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10 Priorities For Financial Inclusion In 2013 And Beyond

Because they recognize its importance for economic and social progress, global and national policymakers have made it a priority to advance financial inclusion so people can access and use the appropriate financial services that help them improve their lives. To make real progress, we at CGAP believe the field has 10 priorities over the next 5 years.

Rural vs Urban Mobile Money Use: Insights From Demand-Side Data

The second post in our series described the importance of demand-side data for understanding consumers and their financial habits and needs. Various organizations are contributing to the global pool of demand-side data in branchless banking and in this post we’ll focus on two of the main sources. The Financial Inclusion Tracking Surveys (FITS) are annual household panel surveys in Uganda, Tanzania, and Pakistan while the Tanzania Mobile Money Tracker Study (TMMT) uses quarterly surveys to track market trends. Both are being carried out by InterMedia and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In this post, we’ll highlight some of the analysis on rural and urban households to demonstrate the actionable insights that can be gathered from such datasets.

Finding Real World Relevance for Microinsurance Research

Without mechanisms like insurance in place to manage the enormous amount of risk in the lives of the poor, hard fought gains against poverty may be wiped out when the inevitable shocks of everyday life occur, be they the death or disability of a breadwinner, sickness, a failed harvest, or the loss of property due to a natural disaster or fire or theft.

Consumer Education and Mobile Money Adoption

Consumer education adds value not only for clients, but also for mobile money providers and for their financial institution partners. This post from Microfinance Opportunities shines a light on client behaviors and challenges, and identifies ways to address them: either through information to the consumer, or by helping providers to look inwardly for solutions which result in an improved consumer experience that can lead to greater uptake and use of mobile money products.

The Emerging Landscape of Demand-side Data in Branchless Banking

The second post in a series on the emerging branchless banking data architecture focuses on the demand side of the data equation and attempts to answer questions such as: which clients are using which products for which purpose? What aspects of a service are they satisfied or dissatisfied with? And, perhaps most importantly, is the service having a positive impact on their general well-being?

Academic Research: Get the Word Out

In the financial inclusion world today, there is some healthy debate about the role of research, including the pros and cons of different approaches. There is great information out there, but academic research might have more impact if more people know about it.

A Digital Pathway To Financial Inclusion

A growing body of evidence suggests that connecting poor people to a digital financial system will generate sizable welfare benefits. But countries cannot bridge the cash-digital divide in one leap. Instead, they pass through several stages of market development.

Solutions For Building More Effective Market Systems

Market systems are complex, and it's nearly impossible to predict their future outcomes. Can setting concrete goals be too limiting?

Looking Back at Trends in Branchless Banking in 2012

2013 is already off to a fast start in the branchless banking industry, in particular with lots of news out of India about the government’s new push to further digitize the delivery of welfare benefits to the poor. But before we leave 2012 behind, we’ve compiled some of the top developments in the branchless banking industry from the past year.

The Arab Spring: An Opportunity For Financial Inclusion?

This post kicks off a special series on regional reflections for 2012. The end of 2011 was undeniably a momentous time across the Arab World with uprisings first emerging in Tunisia and Egypt and then spreading to Libya, Yemen, and Syria. Expectations of 2012 were high as old regimes were discarded and new governments brought with them hopes of more equitable societies and opportunities for all, including in particular the region’s large numbers of young people. New governments have been scrambling to enact reforms that will appease the hopes of the now vocal and restless street, while trying to create democracies in a region with limited experience in democratic processes.

The Emerging Global Data Architecture of Branchless Banking

This first post in this series lays out a conceptual map of the data landscape and takes a closer look at the supply-side data gathering efforts worldwide. It is important to note that while various initiatives have begun to look at the wider financial inclusion data architecture from the supply and demand-side, branchless banking and mobile money data is still missing from many datasets or is poorly represented.

Getting The Proof To The Top Of The Pile

Policymakers are swamped. They have a wide range of interest groups talking to them all the time, they have large numbers of papers and emails and phone calls to deal with every day. So if you approach them with a brilliant evaluation that is fifty pages long, complete with graphs and tables and lots of Greek equations, it will go straight to the bottom of the stack. And stay there.

What Do Practitioners Think Of Impact Research?

It is exciting to see the body of evidence on the impact of access to finance growing.

Unintentional Consequences: Branchless Banking In Ghana

Ghana should be a ripe market for mobile money. Yet, as CGAP has written about before, the market has been slow to take off. In this post and video, Elly Ohene-Adu, Head of Financial Inclusion at the Central Bank of Ghana, speaks with CGAP about some of the issues with the current regulations and how the BoG is planning to tackle them.

A Review of Financial Inclusion 2012: Aligning for Real Progress

Leaders from nearly 40 developing countries and emerging markets with a combined population of 1.7 billion committed to advance financial inclusion domestically because they know that an inclusive, local financial system that reaches all its citizens is an important ingredient for economic and social progress.

Financial Inclusion 2013: Predictions from the Regions

At the beginning of 2012, CGAP ran a blog series highlighting the unique challenges faced in the financial inclusion space in various regions around the world. A similar series will run in January of 2013, reflecting on our assessments for the previous year and identifying key points for 2013.

Remembering PINs in Rural Bangladesh

Firsthand observations in some of the branchless banking initiatives around the world indicate that poor customers tend to struggle with remembering and correctly entering their personal identification number (PIN) to access and verify transactions in their branchless banking account. The Employment Generation Program for the Poorest (EGPP) conducted research to assess whether and how beneficiaries can be trained to recognize and remember numbers, even if they are illiterate.

It’s Not Quantity but Quality: Consumer Research from Brazil

CGAP and Bradesco recently partnered with IDEO, the global design consultancy to help develop a payments product that better serves the needs of C,D,E class in Brazil. Insights from low income consumers are often not sufficiently and effectively gleaned before financial products aiming to target them are developed. However, witnessing IDEO's innovative approach to consumer research reminds us that simple yet effective tools can reinforce existing data and provide better insights.

Reaching Small Farmers Through Innovative Finance In Pakistan

In 2001, NRSP (National Rural Support Program) designed a research project to address the issues of access to finance and advisory services to small sugar cane farmers. The basic idea was to create an “out of box” microfinance model that threads together the small farmer, the MFI and the processor into a high impact value chain with high financial and social returns. The project “Sugarcane Production Enhancement Project” (the SPEP) focused on small poor farmers with a maximum land holding of around three acres, as well as share croppers and farmers who generally rent agriculture land from large land lords.

Who Is Targeted? Financial Pyramid Schemes and the Poor

In Kenya, where the qualitative research provided input to a policy diagnostic on financial consumer protection issues and approaches, at least one person in each of 14 groups was personally affected by a pyramid investment scheme.