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Keeping the Lights On: Repayment Challenges in PAYGo Solar

Research in Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania reveals some of the top reasons pay-as-you-go solar borrowers stop repaying their loans.

Making Digital Payments Work for Low-Income Farmers

From hurling sacks of money out of planes to transporting cash in armored cars, the methods used to pay farmers in Uganda can be unsafe and inefficient. So why haven't digital payments taken off?

More than Human ATMs: The Potential of Empowered Agents

Using mobile technology to empower agents to do more than collect payments, a Senegalese agridealer grew sales, cut costs and made its customers happier.

In Kenya, Bank Accounts Again More Popular than M-PESA – Why?

Bank accounts today once again outnumber mobile money accounts in Kenya -- by over 30 percent. Innovations like PesaLink have helped banks achieve this growth, showing that banks can thrive in the face of mobile money.

Want Your Customers to Save More? Use Behavioral Economics

A behavioral economics experiment in Tanzania increased customers' savings by up to 11 percent using SMS messages about the balances of better savers.

Mapping Africa’s Latest Innovations in Digital Finance

CGAP received nearly 200 proposals from digital financial services providers across Africa interested in piloting new products. A look at those proposals — from 30 countries — shows that innovations are spreading beyond hot spots like Kenya.

Stuff Matters: Rethinking Value in Asset Finance

What's the value of lighting a home? For many low-income pay-as-you-go solar customers, it is not necessarily about saving money or generating income.

Digital Credit: Data Sharing Can Improve Product Diversity

In a CGAP and M-Kopa pilot in Kenya, customers with greater control over their credit histories took up more credit and were more likely to pay it off in full.

Women’s Financial Empowerment Is the Tide that Can Lift All Boats

Changing gender norms doesn't mean empowering women at the expense of men. When women have a voice in financial decisions, it can benefit the entire household.

Can User-Friendly Payment Methods Improve Repayment Rates?

When PEG Africa piloted more user-friendly mobile payment methods for its pay-as-you-go solar customers, users started paying more often and in significantly higher amounts than other customers.

What Keeps People from Paying with Their Phones?

To find out why more people aren't going digital in Ghana, CGAP partnered with pay-as-you-go solar company PEG Africa and mobile network operator Tigo Ghana.

Cultivating Opportunities for Women in Agriculture

National surveys in Mozambique and Tanzania show that women in agriculture do not diversify their incomes as much as men do. Equal access to financial services could help women to generate new sources of income.

Traders in Refugee Camps: Overlooked Opportunity in Bulk Payments

Lolem Boyo Emilat is a trader in Kenya’s Kalobeyei settlement, where mobile payments have transformed her small business. Could bringing mobile money to more traders like Lolem be an overlooked opportunity to advance financial inclusion?

Schools in Africa Aren’t Taking Advantage of Mobile Money – Why?

Mobile money can make paying school fees easier and cheaper, so why aren't more schools adopting it? Part of the solution could involve a simple app for inexpensive smartphones and tablets.

Can Digital Savings Reduce Risks in Digital Credit?

An experiment in Tanzania suggests that offering savings and credit on the same mobile wallet can lead to more responsible borrowing.

Meeting Education Finance Needs in Rural Uganda

In Uganda, CGAP partnered with a solar company to better understand the education finance needs of rural customers and explore how pay-as-you-go solar companies can get into education financing.

What Donors Can Learn From the FSD Experience

The FSD Network's efforts to make markets work for the poor contain useful lessons for donors – among them, that giving market facilitators room be flexible leads to results.

Making Markets Work for the Poor — Science, Art or Speculation?

Getting market facilitation right and making markets work for the poor starts by asking the right questions.

Do Peer-to-Peer Lenders Understand Risk?

A growing number of novice investors are starting to lend to their peers on digital platforms. New research out of Kenya suggests that providers may need to fundamentally rethink how they inform these lenders about risk.

Market Facilitation Is the Way Ahead, but It Needs to Do More

What does FSD Kenya's experience over the last 10 years reveal about how to make market systems work for the poor? Here are three takeaways.