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> Posted by Juan Blanco, Associate, Financial Inclusion 2020, CFI
In Latin America and the Caribbean, approximately 40 percent of families live in houses to which they have no title or that lack sewage systems, water, electricity, or proper building materials, according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). However, current annual investments in living solutions by the base of the pyramid in LAC total $56.7 billion, confirming the increasing buying power of this segment and the growing opportunity in developing housing finance business models.
A few weeks ago I attended an event hosted by the IDB to launch the report Many Paths to a Home: Emerging Business Models for Latin America and the Caribbean’s Base of the Pyramid. The report was written by Christy Stickney for the Opportunities for the Majority Initiative (OMJ), a part of the Private Sector Group of the Inter-American Development Bank. OMJ provides finance to small, medium-sized, and large companies, as well as financial institutions and funds to support the development and expansion of business models that serve BoP markets.
The report analyses cases within OMJ’s housing portfolio in countries such as Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Peru. Stickney found two main housing solutions for the BoP, a “complete” housing solution and an “incremental” housing solution.
> Posted by Verónica Trujillo Tejada, Consultant, MIF/ Inter-American Development Bank
Building up a regulatory framework for the development of a microfinance market is a complex task. It requires taking into account a broad variety of topics as well as country specific needs and features. There are some internationally-applicable recommendations for the design of microfinance regulatory frameworks (CGAP 2012, ASBA 2010, and Basel 2010) but little is known about how different countries have implemented their guidelines or what the effects are of these rules in each market.
In the recently released paper “Microfinance Regulation and Market Development in Latin America,” published by the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, we analyze the relationship between microfinance regulatory frameworks in 17 Latin American countries and the corresponding markets’ levels of development.
One way to characterize microfinance regulations is as either general or specific rules. The general rules are devoted to regulating typical financial system issues, while the specific rules target microfinance products or institutions. Two other regulation classifications are protection rules and promotion rules. Protection rules have the goal of preserving financial system stability or protecting the financial consumer, and promotion rules aim to favor the development of microfinance services or institutions by softening the restrictiveness of the overall regulatory framework.
> Posted by Elisabeth Rhyne, Managing Director, CFI
The following post was originally published on USAID’s microlinks.
Elisabeth Rhyne joined USAID shortly after the seminal PISCES (Program of Investment in the Small Capital Enterprise Sector) studies were completed in the 1980s. From 1994 to 1998, she was the Director of USAID’s Office of Microenterprise Development, where she developed and led USAID’s Microenterprise Initiative.
The breakthrough innovations that sparked the birth of microenterprise credit in Latin America occurred in the early 1980s, and USAID was very much the driving force. Through PISCES, the Program for Investment in the Small Capital Enterprise Sector, operational from 1979 to 1985, USAID and its partner organizations began to discover the principles of success for lending to the poor, opening the way for the microfinance industry.
To understand the origins of this microfinance strategy, it helps to visualize PISCES at a time when three streams of thought came together. First was the “Spring Review” on directed agricultural credit carried out by the rural finance gurus of Ohio State University, Dale Adams and Claudio Gonzalez Vega, with J.D. von Pischke of the World Bank. Their work revealed the waste and dysfunction of subsidized agricultural credit doled out by bankrupt government credit banks. These banks were swallowing hundreds of millions of development dollars annually. The Ohio State team’s manifesto was that financial institutions must make credit decisions based on risk assessments, not politics, and charge interest rates that would allow operations to be sustainable. That review launched a gradual shift by USAID, the World Bank, and other aid agencies away from public development banks. But, if public development banks were sidelined, who would serve the poor?
At the same time research mainly by the International Labor Organization (ILO) revealed the importance of the “informal sector,” small-scale businesses operated by low-income households. These were especially important in urban areas as a source of livelihood for a vast portion, and sometimes even the majority, of the poor in developing countries. (Why this was a revelation was a mystery to me – one has only to stroll through the poor areas of a developing country to see the scale of the informal sector.) The ILO’s work excited the interest of USAID’s Office of Urban Development. Michael Farbman and his colleagues there wanted to figure out how development organizations could assist the proprietors of small and microenterprises to improve their businesses and work their way out of poverty.
> Posted by Elisabeth Rhyne, with input from Liza Guzman and Leonardo Tibaquira of Accion
Accion has made a concerted effort over the past few years to promote savings among its partners and affiliates around the world, and those organizations have racked up some impressive statistics. There are 2.9 million savers using the 17 financial institutions associated with Accion that have savings operations, and the total amount on deposit is nearly $4 billion (data as of September 2013). The average savings amount, at $1,376, is uncannily similar to the average loan, $1,460.
But behind these numbers lies a very different story that reflects deep-seated cultural differences in the approach to savings among Latin American and African microfinance institutions – and their customers.
Several of Accion’s Latin American partners are mature commercial banks or finance companies that started with a strong microcredit orientation and subsequently gained the approval to accept deposits. At this point, several have somewhat more savers than borrowers, and loan portfolios mainly funded by deposits. As would be expected, average loan sizes are several times the size of average savings.
