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> Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Assistant, CFI
Peru ranks as the developing country with the best environment for microfinance, followed by Bolivia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Kenya, in that order. Latin America and the Caribbean is ranked as the best region in the world for microfinance, followed by Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and lastly the Middle East and North Africa. Globally, the microfinance industry is improving, fueled largely by an increase in credit bureaus, improving client protection, and the spread of regulatory frameworks for mobile banking.
These are a few of the big takeaways from the Global Microscope on the Microfinance Business Environment 2013, which was launched yesterday in Guadalajara at the IDB’s 2013 Foromic conference. Now in its seventh year, the Global Microscope annual series examines the environment for microfinance – and increasingly financial inclusion – by considering the national regulatory environment and the corresponding institutional framework.
Originally developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit in collaboration with the Multilateral Investment Fund and CAF, this year’s study is also sponsored by Citi Microfinance and CFI. This year’s report scores 55 countries, and in general, the global picture is promising. Since last year, 30 countries improved their scores, 19 fell back, and the scores of six countries remained the same. The majority of improvements this year came from advancements in institutional frameworks. The scores for regulatory framework and practices mostly declined.
As a region, Latin America and the Caribbean countries claimed half the slots in the global top ten, with Peru maintaining its previous ranking as the top country in part through improvements in regulation for mobile banking. Unlike the rising score for Peru, Bolivia’s score fell, due to restrictive new legislation, although not far enough to dislodge Bolivia from its number 2 ranking.
> Posted by Center Staff
Today, we’re excited to announce that Michael Corbat, CEO of Citi and Ajay Banga, CEO of MasterCard will attend and deliver remarks at the Financial Inclusion 2020 Global Forum. Taking place in London on October 28-30, 2013, the Forum is a one-time event that will promote a global agenda for bringing about the financial inclusion of more than 2 billion people around the world, using the year 2020 as a focal point.
Other confirmed speakers to date include:
- Shamshad Akhtar, Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations
- Matthew Bishop, U.S. Business Editor and New York Bureau Chief, The Economist
- Cherie Blair, Founder, the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women
- Elizabeth Buse, Global Executive, Solutions, Visa Inc.
- Sendhil Mullainathan, Professor of Economics at Harvard
- Duvvuri Subbarao, former Governor of Reserve Bank of India
Organized in partnership with Citi, Visa Inc., MasterCard, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Western Union Foundation, MetLife Foundation, and the Financial Times, the Global Forum is a unique opportunity to engage a broad range of players in financial inclusion through a collaborative environment. The Forum will build on the project’s two-year efforts and unveil recommendations from the Roadmap for Financial Inclusion that outlines the most important steps to advance financial inclusion in 2014 and beyond.
“We are thrilled and grateful to have the support of such a wide range of high-level participants at the Global Forum,” said Elisabeth Rhyne, Managing Director of CFI. “The breadth of involvement – from across the private and public sectors – demonstrates the broad support of Financial Inclusion 2020 and the fact that reaching full global financial inclusion will require the combined efforts of all stakeholders.”
> Posted by Isobel Coleman, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy, Director of the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative, the Council on Foreign Relations
The following post was originally published on Democracy in Development, Coleman’s CFR blog.
Imagine life without a bank account. Completing a simple financial transaction can require traveling a distance, incurring expenses, and losing precious income. Savings are more difficult to track and certainly don’t earn interest. Theft or loss of the proverbial “cookie jar” is a constant worry. Indeed, studies show that informal savers lose as much as 25 percent of their hard-earned cash each year due to theft and loss. Yet for over 2.5 billion people globally, this inconvenient, inefficient, and expensive reality is the case.
There are many reasons to believe that the number of unbanked people will shrink significantly in years to come, with important positive implications for economic growth and poverty reduction. First, grassroots and country-level efforts, both nonprofit and for-profit, are already showing how “unbanked” doesn’t have to be the status quo—and these efforts are greatly facilitated by mobile phones. Kenya is well-known for the widespread use of its mobile money system M-Pesa, which allows people to pay for goods and services through cell phones instead of with cash. Started in 2007, M-Pesa has already been used by the vast majority of Kenya’s adults.
Second, major financial institutions are supporting efforts to give more of the world’s population access to bank accounts and standard financial tools. Last summer, I wrote about Visa’s purchase of the mobile payments system Fundamo and the collaboration between USAID and Citi to expand financial inclusion, a promising instance of big financial institutions bringing their resources to bear on closing the financial inclusion gap.
> Posted by Jasmine Thomas, Program Officer for International Financial Capability & Asset Building, Citi Foundation
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.”
Lately, I’ve reflected upon the motto of a former clothing retailer that operated in the U.S.— “An educated consumer is our best customer.” In recent years, more NGOs, microfinance institutions, and financial service providers are beginning to embrace this notion. They are devoting more resources to building the financial skills of low-income microfinance clients and small savers, and increasing knowledge in the field about what helps them maintain positive financial behaviors.
Saving for the Big Day
So, does investing in the financial capability of clients really benefit both service providers and clients? Women’s World Banking and SEWA Bank in India believed that both investing in and ensuring that clients’ financial needs and goals were met would produce social and economic benefits for the institution and the clients. With our support, the organizations implemented Project Samruddhi to test this theory by embedding financial education within their core banking operations. To support clients’ efficacy, saathis, or bank agents, were taught how to embed short, concrete financial education messages in routine client banking interactions and services.
SEWA Bank and WWB also designed and launched a savings product that targeted clients’ specific financial goals, like paying for a daughter’s wedding. Each client established a savings plan, including the total amount needed as well as the frequency of deposits. A mobile phone app enabled clients with low literacy skills to visually see how their savings accumulated with each transaction. These regular graphic visuals of their progress fueled their motivation and sense of empowerment to continue saving to meet their goal. To measure client results, WWB assessed teller-client interactions, bank transactions, and client feedback.
> Posted by Adriana Magdas, Senior Associate, CFI
The Financial Inclusion 2020 campaign at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion is building a movement toward full financial inclusion by 2020. This blog series spotlights financial inclusion efforts around the globe, shares insights from the FI2020 consultative process and highlights findings from “Mapping the Invisible Market.”
A sneak-peek version of the early findings from the Roadmap to Financial Inclusion is now available on our website. Developed through a consultative process of more than 40 experts spanning the public and private sectors, these key messages suggest what stakeholders across industries and regions should do to take action and advance financial inclusion considerably in the next decade.
They answer questions such as: what role can technology providers play in increasing the financial capability of clients in the regions where they operate? How can providers and consumer groups develop means for clients to raise their own voices?
The focus areas of these early findings are based on the seven-point priority action agenda identified by the CFI in 2011 through the Opportunities and Obstacles to Financial Inclusion survey of industry practitioners, donors, and investors. They are as follows: Read the rest of this entry »
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