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INOVA: Oasis of Innovation in the West African Desert

INOVA is the first e-money issuer authorized by the central bank in Burkina Faso to offer services of its kind. It is the first company to have a top-notch platform for the Inovapay wallet developed and implemented in the developing world, offering services that are multi-channel, multi-operator, multi-currency, multi-lingual, and multi-institutional.

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.

Designing Financial Products for “Bolsa Familia” Beneficiaries

Closer examination of the financial lives of the 13 million households receiving Bolsa Familia, shows huge variations in the way they manage their money. Although commonly grouped under the single heading of Bolsa Familia recipients, this part of Brazilian society is actually a collection of sub-groups with different financial needs and wants.

Does Branchless Banking Satisfy the Needs of Ghanaian Consumers?

As we saw in the first post on the CGAP survey results from urban and semi-urban Ghana, the basic market conditions for branchless banking services appear good and there are three mobile money deployments, one government entity and one independent provider active in the market. This post will outline the results that form the basis for that belief and draw some conclusions for the providers going forward.

You Can’t Go Cash-Lite on Empty Accounts: E-money vs. Cash

Getting people to reach for their bank card or mobile phone at the store check-out requires giving them good reasons to store their money electronically.

Beyond Capital Gains: The Multiplier Effect of Youth Savings

The toll of deep financial strain often promotes destructive decisions and low productivity among impoverished populations.

A New Meaning of “Community”: Social Media In Financial Services

Community is now being defined by many as the social knowledge that people are beginning to generate through, yep you guessed it, social media. In developed and developing countries alike, there is a growing cohort of start-ups that are leveraging information people share about themselves on social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Foursquare, using this public information to provide a fuller and more accurate picture of their financial lives to potential financial providers.

Can Digital Footprints Lead to Greater Financial Access?

Cell phone use generates data – from basic call data records, to mobile money transactional data, to data from social media usage and so on -- that leaves what can be called a ‘digital footprint.’ The existence of this data is quite extraordinary for those of us interested in developing services for the poor and people with little or no formal financial access. In other words, it is available in a way that can be analyzed.

Savers, Planners, and Entrepreneurs

Mexico has 27 million households. Twenty-two million of them are middle and low income. Even though banks reach them physically, almost none of these people choose to use bank accounts to manage their money. Watch this eight-minute video in which Xavier faz talks with five low income Mexicans about their day-to-day money management strategies.

A Trip Around the Corner: Financial Inclusion in the U.S.

Here at CGAP we love to draw global lessons about financial inclusion from our interaction with stakeholders in various countries. But we often neglect learning from the latest innovations in the developed world since we assume that the differences between these countries and the ones we are most interested in are too great. Last year, a few of us attended the annual Underbanked Financial Services Forum organized by the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) and returned again this year to learn about the latest innovations in the U.S. market.

Are Retailers Better Positioned to Offer Financial Services?

In our first post in this series on the role of consumer goods retailers in financial inclusion, we discussed how retailers are similar to MNOs in their ability to reach unbanked customers. However, the opportunity for financial inclusion via organized retail, while significant, is not present in every country and not necessarily for every type of retailer.

From Protection to Inclusion: Shifting to Cashless Payments

All around the world, social protection is evolving into much more than a safety net for the poor. It is becoming a tool for financial inclusion and economic opportunity. Interestingly, stories like these, and the trends behind them, were barely on the radar of the global financial inclusion field three years ago when CGAP published the first official estimate of financially-inclusive G2P payments. Since then, government, donor and NGO efforts to link financial access to government payments has become a swiftly growing movement.

The Role of Organized Retailers in Financial Inclusion

We have previously discussed on this blog how consumer goods retailers can be part of the financial inclusion landscape. Today, we start to expand on that theme, explaining briefly why retailers are an exciting opportunity for financial inclusion but how that opportunity is not present in every market and, where it is present, how certain types of retailers could place themselves better to serve low-income consumers.

Over-Indebtedness in Microfinance – Who Should Bear the Risk?

While microfinance products and lending methodologies vary significantly on the ground, two main features of microfinance have made this enormous expansion of access to finance possible: microlending has become scalable due to cost efficient operating models and due to risk management methodologies that ensured high repayment rates.

Building India’s Model of Agent Banking

CGAP, in collaboration with the College of Agricultural Banking, just completed a national survey, which captured the big picture on agents across the country. In India, the term customer service point (CSP) is used to refer to individuals who act as agents on behalf of banks.

Small-balance Savings Accounts: Be Careful What We Wish For?

There is an underappreciated issue in the admirable push to help expand outreach and access to savings accounts amongst the poor: the potential that a savings account, if not suited to an individual’s financial profile, can actually wipe out much of a poor person’s financial assets in a year, or even a few months.

Understanding the Financial Needs of Poor Mexicans

In a perfect market for micro-financial intermediation, product offerings would reflect the distinct needs of a diverse clientele.

Interest Rates: What Are the Lessons from Russia on "How Much Is Too Much?"

The situation in Russia and other countries is now leading us to want to revisit each of these factors, “deconstructing” the concept of “sustainable” interest rates and review factors, to see if this process sheds some light on whether any given interest rate can be considered responsible.

Mobile Banking Ekosystem in India

Mobile banking is just one of the reasons India is a place to watch for innovations in financial inclusion. This short film profiles one such innovation, Eko, to see how businesses chasing the fortune at the base of the pyramid are serving the needs of poor customers in India.

Unlocking the Potential of Mobile Money in New Guinea

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a country so complex it defies easy description. A place of such diversity it hosts 850 distinct languages for a population of about 7 million. The population figure, mind you, is only a guess as nobody really knows.