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> Posted by Shameran Abed, Director, BRAC Microfinance Program
Shameran Abed, BRAC’s Director of Microfinance, joined the Microfinance CEO Working Group in January. He joins the Working Group’s efforts to support the positive development of the microfinance industry and brings tremendous insight into the discussion on pathways out of poverty.
This month, the results from six randomized control trials (RCTs), published in Science magazine highlighted a model of development that is an adaptable and exportable solution able to raise households from the worst forms of destitution and put them onto a pathway of self-reliance. The graduation approach – financial services integrated within a broader set of wrap-around services – is gaining steady recognition for its astonishing ability to transform the lives of the poorest.
These findings can be contrasted with the results of six RCTs published in January by the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, which cited limited evidence of “microcredit” alone transforming the lives of the poor.
> Posted by Danielle Piskadlo, Manager, Investing in Inclusive Finance, CFI
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Shakespeare asked, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Having recently married and changed my last name, I can attest that there is a refreshing feeling that comes with a new name and clean slate. It is an opportunity to leave the past in the past and start anew.
Starting fresh with a new name must be especially freeing if the past was not a sweet smelling rose. According to a recent report, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) is cracking down on MFIs that repeatedly change their names to cover their tracks after they have duped members of the public. Raymond Amanfu, the Head of Other Financial Institutions Department of the Bank of Ghana reports, “Every day, I get at least five applications from companies wanting to change their names….Quite a number of them are actually messed up and want to clean up by changing their name.”
> Posted by Caitlin Sanford, Bankable Frontier Associates
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As smart phones become much more affordable and digital solutions for the poor transition to app form, the burden is on new products to build trust and enable learning through intuitive interfaces designed particularly for this segment.
Marc Prensky coined the term digital immigrants to describe people who, as opposed to young digital natives, did not grow up immersed in technology from a young age. Mastering quickly changing technologies is a challenge for educated, fairly computer literate people. So, what is the experience like for digital immigrants who have learned all they know about technology from a basic Nokia phone?
> Posted by Merene Botsio, Financial Inclusion 2020 Project Coordinator, CFI
The Financial Inclusion 2020 project 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.”
A fitting final FI2020 blog post for me, focuses on my beloved country, Ghana. Hailed as one of sub-Saharan Africa’s shining stars and recently categorized by the World Bank as a lower middle income country, Ghana has been growing at a steady pace. GDP grew an impressive 15 percent in 2011 and 7.9 percent in 2012. Per capita income for all income quintiles is set to increase by approximately two-thirds by the year 2020. However, one question that plagues me, as I return home each year to new skyscrapers, apartment complexes and more gleaming cars, is how the financial needs of the up-and-coming middle and vulnerable income classes and people at the bottom of the pyramid are met. Currently, only 29 percent of Ghanaians have bank accounts, 37 percent have savings accounts, and 35 percent have access to credit.
Graciously, the Head of the Banking Department at the Bank of Ghana (BOG), with responsibility for formulation of policy for Financial Inclusion, Mrs. Elly Ohene-Adu, granted me an interview, to discuss the state of financial inclusion in Ghana:
> Posted by Brigit Helms, Director, Support Program for Enterprise and Economic Development (SPEED)
It’s hard to imagine a more explosive, transformative, and empowering trend than the growth of the mobile phone sector in Africa. In 1998 there were fewer than 4 million phones on the continent; today there are around 800 million—a whopping 80 percent penetration. Compare this to the meager 24 percent of African adults with bank accounts. Experts expect there will be around 1.1 billion mobile phone subscribers by 2017.
Women likely will be at the forefront of this future growth in mobile access in Africa (and elsewhere), globally accounting for two-thirds of new subscribers. According to the Cherie Blair Foundation, the gender gap in Africa alone is a $2 billion business opportunity.
At the same time, the potential for mobile money is indeed dazzling. The Kenya example continues to dazzle us, with 21 million active users, more than 60,000 agents (many of whom are women), and mobile money deposits of KSh 226 billion, surpassing the deposit base of the country’s largest commercial bank, Kenya Commercial Bank.
