1. In kindergarten catechism, we used to be told that the road to heaven was narrow and that leading to hell was wide. The financial inclusion heaven seems to have a narrow road leading to it. That is true as long as having an account with a formal financial institution remains the ticket to financial inclusion. As Jain and Hall say, there are those who pay bills without having a
banking relationship. Do we have to get them to open bank accounts first before delivering to them goodies coming out of the ramp? We need to widen the road a bit to accommodate more people. Owning a mobile phone and having an electronic bill account should be incorporated as financial inclusion parameters.

2. Sonja, I think bills payment is painful because in most cases, bills are timed to correspond with payday, or month end. A single pay lumpsum coming to meet so many bills, all urgent can’t create any other feeling but pain. But this can be changed by service providers reading this challenge and creatively devising structured payments systems that can bring relief to their customers. To start with, rebaits can be given to customers who would pay bills across the months in small bits(chunking). This would encourage customers to associate bills payments with ease. This will also improve service providers cash flows across the month. In addition, customers get to mop monies that would have gone to wasteful spending chanelling them to bills payments to enjoy rebaits and discounts. This is better money management.

3. Shhhh! Sonja, don’t hint too loudly about bill payment history as a credit leverage as that favors the supply side. We need to protect customers from over indebtedness associated with ease of credit. In fact, we should be talking of how customers should cut costs, save and invest for extra income to ease their bills pressure. With your hint, financial institutions will get a revelation and soon you will see adverts of loans against electricity bill or against car loan repayment. Banks that will support effective financial inclusion are those which will use a saving history as a basis of credit and not pure expenditure based on a single income source.

4, Since bills are read and studied carefully, they can be good vehicles for financial literacy messages including statements of the advantages of opening bank accounts.

One reading this post will realize that if financial inclusion were to fail, it will not blame it on absence of gateways as they are many and more are coming.