You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Banco Azteca’ tag.
> Posted by Shaheen Hasan, Manager, FI2020 at CFI
The “customer centricity” mantra has become a common refrain among donors, policymakers, practitioners, and providers working on financial inclusion. Indeed we would be hard-pressed to find anyone working in the sector who wouldn’t identify him or herself as focused on customer needs. In the Addressing Customer Needs section of the Financial Inclusion 2020 Progress Report, however, we report that the number of financial service providers who are actually investing in and implementing these ideas at a scalable level are still few and far between. Although the truly customer-centric organizations are in the minority, we found a host of good examples, and we highlight some examples we like in the report.
A critical element of addressing customer needs is building the right consumer insights infrastructure to gather and translate data into better product offerings and the targeting of new market segments. Organizations use a multitude of methods to assemble insights. Some players, such as Equity Bank in Kenya and Tigo in multiple countries have built up in-house research capabilities. Banco Azteca in Mexico, for example, has one of the most sophisticated market research systems to amass and analyze information on customers. It has used that information to build up a clientele of millions of savers, borrowers, remittance receivers (and some senders), and insurance policy holders. Janalakshmi, an Indian microfinance institution, with the support of CGAP, developed a tool, Kaleido, which utilizes its front-line staff to get a “360 degree” view of a household, providing a rich source of data for developing new products as well as assessing the financial progress of a household.
With increasing availability of data on client behavior and new techniques to analyze that data, there is a rich wellspring to mine for insights relevant to market segmentation, product design, and delivery improvements.
> Posted by Elizabeth Davidson, Financial Inclusion 2020 Consultant
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.”
Does Walmart pose a threat to banks? Some bankers are apparently worried the retailer indeed does. As Bloomberg recently uncovered, a group of bankers that advises the Federal Reserve asked U.S. regulators to keep Walmart out of the financial services business, or at least strictly limit and regulate their financial services-related products, including its established prepaid card business. Offered in partnership with American Express, the prepaid cards, known as Bluebird, are even marketed as a “checking and debit alternative.” The bankers’ group, called the Federal Advisory Council, thinks they are not just an alternative to traditional financial services, but a bona fide financial service in a “shadow banking” system that enjoys less regulation than traditional commercial banks.
So, is Walmart a real threat to the traditional sector? Maybe, but it and other big retailers could have the potential to reach those excluded from or underserved by traditional commercial financial services.
Consider the example of Banco Azteca in Mexico.
Banco Azteca, which CFI’s Elisabeth Rhyne called a “mega-success story” in terms of its reach and to whom the Inter-American Development Bank recently awarded its “equalBanking” prize for support of diversity and gender equality through financial services to the base of the pyramid, has a much different beginning than most banks: it grew out of one of Mexico’s largest consumer goods retailers, Grupo Elektra. After almost 50 years of experience offering consumer financing to its working class customers, the retail chain opened Banco Azteca branches—notably, after receiving a banking license—in all of its existing stores, establishing Mexico’s second largest network of bank branches almost overnight.
Facebook
Twitter
Recent Comments