Recent Blogs
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A Bold Move Toward Simplifying AML/CFT: Lessons from Mexico
Regulators around the world today are beginning to realize that the chances of expanding access through branchless banking can be very limited without reducing the account-opening requirements through agents and mobile phones. The challenge is to strike the right balance between reducing account-opening requirements while maintaining basic controls for AML/CFT.Blog
Saving Up Is Hard to Do
The financial lives of the poor are dominated by the need to build usefully large sums of money for immediate expenditure.Blog
Should Successful Arab MFIs Expand their Role Post the Revolution
Here we are with an MFI which has to prepare itself for a new era where, for the first time, there is serious talk about new microfinance law/regulations.Blog
Marketing Branchless Banking
We’ve collected examples of branchless banking advertisements from around the world and interviewed providers about the lessons they’ve learned and how they’ve adapted their marketing strategies. The results – including case studies and examples of marketing collateral – are in this compilation deck.Blog
Opportunities for a Big Leap for Financial Inclusion in Vietnam?
For the last fifteen years, microfinance experts have been watching Vietnam and identified it as a market that with the right policy opening has great potential.Blog
The State of the Branchless Banking Sector
As part of our efforts to promote branchless banking as a way of reducing the cost and expanding the reach of financial services, the Technology Program monitors the uptake of branchless banking around the world.Blog
Let’s Play: Making Savings Fun
The borlette system in Haiti is hard to ignore. Part casino, part dream parlor, part bank, the borlette network gleams on the retail landscape.Blog
Branchless Banking Gains Momentum in India
Over the past several months, we have taken a close look at the branchless banking industry in a few key countries. We have presented our learning from Brazil and Mexico over the last few weeks. Today we offer a snapshot of the conditions for branchless banking in India drawn from a summary note of the Indian scene completed at the end of 2010.Blog
Regulation at Last for Indian MFIs
The proposed guidelines introduce customer protection within regulatory framework of credit-only institutions for the first time.Blog
Showcasing Successes in Banking Beyond Branches in Latin America
The Bridges to Cash showcase recognizes players who have built a dense and sustainable network of cash merchants where people cash-in and cash-out conveniently from their electronic accounts.Blog
Matching Types of Accounts to Types of Needs: Lessons from India
By and large, these problems boil down to one issue: lack of convenient access to ‘accounts’ where one can receive, store and withdraw flexible amounts of value in a safe and remunerative way.Blog
Delivering Government Payments in the Wilds of Northern Kenya
Social transfer programmes all over the globe are recognizing the value of paying cash grants through some form of financial “account”, accounts increasingly administered by a network of payment agents.Blog
Recycle Waste Savings Product from Indonesia
Our business idea for the Islamic Microfinance Challenge 2010 was to mobilize savings using a Recycled Waste Savings Product.Blog
Microfinance Regulation in Post Revolution Tunisia
The need for a new microfinance law came up at a recent conference in Tunisia.Blog
New Branchless Banking Resources – Headlines for April 2011
There are several new resources that have come out recently on branchless banking.Blog
Drivers of Mobile Money Profitability
This post is the second in the series on “Five Business Case Insights on Mobile Money.” In the first post, we shared with you a detailed presentation on the five insights. Here we explain further the first three insights.Blog
Mexico: Promising Moves Towards New Banking Models
Over the past several months, we have taken a close look at the branchless banking industry in a few key countries. Last week we presented our learnings from Brazil. Today we continue with our analysis of Mexico and share this summary note on the Mexican branchless banking industry.Blog
Delivering on the Savings Promise of Mobile Money
By planning payments, households can seek to stabilize their daily circumstances, develop opportunities to improve their condition in the future, and mitigate shocks that can set their families back.Blog
Branchless Banking and Microinsurance: A Perfect Marriage?
In previous blogs Mark Pickens has lamented the lack of innovation by branchless banking providers in products that go beyond payments. But there are some green-shoots of innovation. In this blog we take a look at some examples of early experiments that we have seen involving in micro-insurance.Blog