Blog

Understanding Typical Financial Behavior in Myanmar

A recent survey of 5,500 households is a gold mine of information on the demand and supply of financial services in Myanmar. Providers, policy makers, donors and investors already are starting to use the data to guide their policies.

Digital Finance: Catalyzing New Energy Business Models

Over 1.3 billion people worldwide live without access to electricity. Modern, small-scale solar solutions are now on the market, and digital finance is going a long way toward making these more affordable and accessible in poor communities.

Policymakers Weigh In on the Graduation Approach

Through a series of video interviews with CGAP, policymakers and academics from all over the world weigh in on how the graduation approach can help the extreme poor find a pathway to a sustainable livelihood.

Picturing Financial Inclusion in Africa

The CGAP Photo Contest, now in its ninth year, continues to receive a growing number of standout photographs from Africa.

bKash Bangladesh: What Explains its Fast Start?

bKash is the fastest growing provider of mobile financial services in Bangladesh, having registered 11 million accounts in just 30 months. Several factors have combined to help bKash be an early success in a relatively new market.

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.

Using Human-Centered Design for e-Payment Systems in Indonesia

A team of designers and researchers, using human-centered design, set out to discover what would encourage both merchants and clients in Indonesia to move from cash to e-payment systems.

Transforming Payments through mPOS: Perspectives from Indonesia

For traditional merchants in Indonesia, cash is still a mainstay of doing business. CGAP and partners set out to understand what might motivate more merchants to use digital forms of payment, particularly mobile point-of-service (mPOS) devices.

Financial Inclusion in Cambodia is Trending Digital

In Cambodia, where 80% of the population lives in rural areas and fewer than 20% of adults have access to financial services, digital finance could be a financial inclusion game-changer.

Can India Achieve Financial Inclusion within the Next Few Years?

The new Government of India has made financial inclusion one of the cornerstones of its policies and has set the target of every adult having a financial account by August 2015.

YouthStart: Training Banks to Serve Young Customers

Youth have become a core concern in many African economies, yet most financial institutions are not equipped to address them as real potential customers.

Analyzing the Business Case for Youth Savings

Serving young clients can be difficult for banks driven by short-term profit goals. But capturing the youth market can help give financial service providers a competitive edge in the long-run.

Microinsurance: the Next Generation of Impact Investments

For investors looking to have an impact in emerging markets by building sustainable businesses, microinsurance is a growing niche.

Is Tanzania Ready for Interoperability in Mobile Money?

Even though interoperability could potentially benefit the mobile financial services market, thus far there have been few attempts to get mobile money systems to work together. It may be too early for interoperability in some areas, Tanzania seems ready.

Is Kenya Ready for an MVNO?

Kenya recently granted MVNO licenses to several new companies, allowing them to provide mobile money services without building new cellular infrastructure. This could shake up the mobile money market in Kenya, which has been dominated by Safaricom.

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.

New Data Shows Only 6% of India is Aware of Mobile Money

Financial inclusion in India has the mandate at the highest level of policy making, but the market has yet to respond positively to regulations that allow both public and private actors to pursue digitized payment services. Understanding demand for financial services is key to design services that reach scale.

Enabling Data-Driven Financing for Smallholder Farmers

Mobilizing technology, such as smartphones, tablets, and the Internet, holds a tremendous opportunity to provide financial services for smallholders and to empower them to use data that is critical to their businesses in better ways.

Mapping Financial Inclusion with FSP Maps and MIX FINclusionLab

There is a distinct need for high-quality data and analysis tools to answer questions about the advancement of financial inclusion.

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.