Crisis

Investors all the way up the value chain of microfinance funding can do a lot to support a safe road to financial inclusion.