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> Posted by Anne H. Hastings, Manager, Microfinance CEO Working Group
Global Forum Venue: The Lancaster London
As I traveled to London to attend the FI2020 Global Forum, my mind was filled with many thoughts. First was excitement that I had been invited to attend when I was still very much a microfinance practitioner. I was still in the process of adjusting after 17 years living in Haiti struggling to build an institution that would be a model of a client-centric, double bottom line microfinance institution (MFI) committed first and foremost to reaching the very poorest people in Haiti and providing them a pathway to a better life. For me, this meant providing them with a full range of financial and social services. My commitment to these clients had been solidified through my years in Haiti but also by my service on the Smart Campaign Steering Committee and the Board of the Social Performance Task Force and more recently by my role as a practitioner advisor to Truelift.
But now that I was in the plane and on my way, I had taken on a new role: Manager of the Microfinance CEO Working Group, a collaborative effort of the CEOs of eight pioneering global microfinance networks – Accion, FINCA, Freedom From Hunger, Grameen Foundation, Opportunity International, Pro Mujer, VisionFund International, and Women’s World Banking – all dedicated to advocating for more responsible microfinance practices and to instituting the highest standards of performance within their own MFIs. These eight CEOs represent 250 MFIs in 70 countries, serving some 40 million families. Suddenly I had been boosted from deep concerns about the future of poverty in one tiny country of 9.5 million to a preoccupation with the future of MFIs worldwide.
The Forum was a beautiful reflection of the often chaotic financial services marketplace of today where traditional banks, telecoms, retail stores, donors, investors, policymakers, regulators, and MFIs often collide in seeking to capture new markets. In attendance were the CEOs of institutions like Citi and MasterCard, along with several former Governors of Central Banks, technology innovators like the CEO of bKash, executives of insurance companies like MetLife and Swiss Re, Managing Directors of investment companies like Wolfensohn Fund Management, experts in alternative data systems like Cignifi. There were times when I thought maybe I had actually entered the wrong conference! Who were all these people, and what did they have to do with the future of microfinance?
> Posted by Madeleine Dy, Program Specialist, CFI
The Investing in Inclusive Finance program at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion explores the practices of investors in inclusive finance. Across areas including risk, governance, stakeholder alignment, and fund management, this blog series highlights what’s being done to help the industry better utilize private capital to develop financial institutions that incorporate social aims.
Making the case for more attention to risk management and governance in both the financial inclusion sector and corporate world can be an uphill battle, but McKinsey’s Global Survey findings provide some strong reinforcement. If we let the numbers speak for themselves, they tell an interesting story. Their survey of 772 corporate directors showed that although over 90 percent of respondents reported that their boards have become more effective over the past five years, risk management still surfaces as the biggest difficulty faced by boards.
The survey shows that board directors have improved their knowledge on various company issues since the last survey conducted in 2011. More specifically, about one-third say they have a complete understanding of their organization’s current strategy, as compared to about 20 percent in 2011. However, only 15 percent can say the same for the risks their company faces. In fact, the reality is that 30 percent of directors reported they have limited to no understanding of the risks facing their company.
You might ask why there is such a difference. The answer lies in the time directors spend on the two topics. Directors responded that they spend more time on strategy than any other area, 28 percent compared to only 12 percent for risk management. This clearly shows where their priorities and attention are focused. McKinsey mentions that companies and boards are becoming more complacent about risks as the 2008 financial crisis becomes a more distant memory — unfortunately fading memories do not translate to fading risks. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Larry Reed, Director, Microcredit Summit Campaign
Why does the Microcredit Summit Campaign wholeheartedly support the goal of “Finance for All by 2020?” Because we see it as an important step in reaching the larger goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030.
From October 9 to 11 we held the Microcredit Summit in Manila on the theme “Partnerships against Poverty.” Delegates of the Summit drafted and approved the Partnerships against Poverty Summit Declaration, listing the principles that we will follow to insure that microfinance works as a worthy partner in the movement to end extreme poverty. The opening commitment of the declaration states:
First, we commit to putting the extreme poor first. Their voices must be heard in our movement, and they must be full participants in the process of improving their lives and our services. They are not only our clients, but also our biggest resource.
