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> Posted by Elisabeth Rhyne, with input from Liza Guzman and Leonardo Tibaquira of Accion
Accion has made a concerted effort over the past few years to promote savings among its partners and affiliates around the world, and those organizations have racked up some impressive statistics. There are 2.9 million savers using the 17 financial institutions associated with Accion that have savings operations, and the total amount on deposit is nearly $4 billion (data as of September 2013). The average savings amount, at $1,376, is uncannily similar to the average loan, $1,460.
But behind these numbers lies a very different story that reflects deep-seated cultural differences in the approach to savings among Latin American and African microfinance institutions – and their customers.
Several of Accion’s Latin American partners are mature commercial banks or finance companies that started with a strong microcredit orientation and subsequently gained the approval to accept deposits. At this point, several have somewhat more savers than borrowers, and loan portfolios mainly funded by deposits. As would be expected, average loan sizes are several times the size of average savings.
On the surface, Accion’s four newer and smaller partners in Africa look similar, though the ratio of savers to borrowers is higher (5-10 times as many savers as borrowers), and average savings balances are a smaller fraction of average loan sizes. The loan portfolios of two of the four are fully savings-financed; the other two require some outside funding.
Looking more closely at the Latin American institutions, one might at first think that they have reached the elusive goal of offering a balanced set of savings and credit services to their base-of-the-pyramid clients. However, a large portion of the accounts included in the total above are dormant, with balances less than $1. In half the institutions, over 70 percent of the accounts are dormant. Dormancy is prevalent among savings accounts in banks everywhere, but in these institutions the level is higher because many of the accounts were created as loan disbursement and repayment accounts. They were not regarded by either provider or customer as saving vehicles. Despite the large number of accounts, most of the actual savings comes from a relatively small number of term deposits, including large deposits from institutions.
> Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Associate, CFI
Corporate social responsibility or profitability? Why are more and more financial services providers expanding their focus to include banking the unbanked? After all, many of those without formal financial services don’t have incomes to support big or frequently-used products, and their circumstances often present challenges for access, risk, and other services dimensions.
Industry activity in recent years, organizational objectives aside, has demonstrated the potential for sustainable and profitable investment in financial inclusion. Advancements in product design, technology, and risk management, and trends in demographics and incomes are making it increasingly possible for commercial financial services providers, as well as stakeholders in adjacent industries like telcos and technology providers, to support inclusion.
In the following video, global leaders discuss how financial inclusion is not only good for individuals, markets, and countries, but also good business.
> 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.
The Council of Microfinance Equity Funds (CMEF) was recently renamed the Financial Inclusion Equity Council (FIEC) in order to reflect both the evolving nature of the industry and Council membership.
In my recent interview with Jim Kaddaras on the landscape of microfinance equity investing in 2003, it quickly became evident that in some respects much has changed over the past decade, while in other ways many of Jim’s comments still ring very true today.
Different Context:
Since 2003, like the expanding industry, Council membership has both grown in numbers and also changed in composition. For instance, a few direct financial service providers have joined the Council as they have now started to invest equity regionally.
Likewise, as impact investing has become far more mainstream in the last decade, some members (e.g. Triodos Organic Growth Fund and responsAbility Fair Trade Fund) have increasingly started to invest in adjacent impact investments. These investments go beyond traditional microfinance to include agriculture, housing, energy, etc. However, microfinance is still by far the majority of most Council members’ portfolio – and also the main proven model for returns.
In addition to the advent of new adjacent impact investment funds, the Council now increasingly has other “beyond microfinance” topics on its agenda, including disruptive technologies and the incredible potential for mobile banking given the now ubiquitous presence of mobile phones. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Sonja E. Kelly, Fellow, CFI
The U.S. Congress has recently been involved in debate on immigration, a theme also explored in President Obama’s State of the Union Address last week. Such conversations have led me to wonder… what does financial inclusion mean for people who are living outside of their home country?
There has been a marked increase in countries that have released definitions of financial inclusion, national strategies for financial inclusion, and regulations that support financial inclusion. The focus of these efforts is in part determined by how countries define the target population for financial inclusion. Often, financial inclusion is not for everyone.
At the Center for Financial Inclusion, our definition specifies that financial services are “for all who can use them.” For us, age, disability, gender, or citizen status should not keep people from formal financial services.
In the implementation of financial inclusion policy, regulation, and strategy, however, there are legal and security-based concerns affecting why our definition of financial inclusion “for all who can use financial services” isn’t reflected in every definition of financial inclusion. The OECD and the EU, for example, are very clear that financial inclusion is for citizens only. Other countries around the world similarly adopt this definition. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Pina D’Intino, Senior Manager, Scotiabank
The Financial Inclusion 2020 campaign at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion is building a movement toward full financial inclusion by 2020. Accordingly, this blog series will spotlight financial inclusion efforts around the globe, share insights coming out of the creation of a roadmap to full financial inclusion, and highlight findings from research on the “invisible market.”
This post is the second in a series of two posts from Pina on financial inclusion for persons with disabilities. Pina’s first post can be found here.
