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> Posted by Center Staff
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A new paper from MasterCard corroborates recent findings on persistent gaps in the financial inclusion of women, indicating that in India 58 percent of women report difficulty accessing credit, savings, or jobs because of their gender. The paper is part of MasterCard’s Connectors Project, which examines the migration of excluded populations into progressive economic inclusion. The recently-released Global Findex data found that between 2011 and 2014, the gender gap in access to financial services remained steady at 9 percent in developing countries.
The reported difficulty faced by women in India was higher than that of the paper’s other surveyed countries: Indonesia, Egypt, and Mexico. Across all four countries, 33 percent of women expressed these challenges. Across all genders, in India, 67 percent of respondents reported worrying about money they owe to others and 82 percent worry about their future prospects. Along with women, ethnic and religious minorities in India reported additional challenges in economic participation. Fifty-eight percent said it was difficult to get jobs or credit because of their ethnicity or religion – compared with 28 percent across the surveyed countries. Whether or not these women and ethnic/religious minorities do in fact face discriminatory treatment, awareness of their perception is critical. In accessing banking services for the first time, or pursuing economic opportunities, trust and confidence can be a make-or-break.
> Posted by Julia Arnold, Research Consultant
After two weeks of speaking with bank and microfinance institution staff, entrepreneurs, social investors, policymakers, and tech companies in India, my once clear understanding of how to build financial capability has now been completely scrambled. Building financial capability – that is, helping clients change (knowledge, skills, and ultimately behaviors) to make good financial choices – has taken on many layers of complexity and challenges in the context of, and in the face of, the realities of India’s poorest people.
But that is, of course, the fun of travel.
To briefly put India’s banking services in context – many villages in rural India still do not have a bank. According to the latest World Bank Findex data, half of rural Indians and nearly half of all Indians remain completely unbanked. Even if a bank exists in a village, social constraints often prohibit women from using it due to both limited mobility and lack of knowledge about and decision-making power over household finances. Basic access and usage of mobile phones remains limited. From my own earlier research with Cashpor Microcredit, I know that numeracy and literacy, as well as access, remain barriers for women to save with mobile technology.
> Posted by Center Staff
The scale of the unmet financing needs of older adults around the world – and especially in lower and middle-income countries – is so significant that if unaddressed, it won’t just be each generation as it enters the later years that pays the price. It’ll be their families, healthcare systems, governments, and societies writ large, too. In India, for example, only 12 percent of the population has any sort of pension. A rapidly growing demographic, within 25 years, the percent of the world’s population over 60 will nearly double.
Recent progress does deserve mention. Just a few days ago, on the heels of last year’s launch of the Jan Dhan Yojana national financial inclusion strategy, India’s central government unveiled three new contributory social security schemes for pensions, life insurance, and disability insurance. Our hope is that these new programs are hugely successful and prove demonstrative for other countries to follow.
> Posted by María José Roa Garcia, Researcher, Centro de Estudios Monetarios Latinoamericanos (CEMLA)
Reports on the financial stability of emerging countries indicate that non-traditional institutions advancing financial inclusion are increasingly important. The contemporary financial services landscape in many markets includes new financial inclusion instruments such as electronic and mobile phone-based banking. For these newer entrants and many credit-offering institutions, the governing regulatory frameworks are either non-existent or much looser than those for formally-constituted banking institutions.
Does this lack of oversight affect market stability?
In reviewing the recent studies on the possible links between financial stability and inclusion, although additional research and analysis is required, it is shown that greater access to and use of formal financial intermediaries might reduce financial instability. As for why, the studies point to six reasons:
- More diversified funding base of financial institutions
- More extensive and efficient savings intermediation
- Improved capacity of households to manage vulnerabilities and shocks
- A more stable base of retail deposits
- Restricting the presence of a large informal sector
- Facilitating the reduction of income inequality, thereby allowing for greater political and social stability
The principal definitions of financial stability support this notion. Institutions that carry out financial inclusion activities help develop effective intermediation of resources and diversify risk, which are essential elements in supporting sustainable markets.
> Posted by Magauta Mphahlele, CEO, National Debt Mediation Association (NDMA)
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Overall, 2014 was not a good year for South African consumers of credit. Evidence of this is based on statistics from the banking regulators as well as the casework compiled through the work of the National Debt Mediation Association (NDMA) with individuals and mineworkers employed by two of the largest mining companies in South Africa.
The South African economy has remained stagnant, contributing to strikes and retrenchments across the board, especially in the mining sector. For those consumers who were lucky not to be retrenched, factors, such as price inflation, a freeze on bonuses, reduced commissions, and personal circumstances like illness, divorce, and death in the family put pressure on their finances leading many to default on their debt repayments. Despite several regulatory initiatives and interventions, the results of the December 2014 National Credit Regulator (NCR) Credit Bureau Monitor showed that the number of credit active consumers was 22.84 million and of these, 10.6 million (46 percent) have impaired records.
> Posted by Center Staff
Unless you’re with one of the few organizations working to combat youth financial exclusion, you probably don’t hear much about the issue. A few weeks ago, the world celebrated Global Money Week, which is gaining encouraging participation and engagement. Sadly, aside from this annual blitz of activity, there isn’t much in the airwaves on expanding financial access to this hugely underserved client segment. According to the Global Findex, in higher-income countries, 42 percent of youth save in financial institutions. The next highest regions are East Asia & Pacific and sub-Saharan Africa, where this rate is 19 and 9 percent respectively. During our youth, financial services and financial education help us save for the future, form good money management behaviors, and navigate life transitions like getting an education and starting a family.
