Searching: Research & Analysis

Crowdfunding and Financial Inclusion

A financial innovation! The fastest growing financial industry! The next big thing in finance! Crowdfunding has garnered a lot of attention for its potential to further financial inclusion efforts.

Financial Inclusion Measurement in the Arab World

This paper explores the landscape of measuring financial inclusion in the Arab world. The Arab Monetary Fund and its task force is working with CGAP, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, and GIZ, among others, to advance measurement of financial inclusion in the Arab world.

Deposit Insurance and Digital Financial Inclusion

This Brief summarizes issues relevant to deposit insurance arising from emerging digital stored-value products and offers three distinct approaches for countries to consider.

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.

Recourse in Digital Financial Services

Recourse systems can help consumers overcome the challenges related to product adoption and continued use by helping resolve initial problems or challenges quickly, which can build trust in providers and their products, and increase uptake and customer retention.

Mystery Shopping for Financial Services

This Technical Guide is designed to enable policy makers with jurisdiction over market conduct issues, consumer protection organizations, and development agencies to conduct mystery shopping exercises.

Juntos Finanzas: A Case Study

This case study describes the Juntos platform, which aims to address the engagement gap between customers and providers. It describes how it works, what it can and cannot do, early results, and issues arising from initial implementations.

Inclusive Finance and Shadow Banking

This Brief explains why approaches to inclusive finance that are currently widespread do not share the potentially destabilizing attributes of other types of shadow banking, concluding by identifying some risks worth monitoring as the picture continues to evolve.

Supervision of Banks and Nonbanks Operating through Agents

This paper draws from research conducted in Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Uganda to look at how providers identify, classify, and manage risks related to the use of agents and how supervisors assess providers.

Doing Digital Finance Right

This Focus Note explores consumer risk in digital finance—-particularly through the lens of lower-income and less-experienced consumers.