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Building Resilience through Access to Insurance

There is increasing recognition that poor people need access to a suite of varied financial services. In this context, there is increasing talk about insurance as an important financial service to help people mitigate, manage risks and protect assets.

Getting Better Insights To Design Better Financial Products

Today, CGAP is releasing a synthesis deck which highlights our experiences in product innovation and helps providers understand how they can use customer-centric approaches to improve their offerings.

Mobile Payment Systems:What Can India Adopt From Kenya’s Success?

Despite some initiatives in India, the adoption of mobile payment technology, especially among the low-income population, has been cautious. What can India learn about mobile money services in Kenya?

Financial Inclusion and Innovation in Russian Payment Systems

The payments sector in Russia has over recent years been at the forefront of innovation. The hope is that new developments will lead to an easily accessible and interoperable payment system that combines the advantages of various channels.

Mobile Money Agents in Tanzania: How Busy, How Exclusive?

The Financial Sector Deepening Trust of Tanzania (FSDT) undertook a census of cash outlets in the country, and discovered that half of all agents do more than 30 transactions per month and nearly two-thirds of agents are exclusive to M-PESA.

Towards A Common Performance Measure In Branchless Banking

How can we build a framework for a data architecture on the branchless banking industry?

Tracking The Progress Of The Mobile Money Industry

The GSMA Mobile Money for the Unbanked programme (MMU) has been following the growth of the industry for the past few years using its Deployment Tracker which monitors the number of live and planned mobile money services for the unbanked.

Savings in Afghanistan: Gold, Grain, Goats...and Banks?

A small team from frog, a design and innovation consultancy, traveled to Afghanistan in 2012 to research attitudes and practices towards savings in Afghanistan. Through fifteen in-depth interviews, the team discovered that access and liquidity are key factors of Afghan financial products.

Mobile Money Adopters – Who Are They And What Can They Teach Us?

Individuals who are connected to mobile money users through social networks are more likely to adopt mobile money than those with no social mobile money connections.

Will This Bank Run Away? Women And Mobile Banking In Bihar, India

A recently released women and mobile banking report by GSMA and Visa Inc resonates with the conversations the author has with women in rural Bihar, in some of the poorest parts of India.

Why Go Mobile in Rural Communities?

Going mobile in a rural community is more than enabling remote communities to receive payments.

A New Framework For Digital Money Innovation

A new "Digital Money Innovation Framework" helps us organize our research and ideas in accordance with some of the biggest barriers we see in digitizing financial services for low-income populations.

Where’s The Cash? The Geography Of Cash Points In Tanzania

Places where one can exchange cash for transferable or storable electronic value is an essential component of financial access. Given the paucity of financial infrastructure in Tanzania, we wanted to know how deeply mobile money agents have penetrated rural areas.

Who Should Pay for Banking Infrastructure in G2P Programs?

In 2006, 300 of Colombia's 1,100 municipalities had no access to banks. Now, 99% do. Incentives, while not enough to stimulate investment by private financial institutions in all remote areas, played a significant role in helping to build agent networks througout the country.

Freemium: Spawning An Insurance Market In Ghana

The experience of Tigo Family Care Insurance in Ghana makes the case for freemium services. In underdeveloped markets, offering initial services for free can encourage uptake of paid services in the long run.

Can Phones Drive Insurance Markets? Initial Results From Ghana

Burials in Ghana often put a strain on household budgets of the poor. The insurance market offers very few products, especially to poor customers.Tigo's new mobile insurance product called "Freemium" hopes to change that.

The Art of Discovery: Incubating Mobile Money Ideas In Uganda

How can we creatively design products that can have a real impact on the mobile money market? This post shares the experience of Grameen App Lab in Uganda.

Back To The Future Of Performance Reporting On Financial Services

There are at least four lessons that branchless banking stakeholders can take from the MFI experience when it comes to reporting standards.

Pakistan: G2P Laboratory

Pakistan is becoming a laboratory for G2P payment innovations. A new report by CGAP discusses the G2P payments sector in Pakistan and demonstrates how social transfers can help bring poor people into the formal financial system.

Tech Start-ups and Financial Inclusion: Trends To Watch In 2013

In my last post, we talked about the potential for start-ups to shake things up in the financial inclusion space. But where’s the real opportunity today? At Venture Lab, we’ve got our eye on a number of trends for 2013.