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Sprint or Limp? Investing In Customer Service to Achieve Success

Investing in first class platforms and agent training can be the difference between providers of digital financial services who "sprint" or "limp" across the finish line.

Five Ways Providers Can Do Digital Finance Better

A new Focus Note from CGAP recommends five core priorities for digital financial service providers to address to improve the safety, reliability, and performance of their products, channels, and systems.

Seven Customer Risks that Need Attention Now

CGAP’s latest Focus Note identifies seven key risk areas for customers of digital financial services.

Digital Credit: Consumer Protection for M-Shwari and M-Pawa Users

Digital credit products are only going to become a more important element of financial services in emerging markets where expansion of mobile money platforms has created potential borrower segments of millions of consumers that are only an SMS away.

Fraud in Uganda: How Millions Were Lost to Internal Collusion

Kampala’s Anti-Corruption Court is at the epicenter of a major mobile money fraud. The very public nature of this case will hopefully lead to some positive outcomes among industry actors in mobile money markets around the world.

Responsible Digital Finance for Kenyan Merchants: Five Priorities

Kopo Kopo enables more than 10,000 merchants to accept mobile payments from their customers. As Kopo Kopo considers consumer protection risk areas, they identified key concerns and questions in each which they are working on addressing.

Papayas and Digital Finance: Emerging Consumer Risks in Colombia

The results from recently conducted design workshops with digital financial services clients in Colombia point to simple, yet innovative ideas to help mitigate consumer risks in digital finance.

Regulation and Innovation: Hand in Hand?

The United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority just launched a new approach to dealing with the natural tension between consumer protection, innovation, and ensuring financial inclusion. Project Innovate is the UK's answer to supporting innovation where it could genuinely improve the lives of consumers.

Consumer Protection at the Crux of Takaful Islamic Insurance

A growing need exists to design insurance products that meet the needs of the world's 2 billion Muslims. Takaful insurance is one possible solution, but consumer protection is a challenge.

How Responsible Is Digital Finance? 10 Global Insights

CGAP conducted a Global Pulse Survey among policy makers, financial service providers, consumer advocates and foundations to gauge perceptions of consumer risks within digital financial services.

Regulating for Inclusive Insurance Markets in Ghana

Tremendous gains have been made in Ghana's microinsurance market in recent years. Here's what the National Insurance Commission of Ghana, along with the German Development Corporation, did to help develop the market - and what challenges lie ahead.

Mobile Money Users at Center of New GSMA Code of Conduct

The GSMA launched a Code of Conduct for Mobile Money Providers, and already eleven providers have endorsed it. The code is important to ensure that the customer experience is central to the responsible development of mobile money platforms.

Five Bright Ideas for Responsible Digital Finance

Delivering financial services via digital means is growing at a blistering pace, and many are asking how can be accelerated to reach more underserved customers. At the same time, we must ensure that these services are being delivered fairly, transparently, and safely.

Simple Messages Help Consumers Understand Big Data

After experimenting with SMS messages with Tanzanian microfinance loan applicants, First Access determined that customers can learn a lot about data and their privacy from simple forms of communication.

Ten Lessons on Tracking Changes in Clients’ Lives

The Social Performance Task Force uncovered 10 lessons for financial service providers seeking to integrate social goals into their business models.

Buying Insurance – With Your Groceries – in Brazil, Colombia

Retail distribution of insurance comes with consumer protection challenges. Regulations in countries like Brazil aim to increase information offered to consumers, but supporting customers in navigating the process of buying and using insurance can still be difficult for sales staff.

Studying Behavior Can Inform Effective Consumer Protection Policy

Policymakers in emerging markets are only recently starting to use behavioral methods to address consumer protection challenges. There are some straightforward ways in which consumer protection policy can be more effective when it is based on insights into consumers' behavior.

Financial Consumer Protection: 5 Lessons from Behavioral Research

The boom in behavioral research methods means that gaining a deeper, more evidence-based understanding of how actors in a financial market behave, what incentives drive them, and what new policies or products can lead to responsible and inclusive financial systems.

What Next for Remittances and Money Transfers in the Pacific?

There is a risk that recent progress in the Pacific region to drive down the cost of remittances will be undone, as money transfer operators are facing increased regulatory pressures.

Passing the Baton, but to Whom? Considerations for Investors

The number of exits from microfinance equity investments is anticipated to accelerate in the next few years because equity funds are maturing, MFIs are maturing, and social investors are moving on to new frontiers.