To better reach and serve the poorest and most vulnerable populations, we will ensure that we include women, children, the elderly, the disabled, refugees, the LGBT communities and members of cultural and religious minorities.
Achieving “Finance for All” means that we must develop financial products and services that meet the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable populations. The organizations partnering with the Microcredit Summit Campaign have committed themselves to work with governments, mobile network operators, payment providers, and others to help design and test these products.
> Posted by Danielle Piskadlo, Senior Program Specialist, CFI
The Investing in Inclusive Finance program at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion explores the practices of investors in inclusive finance. Across areas including risk, governance, stakeholder alignment, and fund management, this blog series highlights what’s being done to help the industry better utilize private capital to develop financial institutions that incorporate social aims.
What good are industry best practices for risk management if many MFIs don’t have the tools and resources to follow them? Sure, you can state that it is an industry best practice to have a risk committee on your board. And it undoubtedly is important to identify that there is value in applying such a practice. But what use is that really if you don’t examine the underlying reasons why 40 percent of MFIs that responded to a MIX survey said they don’t. Or why 32 percent reported not having a risk manager, and 23 percent said they don’t have an internal auditor – and if they did have either, respondents indicated, “both functions tend to report to the CEO contrary to accepted best practice.”
To address this disconnect between where we are as an industry and where we want to be in terms of risk management best practices is why the Risk management Initiative in Microfinance (RIM) was recently launched. RIM is a collaborative effort of Appui au Développement Autonome (ADA), Calmeadow, the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion (CFI), Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), MFX Solutions, Microfinanza, Oikocredit, and Triple Jump to raise awareness about the importance of risk management, and build MFIs’ capacity to more effectively understand and manage risk.
It has been shown time and again that there is no one-size-fits-all solution in the microfinance industry. What works in one region for one MFI could be a disaster in a different region or for another MFI. And risk management is no different. Putting out one set of risk standards would create a divide between those that meet them and those that don’t, and those that are a good fit for them and those that aren’t. Instead RIM is in the process of developing a “risk roadmap” to help MFIs assess where their risk management capabilities currently stand, and to then help them navigate to where they want to be in terms of risk management. This risk model will help MFIs continue to “graduate” to higher levels of risk management capabilities as they grow and mature as institutions. This roadmap will provide the microfinance industry with a flexible resource, appropriate to address the wide variety of risk management challenges MFIs face.
> Posted by Alex Counts, President and CEO, Grameen Foundation
The Financial Inclusion 2020 Global Forum was a remarkable and historic convening. I was honored to have been invited to attend and co-facilitate an “ideas to action” roundtable about one of the five parts of the Roadmap to Financial Inclusion .
Immediately after the event I reached out to Elisabeth Rhyne to understand how I could help build on the groundwork laid at the conference. She suggested I write a blog post about my experience. My immediate reaction was that commenting on such a wide-ranging and successful effort was a bit daunting. But I felt it was worth a try.
Dissecting the Term “Financial Inclusion”
I will admit that I have warmed slowly to the language of financial inclusion and financial capability. Are these just new buzzwords for time-tested concepts? (And if so, why use them?) Let’s assume they are new concepts. If so, financial inclusion feels like more of a means than an end. For me, the end is the reduction of poverty and the empowerment of low-income women – so why not focus on those? If having a poor or even middle-class person simply open their first “no frills” bank account is considered a step towards financial inclusion, regardless of how useful or helpful that bank account is, is this banner a lackluster one to rally under? Further, it is not clear to me that the provision of quality financial services through informal financial institutions (however defined) is being properly valued in the financial inclusion agenda. Finally, does making “financial capability” something of a prerequisite for people accessing formal financial services effectively let financial institutions off the hook for meeting clients where they are and designing appropriate products for them?
While my apprehension about these concepts has not entirely dissipated, I emerged from the Global Forum feeling that this campaign for full financial inclusion, at least as defined by CFI, is evolving as a powerful rallying point for a diverse coalition of providers, regulators, technologists, researchers, and activists. The notion of full inclusion is essential. I now see financial capability as a concept that defines the end state when financial education (through whatever means) is done effectively. The Forum probably had a similar impact on many others – helping them travel from a place of confusion or even wariness towards strong alignment and shared purpose.