With all this promise, the potential is unrealized outside of a few countries. Why? The answer is complex, but fundamentally it’s because mobile money operators systematically underinvest in two things: understanding the market and building the agent network.
As it turns out, both of these things are critical for connecting women with mobile financial services. Once we crack the problem of women’s access to financial services, their households and communities will follow shortly thereafter.
> Posted by Arielle Salomon, Account Manager, Entrepreneurial Finance Lab
Providing financial services to entrepreneurs is a challenging operation in developing countries where small businesses may be isolated in a rural village without reliable roads or internet coverage. Service providers must pay the high costs of employing staff to reach out to remote villages while capturing limited revenue from small-scale products. Yet entrepreneurs in these regions need tools like credit and insurance to make investments and grow their businesses as just as do their counterparts in more developed regions.
Mobile phones are changing the financial landscape helping to expand the possibilities of service models. With novel mobile solutions to bridge the financial access gap, innovators can provide entrepreneurs with new tools and opportunities to support their businesses.
Here are a few cutting-edge models rendering financial services more portable:
Portable Bank. Opportunity International (OI) is putting its bank on wheels. With a portable bank that offers savings, loans, and other such financial services regularly circulating within walking distance of clients’ farms or small businesses, entrepreneurs do not have to miss out on business to trek to the bank. OI is developing these portable bank branches in locations around the world. OI also offers electronic wallets that allow customers to make deposits on mobile phones. With this cashless solution, the bank reduces both the risk of client theft/robbery and also the likelihood of staff fraud. OI’s electric wallets are currently in use in Malawi and seven other African countries.
Portable Credit. The Entrepreneurial Finance Lab (EFL) is helping banks, MFIs, and other partners improve operations with portable technology. Not only can loan officers complete credit applications electronically on a mobile phone or tablet, but they can also collect photos and the precise location of their clients with the use of mobile GPS. With near-real-time scoring of the EFL Tool, an application that captures the ability and willingness of customers to repay a loan, banks have the opportunity to pre-approve clients on the spot. The improved efficiency of automated data collection and credit assessment decreases service turnaround time and increases credit access. The EFL Tool has been used in over 20 countries to date and has processed over 50,000 credit applications. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Assistant, CFI
In this decade, Africa is undergoing urbanization at a faster rate than Latin America, Asia, or anywhere else in the world. In these burgeoning areas, the majority of people are building their own housing, and doing so in an incremental fashion – adding what they can, when they can, and developing their facilities as their means allow.
There are a few big challenges to this. In Africa’s urban centers, there is a limited supply of affordable housing, and financial services to aid housing development are also scarce. Global Findex Data indicate that access to and usage of credit in sub-Saharan Africa is among the lowest in the world. Specifically looking at mortgages, a recent study from FinMark Trust revealed that across the populations of Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, and Tanzania, less than 1.5 percent of individuals utilize mortgages.
Enter microfinance. Typical mortgages don’t fit well with the financial profile of most Africans. Compared to microloans, they’re generally for longer terms, larger amounts, and they are less flexible. Most mortgages require clients to provide documentation of regular incomes. Many Africans operate in the informal sector and lack regular income streams. In Tanzania, for example, only 28 percent of the population is able to satisfy this income requirement.
> Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Assistant, CFI
There are endless ways to measure the successes of a given year. Number of clients reached. Total new stakeholder endorsement. Amount of capital invested… Though when assessing almost anything, it’s important to think holistically and not be biased by the numbers. That said, I think I can speak for most of the Center in saying that we are excited to share that several CFI-affiliated publications were among the Microfinance Gateway’s Most Popular Publications of 2012. No small feat considering 546 new resources were added to the Gateway this past year. Here’s a brief listing of the CFI pubs that made this top cut:
Over-Indebtedness in Microfinance: An Empirical Analysis of Related Factors on the Borrower Level
This paper by Jessica Schicks analyses the over-indebtedness of microborrowers in Ghana, examining its relationship with poverty, adverse shocks, loan returns, and financial literacy. In defining over-indebtedness, the paper adopts a client perspective, taking into account clients’ repayment struggles and the sacrifices they make to fulfill payment obligations. Some of the paper’s findings are the following: Read the rest of this entry »
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