A study by the Martin Prosperity Institute in Canada estimates the buying power influenced by persons with disabilities (PWDs) is in excess of $US 26 billion in Canada. The same market is estimated to exceed $1 trillion in the United States by 2021. It is clear that PWDs represent a significant market in North America, but I believe they hold similar if not equal potential around the world. The World Health Organization estimates that 15 percent of the world’s population, over 1 billion people worldwide, live with a disability. This number is largely concentrated in developing economies, and is projected to increase considerably as the global population ages – a trend that has been highlighted in CFI’s demographic research. Engaging PWDs is essential when developing policies, standards, or products, or when selecting technologies for providing access to financial services. Otherwise, we risk excluding a population that can be viable consumers of financial products. Most importantly, culture needs to be shifted to embrace and recognize that PWDs have the ability to positively impact economic prosperity and that, along with the rest of society, must have equal access to education, employment, and financial independence.
How can financial services providers make a difference? It’s not rocket science. From including PWDs in the development of products and services, to the selection of technologies that are accessible to PWDs, financial services providers have a diversity of options for taking action and resources for understanding how to do so.
Engaging PWDs in Product Development
Financial services providers would not develop a product without getting input from their consumers. So why not include PWDs in the research conducted for product development or improvement? In Britain, Lloyds Banking Group convened a cross financial services sector focus group comprised of over 25 customer facing organizations and industry/regulatory bodies to discuss how to better respond to the needs of their customers suffering from dementia. After surveying caretakers and consumers, the consensus of the focus group, which included Business Disability Forum Partners: Allianz; Barclays; RBS; Santander; and Members: Aviva; HSBC; Legal and General; and Zurich, resulted in the creation of a charter on dementia-friendly financial services. This charter is intended to help financial services institutions recognize, understand, and respond to the needs of customers living with dementia and their caretakers and is an example of an institution that identified an obstacle in access by current and potential clients, conducted research within that client segment, and found a way to address it.
> Posted by Daniel Rozas, Independent Consultant
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.
When you think about responsible investing, what comes to mind? Finding investment prospects that can deliver social returns? Perhaps diligent monitoring, with an eye to effective governance? How about when you sell an investment? How can investors remain committed to balanced social and financial goals when passing the baton to someone else?
This last question is the focus of a joint project by the Center for Financial Inclusion and CGAP. With several microfinance equity funds approaching maturity, the issue of equity sales is becoming more relevant, and as part of the project, the team has been interviewing many equity investors to understand how they perceive the question of what, exactly, is a responsible exit? A paper detailing the findings of these interviews, The Art of the Responsible Exit in Microfinance Equity Sales, will be released in the coming weeks.
In the course of these interviews, many respondents used the analogy of children growing up. As early-stage or founding investors, they reach a certain point where they have fulfilled their “parental” mission and are no longer best-positioned to provide the MFI what it needs, be it capital, expertise, or market access. From the investor’s perspective, the analogy works. But selling an MFI is less an act of entrusting your child’s future to his or her own good sense, along with whatever wisdom you’ve been able to impart – you are handing the MFI over to somebody else.
> 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.
In 2003, the Council of Microfinance Equity Funds (CMEF) was formed by a handful of equity investors in microfinance with the goal of sharing, developing, and disseminating industry best practices in equity investing.
I recently had the pleasure of catching up with Jim Kaddaras, who was Vice President of Special Projects at Accion from 2001-2003. He was instrumental in launching the CMEF in 2003, and also led the charge on the creation of Accion Investments. Jim is now a Partner at Developing World Markets, and is still a Council member.
Q: What did the landscape of microfinance equity investing look like in 2003?
Jim Kaddaras: It wasn’t much of a landscape – it was more of a scatter shot.
Accion owned stakes in some of their Latin American affiliates and Accion Investments was just launching in 2003. Procredit was a player (they were called IPC back then and their banks had separate names). FINCA had some equity investments and ShoreBank had a smattering of equity holdings.
ProFund had been around since 1995 as the first investment company focused on microfinance equity but it was winding up when the Council started. Africap was just starting, based on the ProFund model. Various other Council members, plus the development finance institutions (DFIs) and several non-profit networks, held a handful of equity investments.
Q: What was the goal of the Council when it was formed?
JK: We felt that by gathering people who had been making equity investments in a one-off way, we could help to develop and disseminate best practices in the field.
> Posted by Fernando Botelho, Founder, F123 Consulting
Microfinance institutions (MFIs) may not be aware of tools and resources at their disposal that can make it easier for them to work with persons with disabilities (PWDs) as clients or staff. A new tool launched a few weeks ago attempts to close this gap, “Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Microfinance through Organizational Learning and the Strategic Use of Low-Cost Technologies.” This tool is part of the Framework for Disability Inclusion toolkit produced by CFI through work with Fundación Paraguaya and others.
Need help? (Braille translation)
The new tool provides concrete guidance for selecting appropriate technologies, forming partnerships with disability-related organizations, and incorporating disability inclusion throughout an organization. It was developed by myself and my organization, F123 Consulting, inspired by our work with the staff of Fundación Paraguaya, to make their organization more disability inclusive.
For example, free and open source assistive technologies can be used by organizations that have an interest in ensuring that operational and financial viability are maintained. In that regard, it’s important to take advantage of the many available low-cost, high performing technologies, and to adapt instead of replace existing processes whenever possible. Managers don’t have to roll their eyes and fret about cost. Small modifications to already existing systems can often make MFIs accessible to staff and clients with disabilities. And the best part is that some of these modifications are free!
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