Searching: Research & Analysis

Responsible Bundling of Microfinance Services

Financial institutions serving the poor can offer a range of savings, insurance, and even nonfinancial products in addition to their core credit products. Bundling these products into one packaged sale can be a cost-effective distribution strategy and a means to differentiate the provider’s offering by its added value to clients.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

While the SDGs do not explicitly target financial inclusion, greater access to financial services is a key enabler for many of them. By reviewing the research on the link between financial inclusion and development, this working paper shows where and how financial services can help achieve the SDGs.

Designing Financial Services to Respond to Household Shocks

This case study from Burkina Faso highlights key findings from the CGAP resilience research that can help guide further thinking about how to best design financial products for anticipating and covering health shock expenses.

Resilience and Health Shocks

Based upon the findings of a field experiment conducted in rural Burkina Faso, this working paper suggests that health savings accounts and health loans have the potential to help the poor better manage health shocks and build resilience.

How Do You Know “Resilience” When You See It?

The findings presented in this working paper are based upon research conducted in Burkina Faso. They provide unique insights into the set of factors, if reinforced by financial institutions and development practitioners, that are likely to strengthen household resilience.

Access to Energy and Finance: An Integrated Approach

This paper analyses the synergies in the distribution of energy and financial services. It describes how an integrated approach could enable financial institutions to profitably serve low-income populations, thus enabling a significant source of growth.

The Proliferation of Digital Credit Deployments

This Brief provides an introduction to the fast-evolving landscape of digital credit and illustrates common features of this new digital finance offering.

Digitally Financed Energy

This Brief explains how digital finance is enabling pay-as-you-go energy expansion, which in turn provides a gateway to a range of financial products for the financially excluded.

Understanding Consumer Risks in Digital Social Payments

Digital social payments (DSPs) are a fast-growing, yet often overlooked, digital financial services (DFS) segment. Acknowledging and addressing the most common and consequential consumer risks should be a priority for any program or provider seeking to unlock the potentials of DSPs for the poor.

Understanding Demand for Sharia-Compliant Loans

This Brief explores the findings and their implications from the study in Jordan. While the results are only valid for the Jordanian market, if similar studies were done elsewhere, we may begin to see a clearer picture of demand for sharia-compliant services.