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Can Digital Linkages Revitalize a Tried and True Savings Model?

What would it take to link savings groups and digital financial services? A team at BFA investigated the potential tradeoffs and benefits which savings groups and potential private sector stakeholders might encounter on this journey.

Leveraging Mobile Phone Data: Tiaxa’s Balance Advance

Tiaxa's balance advance service is making 50 million advances each month to prepaid mobile subscribers - generally at no extra cost to the end user. How does it work? Big data plays a part.

BanKO: Listening to Customers Helps Drive Growth

Taking a more customer-centric approach to financial services for the poor can help create a better value proposition for customers. BanKO, in the Philippines, is one company utilizing this approach.

Myanmar: A Changing Role for Microfinance after Natural Disaster

In the wake of the most destructive natural disaster in Myanmar's history, a leading microfinance institution decided to make a big change to better serve clients in times of difficulty.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Three Lessons from Mobile Microinsurance in Bangladesh

Bima recently commissioned a survey of active Bima Life Insurance customers in order to better understand the profile and behavioral patterns of mobile microinsurance customers in Bangladesh. This blog gives an overview of the findings.

Using Phones to Engage Customers with Insurance Products

As part of CGAP's Applied Product Innovation project with MicroEnsure and design firm Continuum, several different ways were tested to see how insurance could take advantage of the mobile phone’s capabilities to engage with people more powerfully and effectively.

Increasing the Immediate Value of Microinsurance for the Poor

CGAP has recently concluded an Applied Product Innovation project with insurance intermediary MicroEnsure and design firm Continuum. The challenge: using human centered design techniques to figure out how to deliver relevant insurance products to the mass market, leveraging mobile phones.

Don’t Forget the Value Proposition for G2P E-Payment Recipients

Theory indicates that G2P payments can be a gateway to financial inclusion, but behavior on the ground suggests that receiving social cash transfers electronically has not influenced recipients to become e-payment users in general.

Killer Apps in China: Social Networks and Financial Inclusion

In China, financial services offered through social media have recently begun to take off, with interesting potential to expand financial inclusion.

Microcredit Impact Revisited

A more nuanced picture is emerging that supports broad financial inclusion efforts. Mounting evidence shows that on the whole, access to formal financial services helps poor families in developing countries improve their lives.

M-Shwari in Kenya: How is it Really Being used?

In recent years, Safaricom has launched a number of value-added services through its M-PESA product in Kenya, aiming to move its customer base beyond basic money transfers. M-Shwari is by far the most popular of the offerings.

Turning Good Ideas into Profitable Products

In the second in our series on failure, we learn some key lessons from the Grameen Foundation's AppLab Money.

Savers Deserve More Attention and Protection

Access to finance in the West African Economic Monetary Union and Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa grew significantly from 2001 to 2011. However, more attention must be paid to savings and savers.

Redefining Failure: Why Getting it Wrong is Part of the Equation

In the first of a blog series on innovation in branchless banking, we take a look at why failure might actually be something to strive for.