Blog

Mobiles – A Mass-Customizable Financial Tool?

A financial service for the base of the pyramid must, at its core, help people with their financial planning. This notion can help articulate the logic of user interface design. A provider that helps people plan better will be in a better position to promote its own financial products.

MFI Shareholders And Directors Can Help Achieve Social Goals

As MFIs try to unravel industry expectations on social performance, there is often a missing piece in MFIs’ internal functioning.

Unlocking Barriers: Advances in Rural Mobile Banking in Mexico

Telecomm is a decentralized government agency that operates the telegraph services, bridges data connectivity across the territory, and offers financial services such as domestic and international remittances, as well as bill payments. It has decided to launch a pilot program which seeks to close the three most common gaps in financial inclusion: technological infrastructure, channels and products.

Graduation and Social Protection in Latin America

One of the biggest challenges of social public policy is how to design effective programs for the large number of poor and extreme poor households who cannot access the contributive social security system.

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.

Wari: A Local Platform Heads to the Global Market

This post is the second of a three-part series this week on the CGAP and the Mobile Money for the Unbanked blogs on the topic of mobile financial services in francophone West Africa. Partnerships in new markets have been critical to the success of their strategy and so far, it seems to be working. Wari conducts around 1.5 million transactions per day or 40 million transactions per month, the vast majority of which is occurring outside of Senegal.

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.

Understanding What Works: Why Qualitative Research Matters

Why invest in qualitative research, given the rigorous impact results from the RCTs? Taking a long, deep look into the lives of program participants is essential for understanding the nuances behind the RCT results.

Multiplying the Graduation Experience: Vision and Practical Ideas

Today, the Graduation model, inspired by BRAC’s program in Bangladesh, has achieved success by showing how to move ultra poor households in Haiti, India, Pakistan, and Honduras out of extreme poverty and by giving them hope that they can improve their current standard of living.

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.

From Micro To Small: Do MFIs Have The Capacity To Serve Small Enterprises?

Many policymakers are focusing a lot of attention on small enterprises, in the hope that they could play an important role in creating much needed jobs. Also, many donors and investors view small enterprises as potential investees and engines of private sector growth.

Ten Lessons for Multiplying the Graduation Model

With half of the 10 CGAP-Ford Graduation Program pilots now completed and a significant collection of evidence showing the effectiveness of this approach, how do we begin to scale up?

Good News for the Ultra Poor

We have seen promising results from the CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation pilot programs targeting the “ultra-poor” demographic – the most vulnerable families, living in the bottom 15% of their economy, which for years have been among the hardest to reach by development interventions.

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.

Creating Pathways for the Poorest: Graduation Model Shows Early Promise

The CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program is a global effort to create pathways for the poorest out of extreme poverty by carefully sequencing safety nets, livelihoods and access to finance, inspired by BRAC in Bangladesh.

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.

Opportunities in the Ghanaian Payments Market

Despite there being three MNOs, one government institution and one independent branchless banking deployment in Ghana, with two dozen partner banks, thousands of agents and millions in sunk marketing spend between them since 2009, the total active user base is less than 200,000 and all deployments are struggling for break even. Does this mean branchless banking is not going to work in the Ghanaian market?

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.

Does Client Protection Matter to Clients?

What do microfinance clients think about client protection? Do client protection principles really matter to them?