> Posted by Alyssa Passarelli, Communications and Operations Assistant, the Smart Campaign
The findings in the Study of Client Protection Practices in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), a new report from the Smart Campaign, are intended to help microfinance stakeholders reflect on the current state of practice among institutions in LAC and on how performance gaps can be addressed.
Over the past two years, the Smart Campaign conducted a study on the client protection practices of twelve Latin American microfinance institutions, examining their implementation of the Client Protection Principles. The study looked at an assortment of organizations such as NGOs, banks, and credit unions in different countries, analyzing their client protection performance from the point of view of practitioners, and offering recommendations to improve their client protection practices.
Overall, the MFIs studied in the report performed well in the principles of Preventing Over-Indebtedness, Responsible Pricing, and Ethical Staff Behavior, but there was (sometimes significant) room for improvement in the principles of Transparency, Appropriate Collections, and Mechanisms for Complaint Resolution. The report revealed that client protection performance is not easily generalized, and that it’s often essential that particular client protection areas be improved if clients are to be served responsibly.
We interrupt our regularly scheduled blogging to deplore the action today by the Parliament of Bangladesh to place Grameen Bank under government control. Such a politically motivated takeover is inexcusable. If the government’s control is consolidated and this new law is implemented, we can anticipate a variety of poor outcomes for the women who are clients of the bank. The best hope is that this law will be overturned by a new government after upcoming elections.
Kate McKee, Senior Advisor at CGAP, reflects on key issues raised during the FI2020 Global Forum’s panel discussion on ‘Why Financial Inclusion is More Important Than We Ever Knew,’ ending with an exciting prediction market from the panelists.
Kate McKee moderating the panel “Why Financial Inclusion is More Important Than We Ever Knew,” alongside panelist Bill Gajda
In this panel, which began with an emphasis on behavioral economics opened by Sendhil Mullainathan, co-author of the recently-published book Scarcity (reviewed on this blog by CFI’s Sonja Kelly here), who focused on how the reality of scarcity translates into a “bandwidth tax” on people who constantly live in poverty. Research by Sendhil and others has documented how the constant worry and distraction of living with too little – what Sendhil and his co-author Eldar Shafir refer to as “tunneling,” with its intense focus on making ends meet day-to-day – ultimately, affects poor people’s ability to make good decisions. Basically, this growing body of research shows that when people are in a situation of scarcity, they are not as smart, not as able to resist temptation, and are less likely to be able to make and stick to a plan, as compared to themselves in a time of less scarcity.
This scarcity framework and evidence has potentially powerful consequences for financial inclusion. The panel that followed focused on how scarcity, the bandwidth tax, and tunneling affect the relevance, uptake, and usage of financial services by lower-income people. Tine Wollebekk (Vice President of Telenor Financial Services and Board Chair of Tameer Microfinance Bank, the sponsor of Easypaisa in Pakistan) and Kamal Quadir (Managing Director of bKash in Bangladesh) reflected on the experience of these two fast-growing mobile money service deployments, including insights about customers’ underlying demands and how the mobile wallets and other services are designed to meet them, how to make the offerings intuitive and simple, and how to earn trust from customers new to formal finance. Bill Gajda (Global Head of Strategic Partnerships, Visa) rounded out the panel by bringing in findings from deep consumer research that Visa has supported in additional developing countries, as well as experience with different business models and customer interfaces including cards.
Entry products need to be ‘in the tunnel’
One of the key insights was that the entry product needs to meet a really immediate need. It needs to be ‘in the tunnel’ of what the customer is focused on to meet their day-to-day needs. Obviously mobile telephony is firmly in the tunnel virtually everywhere in the developing world. Person-to-person money transfer has also passed the “tunnel test” of rapid uptake in an increasing number of markets – Kamal noted that he felt the company had reached an important tipping point when “bKash” had become a verb commonly used across Bangladesh. Tine made the point of needing excellent execution and recruiting the right kind of agents that customers will trust, in order for customers not to have extraneous worries that would prevent them from really being able to make decisions.
