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> Posted by Center Staff
Will microfinance continue to be relevant in 2020 and beyond? Should regulators or the industry lead on client protection? Will data analytics replace traditional credit reporting systems?
A new Financial Inclusion 2020 e-magazine explores these three essential questions debate-style, tapping industry leaders from around the world to weigh in with their perspectives.
Microfinance as a development strategy has in the past few years been eclipsed by the excitement around financial inclusion. This transition reflects the recognition that people need a full range of financial services. What does the future hold for microfinance institutions and other players like traditional banks and new fintech companies? Bindu Ananth, Chair of IFMR Trust and IFMR Holdings, Dean Karlan, President of Innovations for Poverty Action, and Liza Guzman, Vice President of Accion share their views.
The ideal balance in client protection is often conceived as a three-legged stool in which regulators, providers, and consumers work at equal levels of responsibility. Globally, regulators have often taken the lead, but initiatives such as the Smart Campaign prove that there is room for providers to move beyond compliance. Is a balanced three-legged stool realistic? Among the debaters are Alok Prasad, Principal Advisor of RBL Bank, Sanjay Sinha, Managing Director of M-CRIL, and Isabelle Barres, Director of the Smart Campaign.
> Posted by Center Staff
What are the most important questions that need to be researched in the financial inclusion arena?
The Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion will soon launch a fellows program to support research and thought leadership in financial inclusion – and we are calling on you to help! The purpose of this program will be to encourage independent researchers and analysts to examine some of the most important challenges in the financial inclusion arena. We plan to select a few priority research topics for fellows to examine.
Here’s where you come in. Below is a list of research topics that members of our Financial Inclusion 2020 team believe need answering. We’re checking in with you – our blog audience – to find out which topics you think are the most important to investigate. Please consider this list a starting point. Give us thumbs up or down on the topics listed, and propose topics of your own. Once we select the top priority questions, we will issue a call for proposals. Meanwhile, we offer this list to provoke a broader conversation about research needed in the financial inclusion field.
You can respond either in the comment block below, or by email to .
Technology-related topics
- Impact of ubiquitous internet access on the business models for financial inclusion. By 2020, the vast majority of the world’s people will have access to internet through smart phones and tablets. Internet access could transform the way financial service providers and customers interact and facilitate a richer interface with customers. What scenarios are possible and are providers ready to respond?
- Under what conditions do “on-ramps” lead to deeper inclusion? With the World Bank’s commitment to Universal Financial Access focused on connecting people to transaction accounts, the next question is how (and whether) such connections lead to active account usage or access to additional products. What are the cases of successful access expansion that have led to deeper inclusion and why did they succeed?
> Posted by Anita Gardeva, Senior Analyst, CFI
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.”
“Big data.” This is the buzzword for the use of the unprecedented amounts of information about individuals, their actions, and their preferences that is now becoming available through electronic transactions. This information has the potential to unlock powerful transformations in both the business and policy worlds.
At the Center, many members of our Financial Inclusion 2020 campaign point to the potential of “big data” throughout our consultative process to build a roadmap to inclusion. There is a general consensus that data analytics will change the face of financial inclusion in far-reaching ways. Analysis of big data can improve the operations of financial services providers to expand access, decrease costs, and improve products. It can also result in smarter policies. Below we break out four ways data analytics can play a role in advancing financial inclusion:
> Posted by Steve Wright, Director, Social Performance Management Center, Grameen Foundation and Kate Griffin, Director, Solutions for the Poorest, Grameen Foundation
In the recent New York Times article, “How Companies Learn your Secrets”, Charles Duhigg discusses how companies can use demographics and data on personal consumption behavior to manipulate shopping habits and attract new customers. Target, for example, can predict if a customer is pregnant, what trimester she is in, and, with this information, target baby-related advertisements to her. For many consumers, this use of “big data” (very large and complex data sets and the analytics to mine them), seems like an unacceptable intrusion of privacy. For many of us working in microfinance and development, this concept produces a reflexive “Eewww,” probably because our goals are much less about directing consumption through marketing than they are about increasing the opportunity and capacity to consume.
Despite this initial reaction to the manipulation of customer data to drive profits, the use of big data can actually prove very effective for the fields of microfinance and financial inclusion. At Grameen Foundation, we strive to: 1) examine large datasets to find relevant patterns and leverage opportunities, and 2) build tools and systems that use data to enable the poor to improve their quality of life. Read the rest of this entry »
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