> Posted by Courtney Piper
Looking back on the recent holidays, I am reminded of the ease with which I can transform into the resident Grinch when encountering life’s little annoyances, especially during the holiday season. You and I can, however, take comfort in the fact that we are not alone in our not-so-seasonal sensibilities. According to a nationally representative survey in the current issue of Consumer Reports, a number of “daily annoyances” bother many Americans. These annoyances run the gamut from not getting a human on the phone (when calling customer service) to traffic jams, receiving spam emails, and unreliable internet and/or cell phone service.
What was the number one irritant? “Hidden fees,” which respondents rated 8.9 on average, out of 10 (10 being the most annoying). Also among the top five irritants was “incomprehensible bills,” rated 7.8. So hiding fees and making bills indecipherable aren’t just ethically questionable—they’re downright annoying! These survey results illustrate the need to make pricing information more transparent across industries as well as helping to solidify the robust business case for greater pricing transparency.
Indeed, the business case for transparent pricing has never been stronger in light of the recent global financial crisis. Few would deny that this crisis was largely precipitated by predatory lenders offering borrowers questionable loans they didn’t adequately understand. And with consumers expressing such a strongly negative response to hidden fees and incomprehensible bills in the recent Consumer Reports survey, it seems like the business case for greater pricing transparency will continue to strengthen.
The Center for Financial Inclusion at ACCION International champions transparent pricing in microfinance as one of the Principles of Client Protection advocated by the Smart Campaign, a joint global initiative of industry players working to develop and carry out client protection standards in microfinance. To find out more about the Smart Campaign, or to endorse it, please visit the campaign website at www.smartcampaign.org.
Facebook
Twitter
1 comment
Comments feed for this article
January 9, 2010 at 3:18 am
Peter Burgess
I follow with interest the flow of information about the state of the economy and society and all its aspects … and am usually left wondering how to drill down to the issues posed by the information being circulated. In the case of the “Irritants” referred to, it is interesting to see the summary set out in the graphic … but how has this changed over time … from 1950, decade by decade until 2010 … and what does this show about the decision making in the society.
And how do these data change from place to place … how does the profile change between different countries! How does the profile change between different cities … different communities … different types of communities.
I argue that if data were organized efficiently, it would be possible to get these answers really easily … they would be a click away!
When well organized, these data become interesting as a basis for understanding the priorities in a specific community and the interventions that make the most sense in this community … then change or progress may be associated with the set of interventions … and performance association with each intervention as well.
All of this is being incorporated into the Community Analytics (CA) framework. CA includes profiles of standard values that are computed in part using concepts of the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP)
With regard to predatory lending, questionable loans and the recent global financial crisis … I see these as being associated in some way … but what caused these things and what might be the key to assuring that these matters do not get resurface again in another guise. Better informed clients would help … so more financial literacy is not a bad thing … but in my view it will not help very much unless some other things change as well. The underlying driver of the prevailing market based economic system is human greed, and manifested most in the greed of large powerful organizations. Where there is profit potential that will create personal or organizational wealth, there will be action … and yes … transparency about this would be healthy, but it will never happen under the prevailing system of law, rules, reporting, oversight, regulation and incentives.
In the CA framework the flow of money transactions that produce profit and money wealth are documented as much as possible … but the impact of these activities on the social value consumption, value creation and value change in the community are also documented. When there is value adding in the community … the incentive of profit is doing a good job … but when there is value destruction in the community, then profit is not serving society, but merely the individual and/or the organization.
The approaches being used to assess MFI performance and the impact of an MFI’s work need to be supplemented, in my view, by some metrics that relate to the progress of the community. Part of the CA hypothesis is that progress results from a balanced multi-sector portfolio of initiatives, of which microfinance is part, but only part.
I am interested in this discussion … these discussions, and starting to share the CA with concepts with others who have similar interests.
Peter Burgess
http://www.communityanalytics.org …. SOON!