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Surveys Reveal a Path to Responsible Digital Finance in WAEMU

For the first time, there is comprehensive data on digital financial services users in the WAEMU region, and it highlights the need for more responsible digital finance ecosystems. Strengthening consumer protection is crucial.

Out of the Norm: myAgro Breaks Down Barriers to Serving Rural Women

Gender norms often prevent rural women in Senegal from accessing financial and agricultural services. Pilot projects by CGAP and myAgro are providing insights into how companies can better serve rural women by addressing these norms.

In Senegal, Supporting Rural Women Starts with Reshaping Gender Norms

MyAgro partnered with CGAP and Dalberg Design to explore how they could expand their outreach to Senegalese women and weren’t surprised to learn that social norms were the number one barrier standing in their way.

PAYGo Solar Opens Pathways to Microfinance in Rural Senegal

A microfinance institution and pay-as-you-go solar company have teamed up to expand rural, low-income customers' access to microfinance based on their solar loan repayment histories.

FinTech Partnerships: Choose Carefully, Then Evolve

FinTech startups in developing markets are leveraging partnerships to reach customers as diverse as women's savings groups, dairy cooperatives and smallholder farmers.

FinTech for the Poor: Not All Virtual, Not All Apps

FinTech isn't always about rolling out a dazzling new smartphone app. In places where USSD phones are the norm, it means something quite different.

A Digital Finance Prescription for Universal Health Coverage

Digital finance is just beginning to realize its potential in the health care sector. Take a look at some early examples of how digital financial services are contributing to the goal of universal health coverage.

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.

Mapping Africa’s Latest Innovations in Digital Finance

CGAP received nearly 200 proposals from digital financial services providers across Africa interested in piloting new products. A look at those proposals — from 30 countries — shows that innovations are spreading beyond hot spots like Kenya.

Wari to Buy Tigo in Senegal: Opportunity for Financial Inclusion?

Wari recently announced plans to acquire Tigo in Senegal, a move that would combine Senegal’s largest over-the-counter agent network with Tigo’s e-money wallet. This acquisition could disrupt the digital finance market in a way that benefits low-income customers.

Digital Finance in WAEMU: What’s New?

CGAP recently interviewed representatives of 100+ organizations in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali and Niger to better understand the market system for digital financial services in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). What have we learned?

Helping Smallholders Buy Inputs, One Scratch Card at a Time

What if there was a way to construct a digital finance product that was based on habits and behaviors that are already part of smallholders’ lives? There is: Meet the myAgro scratch card model.

Driving Smallholder Savings through Digital Design in Senegal

After interviewing 65 smallholder farmers and savings groups, CGAP and Dalberg uncovered potential for alternative ways to offer financial services to farmers that go beyond credit.

myAgro, HCD, and Supporting Smallholder Savings in Senegal

myAgro, CGAP, and IDEO.org are partnering to use human-centered design to further align product offerings in Senegal with smallholders’ behaviors, needs, and aspirations.

When Digital Meets Traditional Banking: A New Concept in Senegal

With the launch of Manko in 2013, Société Générale de Banques au Sénégal (SGBS) is one of the few commercial banks that could potentially disrupt the market and redefine the role of banks in Senegal and WAEMU more broadly.

Is Digital Finance Hitting its Stride in WAEMU?

Digital finance is advancing in WAEMU, but within the region there are eight countries all with unique markets facing disparate challenges. When it comes to mobile money and financial inclusion, the question for some is "where do you start?"

How do Low-Income People in Senegal Manage their Money?

A survey of 1,052 people in Senegal living just above and below the poverty line describes their aspirations, the financial risks they face, and the financial strategies they adopt.

Mobile Money: Even Data Analytics Has Limitations

While quantitative data analysis is a useful first step in understanding active mobile customers, it is even more insightful when providers actually go and talk with their customers directly.

Wari: A Local Platform Heads to the Global Market

This post is the second of a three-part series this week on the CGAP and the Mobile Money for the Unbanked blogs on the topic of mobile financial services in francophone West Africa. Partnerships in new markets have been critical to the success of their strategy and so far, it seems to be working. Wari conducts around 1.5 million transactions per day or 40 million transactions per month, the vast majority of which is occurring outside of Senegal.

Senegal: A Unique Ecosystem of Branchless Banking in West Africa

Ecosystem is a popular word that is increasingly thrown around financial inclusion circles in the last couple years…and for good reason. To provide a range of financial services to various segments of the unbanked population, one provider, one delivery channel and one business model will never be sufficient. As we looked around the conference room at the BCEAO, it was clear that an ecosystem was emerging in Senegal.