Blog

Fierce Competition for India’s Newly Minted Small Finance Banks

The landscape of India’s financial sector is changing rapidly. New small finance bank (SFB) licenses present new possibilities and challenges for financial service providers in the Indian market.

Using Randomized Trials for Product Design

People are unpredictable and don't always act in rational ways. Randomized experiments can help businesses and organizations learn more about their own work, improve upon their offerings, and better understand consumer behaviors.

Supporting Digital Financial Services? 5 Lessons for Funders

A recent survey of financial inclusion funders revealed that a majority plan to increase their focus on digital financial services in the future. What should funders know when considering support of digital financial services?

Addressing Information Gaps: What Can Donors Do?

In a market, less information equals more risk, to both providers and consumers. Donors can play a role in closing information gaps and changing perceptions of risk. What types of information are relevant? How does information alter incentives?

5 Consumer Risks in Digital Social Payments to the Poor

Despite excitement around the promising potential benefits of digital social payments, a new CGAP brief reveals risks and challenges that need to be addressed if DSPs are to achieve their intended outcomes.

Practical Tools for a New Approach to Financial Inclusion Funding

What does it mean to take a systemic approach to financial inclusion? Learn more from these selected resources on market systems development.

Building a Digital Finance Ecosystem in Zimbabwe

Mobile operators are increasingly looking toward a next generation of financial and non-financial services that leverage mobile money. In Zimbabwe, Econet is diversifying its products while simultaneously driving mobile money usage in other sectors, including energy, education, agriculture, and health.

Global SSBs Chart New Path in Digital Financial Inclusion

Global standard-setting bodies (SSBs) are increasingly recognizing the significant implications of developments in digital financial services. A new white paper from The Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) offers a roadmap through some of the most critical issues.

Big Data for Good: How Impartial Institutions can Contribute

Call detail records (CDRs) are enormous datasets, easily comprised of a few billion data points. They hold all of the information on how, when, and where customers use their mobile phones. Why should international organizations be paying attention?

What Do We Mean When We Talk About Empowerment?

What do we mean when we say a woman is empowered? How can progress toward empowerment be measured?

Prioritizing Customers: 3 Lessons from Eko, India

When it comes to digital financial services, customer care is not just a job for a few people in a call center. In India, Eko is putting customer needs at the center.

Improving Recourse Systems in Digital Financial Services

Effective complaints handling, or recourse, reassures users of new financial services that problems can be resolved and that their money is protected. A new CGAP brief highlights the keys to improving recourse systems in digital financial services.

New Bill, Big Changes in Digital Financial Services in Uganda

In Uganda, the recently-passed Financial Inclusion Act Amendment Bill provides legal grounds for positive changes in the field of digital financial services, in terms of allowing new business models and greater choice and protection for customers.

Enhancing Financial Inclusion for Women in Nigeria

Even though Nigeria has a higher level of financial inclusion than Sub-Saharan Africa across three of five indicators, the gender gap in Nigeria is higher. What can be done to lower the barriers to female financial inclusion?

The Impact of Shutting Down Mobile Money in Uganda

Citing a threat to national security, the Uganda Communications Commission ordered mobile network operators to disable Uganda's mobile money platforms ahead of February 2016 elections. How were customers, mobile money agents, and other businesses affected by this shutdown?

Data, Information and Government’s Feedback Loop

Governments collect data for many reasons. Making this data publicly accessible has the potential to encourage innovation.

Tigo Nivushe, Tanzania: 5 Ways to Build Trust in Digital Lending

‘We will trust you until you give us a reason not to:’ Tigo launches an innovative mobile lending product in Tanzania.

Five Fresh Facts from the Smallholder Diaries

How are smallholder families managing their money? What challenges do they face? What financial solutions can help? CGAP’s Financial Diaries with Smallholder Households ("Smallholder Diaries”) spent a year with 270 farming families in Mozambique, Tanzania, and Pakistan to find out.

Is the Hunger Season Really the Sick Season?

For many smallholders, "the hunger season," when little can be harvested, is the worst time of the year. What financial and other tools might help farmers to better endure the rainy, sick, and hungry months?

Digitizing Agricultural Value Chains: How Buyers Drive Uptake

Most companies don’t want to be the first in a sector to try something new and potentially unpopular. Dominant buyers must lead the way to drive large-scale mobile money uptake by smallholder farmers.