The MasterCard Foundation, as spotlighted in a recently released report, has been quietly busy these past seven years working to address this shortcoming. Since 2008, the Foundation in partnership with six organizations has worked with over 30 financial services providers and non-profits to expand youth access to banking services. The new report, Financial Services for Young People: Prospects and Challenges, reviews the MasterCard Foundation’s youth financial inclusion projects for insights and learning to inform future industry efforts.
> Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Associate, CFI
Coinciding with this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, GSMA’s Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) program released its fourth annual ‘State of the Industry Report on Mobile Financial Services.’ I talked with Jennifer Frydrych, Insights Coordinator for the MMU program and one of the authors on the report, about the project’s findings. The conversation touched on new markets, shifts in the mobile payments mix, successes with products beyond payments, the main hurdles facing mobile money ecosystems, and more.
1. The mobile money industry has grown rapidly in recent years. Can you bring us up to date with some of the growth figures and dynamics?
In the past five years, mobile money services have spread across much of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. At the end of 2014, there were 255 live mobile money services across 89 markets, 36 more than in 2013. Mobile money is now available in 61 percent of developing markets globally. In terms of adoption and usage growth, 75 million additional mobile money accounts were opened globally in 2014, bringing the total number of registered accounts to 299 million. Importantly, account activity increased faster than account registration in 2014, and the total number of active mobile money accounts is now 103 million (up from 73 million in 2013). An increasing number of services are reaching scale: 21 services now have more than one million active accounts.
2. As of the last State of the Industry report, half of all live mobile money deployments were in sub-Saharan Africa. How has this distribution changed? What were some new or emerging markets of the past year?
There were 22 new services launches in 2014, of which half occurred in sub-Saharan Africa. The mobile money industry in sub-Saharan Africa continues to grow, and the region still accounts for just over half of all live services globally, and 60 percent of all active accounts. Much of this success can be attributed to East Africa; however we are now seeing exciting growth in mobile money uptake and active usage in West Africa.
> Posted by Abhishek Agrawal, India Country Director, Accion, and Victoria White, Senior Vice President and Asia Regional Head, Accion
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In November 2013, Dr. Raghuram Rajan was appointed Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). In his maiden speech, he announced plans to issue differentiated banking licenses. He spoke about his intention of creating significant reforms in the banking system around priority sector lending, payment systems, and the drive towards a cashless economy, among other areas. Within two months of this speech, the RBI published what has become known as the Mor Committee report, supporting plans for differentiated licenses; and in a record setting 10 months, the RBI finalized the guidelines and invited applications for differentiated bank licenses for small finance banks and payment banks.
At the February 2 deadline, the RBI had received 72 applicants in the small finance bank category and 41 for payment banks. The stated objective of both types of banks is to further financial inclusion. For small finance banks, this is to be accomplished through the mobilization of credit and savings to underserved segments of the population. The relatively low minimum capital requirement (approximately $16 million, versus the $80 million required for banks) offers a much more feasible option for MFIs seeking to offer more than the traditional credit-only product offering. Likewise, payment banks (which will also have a minimum capital of $16 million) will be authorized to provide small savings accounts and payments/remittance services to this same underserved market segment. This option offers a tremendous opportunity to expand product offerings for those already active in the payment space.
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> Posted by Sonja Kelly, Fellow, CFI
Since the release of our paper, Aging and Financial Inclusion: An Opportunity, I have been considering the challenge of market segmentation using the life course. This is not unexplored terrain at the Center for Financial Inclusion. Beth Rhyne articulated a life course approach during our Looking Through the Demographic Window project, which we have captured in the infographic embedded at right. I have been hearing from microfinance institutions that some efforts are underway to segment clients by their life stage, though this remains a relatively untouched area in the industry. For a great example of segmentation, however, I only had to look to the spam filter on my email.
Most of the emails that get caught in my spam filter are about body image. I receive messages advertising dieting pills, on the one quick fix to reduce belly fat (you won’t believe which celebrities use it!), and how to get toned abs within a week. This makes sense—I work out regularly, and I (try to) watch what I eat. The emails are tailored to me.
In chatting with my colleagues, I find that they also receive targeted emails. Some women in our office who are older than me receive emails for walk-in tubs. Singles get emails that point them to dating websites. Some of the younger men in our office get emails that refer to “satisfying” their girlfriends. And the spam filters of older men in our office collect emails about (ahem) performance-enhancing pills.
These are, of course, gross generalizations—the life course cannot possibly be reduced to dieting, walk-in tubs, and bedroom performance. But why is it that the email caught in my spam filter is more skilled at customer segmentation using the life course than my financial institution’s product line? Even more than being successful at segmenting a potential client base, spam marketers are successful at moving this potential client base to action, according to MailChimp. They have a simple message and a call to action. Their “click rates,” or the rate at which people click on links, are higher than average.
> Posted by Center Staff
Last week Aging and Financial Inclusion: An Opportunity was released, a new FI2020 report from CFI and HelpAge International supported by MetLife Foundation. The report examines the unmet financing needs of older adults, an area of increasing importance as global demographic shifts see the rapid expansion of this population segment. Within 25 years, the percent of the world’s population over age 60 will nearly double.
As part of the report’s launch, HelpAge International’s Head of Policy Eppu Mikkonen-Jeanneret, MetLife Foundation’s Financial Inclusion Lead Evelyn Stark, and CFI’s Managing Director Elisabeth Rhyne sat down to discuss the project and its findings. The conversation, among its topics, touched on the scale of the demographic shifts at hand, the opportunities in these changes, where we are with pension services, and action areas for policymakers, providers, and support organizations.
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