thanks for putting this data out publicly. The timing couldn’t be better. Over at e-MFP, we’ll very shortly be publishing a paper on empty/dormant savings accounts (http://www.blog.e-mfp.eu/blog/are-mfis-overstating-savings-outreach). We found that some 50-75% of MFI savings accounts are empty, which greatly skews outreach figures. The research is based on an algorithm we developed to extrapolate the number of empty accounts using stratified savings data from banks, credit unions and MFIs in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, and in several countries in Africa. While the data is by no means representative of the entire sector (e.g. in Asia, things are quite different, as they are also in some African institutions), the relative consistency of the findings suggests that empty accounts are indeed widespread.

Since savings is a core component of financial access, our hope at e-MFP is that this focus will help encourage the sector towards better reporting of savings accounts.

Daniel

I thought your readers might want to see how one institution I am familiar with reports on its savings:

http://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/savings-and-term-deposits.pdf

This particular MFI offers accounts in either USD or the local currency and it offers both regular savings and term accounts. The analysis gets at a couple of your concerns:

1. It classifies the number and total value of savings accounts classified as active, inactive, dormant, or collateral accounts. Inactive accounts forewarn managers that accounts are on their way to dormancy.

2. It looks at the number and total balance in the accounts as a function of the account size. In this MFI’s case, the minimum USD balance is $5 and the minimum in local currency is about $0.57. About 34% of the USD accounts have less than $10, while about 53% of the local currency accounts have less than $2.28.

3. Of course, it also tracks the average balance, which is $784 in USD regular savings and $53 in the local currency accounts.

Especially when one can analyze this type of information by branch over time in order to see the trends, it can be an important management tool.