Innocent Ephraim, M-PESA Product Manager, Vodacom, discusses some of the main concerns shared on the FI2020 Global Forum’s panel ‘Building Infrastructure & Spurring Innovation’, along with an overview of the challenges faced in rolling-out M-PESA’s product success in Kenya to Tanzania and South Africa.
Financial inclusion and technology innovation
The main concern of the forum panel was making sure that we bring in financial inclusion, and technology innovation is one of the key things for this. What I strongly believe in is the mobile money product itself. And mobile money products are being held up with a pillar, which is the agent distribution. Just like any other product that is mass distributed – Coca Cola and similar products – mobile money products need to be visible, available, and trusted. So once all of that is achieved, then innovation can chip in.
Listening to the customer
It’s important to listen to the customer because customers are the reason why we do this. We want to make sure that we don’t complicate their lives because the minute that we do that we already risk excluding them with our complicated innovation that we put in the mix. And we’ve got it wrong many times, we’ve learnt from our mistakes, and as a Product Manager, I know that it’s critical to listen to our customers.
Learning from mistakes
I’ll give you an example of a mistake we made with a product that we learnt from. We launched a life insurance product in Tanzania, and we expected millions to adopt it. We were actually shocked with the cultural behavior in Tanzania. Every customer that we communicated with to pick up the product kept saying: ‘You guys want me to die! Why do you want me to die?’ Here, we learnt that it’s not all about what we think is good for the customer. So we went back to the drawing board. Nevertheless, the product is used by hundreds of thousands in the country.
Now the team in Tanzania has done a study to see what type of insurance our customers need, and then reposition it. And one of the key findings from that study is that customers need a product they directly benefit from, health insurance was seen as ideal because then they feel they benefit out of it. They don’t want to buy an insurance cover that benefits somebody else – for example, the life insurance product where the customers felt it was just bad luck for them and that we just wanted them to pass away!
Kenya: the archetype of mobile payment
Kenya is a very good place to go and look at how mobile payments and technology has worked out. But you need to enter into different markets in different ways. If you look at Kenya, the population is dense and one agent would service hundreds of customers. When you go to Tanzania, where the population is much sparser, an agent would service fewer customers, and that makes it less attractive to an agent. Consequently, agents choose to invest in some other type of business instead of mobile money. (That’s only one of the differences between the two markets. A study has been done to highlight the differences of these two neighboring countries.) What we learnt in Tanzania is that we need to make sure that different products and services are integrated into the agent point-of-sale. So when you give an agent a tool to conduct mobile money services, allow them to do utility payment or airtime as well, so they actually aggregate from transactions from the same customer. That creates more incentive and profitability to the agent.
Bob Annibale, Global Director, Citi Community Development and Microfinance, shares his views on the lead up to the FI2020 Global Forum, as well as reflecting upon the panel discussion ‘Global Trends & Emerging Markets’.
Please share with us Citi’s perspective on the lead up to this Global Forum
What led us to this point is a convergence of a number of organizations that have been working together originally on traditional microfinance. As that grew, some of the original microfinance institutions became banks, cooperatives, credit unions, and other players that were trying to work on some similar issues with the same communities. In other words, it was a bigger discussion.
We then found other players like mobile operators and the card companies becoming interested in financial inclusion, or becoming interested in businesses that will probably expand financial inclusion. They didn’t come at it with a goal of financial inclusion necessarily, but the work that they’re doing is leading towards that.
So, we realized we needed to convene a wider range of organizations than we had before. And that was the discussion that led us with Accion and CFI to come up with a goal for financial inclusion. With the goal of 2020, it’s hopefully far enough off for us to do something, but it’s not so far off that it seems a pipedream. With the belief that there can be exponential growth using new technology and a much wider range of institutions, it has become an ambitious target for financial inclusion.
Emerging markets and banks
I don’t think that many of the banks that are not already in emerging economy/developing countries are suddenly going to become active. We don’t see new banks or international banks in Dhaka or Chittagong or in Hanoi or Kinshasa. And it is an awareness among local banks too that there is probably another way other than the old model of the bricks and mortars branches to expand access. Read the rest of this entry »
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