On the surface, Accion’s four newer and smaller partners in Africa look similar, though the ratio of savers to borrowers is higher (5-10 times as many savers as borrowers), and average savings balances are a smaller fraction of average loan sizes. The loan portfolios of two of the four are fully savings-financed; the other two require some outside funding.
Looking more closely at the Latin American institutions, one might at first think that they have reached the elusive goal of offering a balanced set of savings and credit services to their base-of-the-pyramid clients. However, a large portion of the accounts included in the total above are dormant, with balances less than $1. In half the institutions, over 70 percent of the accounts are dormant. Dormancy is prevalent among savings accounts in banks everywhere, but in these institutions the level is higher because many of the accounts were created as loan disbursement and repayment accounts. They were not regarded by either provider or customer as saving vehicles. Despite the large number of accounts, most of the actual savings comes from a relatively small number of term deposits, including large deposits from institutions.
> Posted by Alyssa Passarelli, Communications and Operations Assistant, the Smart Campaign
The findings in the Study of Client Protection Practices in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), a new report from the Smart Campaign, are intended to help microfinance stakeholders reflect on the current state of practice among institutions in LAC and on how performance gaps can be addressed.
Over the past two years, the Smart Campaign conducted a study on the client protection practices of twelve Latin American microfinance institutions, examining their implementation of the Client Protection Principles. The study looked at an assortment of organizations such as NGOs, banks, and credit unions in different countries, analyzing their client protection performance from the point of view of practitioners, and offering recommendations to improve their client protection practices.
Overall, the MFIs studied in the report performed well in the principles of Preventing Over-Indebtedness, Responsible Pricing, and Ethical Staff Behavior, but there was (sometimes significant) room for improvement in the principles of Transparency, Appropriate Collections, and Mechanisms for Complaint Resolution. The report revealed that client protection performance is not easily generalized, and that it’s often essential that particular client protection areas be improved if clients are to be served responsibly.
> Posted by Alyssa Passarelli, Communications and Operations Assistant, the Smart Campaign
Pro Mujer Mexico delegation at certification award ceremony held last week in conjunction with 2013 Foromic conference in Guadalajara
The Smart Campaign is pleased to announce that three Latin American institutions became Client Protection Certified at the close of September 2013. These three institutions are Crezcamos and FMM Popayán, both from Colombia, and Pro Mujer Mexico. These are the first institutions in the Latin America and Caribbean region to receive certification. We congratulate each of these institutions for their hard work and exceptional commitment to the fair treatment of their clients, as demonstrated in meeting the standards needed for certification.
The Smart Campaign launched Client Protection Certification in January 2013. The three new certified institutions bring the number of certified organizations to nine. The institutions that were certified earlier this year are:
- Cashpor, India
- Grameen Koota, India
- Ujjivan, India
- Partner Microcredit Foundation, Bosnia & Herzegovina
- Mi-Bospo, Bosnia & Herzegovina
- EKI, Bosnia & Herzegovina
When undergoing a certification mission, an institution is evaluated by one of the four licensed certifying agencies: M-CRIL, MicroFinanza Rating, MicroRate, or Planet Rating. To become Client Protection Certified, an institution must meet the 30 standards of care for client protection based on the seven Client Protection Principles.
> Posted by Solana Cozzo, LAC Prepaid Head, Senior Business Leader, MasterCard Worldwide
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.”
Promoting the delivery of solutions that boost the financial inclusion agenda, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), is a shared goal that I am truly passionate about. Thankfully, advancing financial inclusion is a key driver at MasterCard, and through my affiliation with organizations such as Accion and the FI2020 movement, I am a firsthand witness to many effective programs that are moving our region, and our world, closer to being financially inclusive.
Notable work has been done recently in the government-to-person (G2P) payments space in LAC. Through efforts in this region, as well as elsewhere, there is now little doubt that in countries where financial payments infrastructure is underdeveloped the introduction of government electronic disbursement schemes via public-private partnerships helps spark the growth of broader payments and financial services ecosystems that benefit many.
In Brazil, for example, switching to electronic benefits cards helped reduce the administrative costs of Bolsa Familia (Brazil’s social welfare program) nearly seven-fold, from 14.7 percent to 2.6 percent of grant value disbursed. Overall, CGAP estimated that switching from cash to electronic delivery via agent networks generates roughly 40 percent in savings per transaction – cost savings that can be used to serve the poor.
In Argentina, the integration of electronic disbursements not only facilitates greater scope and convenience, but also provides a sense of dignity and security. The percentage of social benefits recipients who said they paid a bribe to local officials to access their benefit dropped from about 4 percent to less than 0.5 percent after the Ministry of Social Development moved to an electronic benefits card. An estimated additional US$11 million now gets into the hands of intended recipients.
Another notable electronic social payments initiative in LAC, which demonstrates the integral role of industry players alongside government, is from Davivienda, a local bank in Colombia. Davivienda is integrating their Daviplata mobile banking service into social benefits disbursements. The use of mobile money in social benefits programs has gained significant popularity in Colombia. In fact, about a third of all disbursements of Familias en Accion, the biggest conditional cash transfer program in Colombia, are now utilizing mobile technology.
> Posted by Beniamino Savonitto, Project Director, Financial Capability Research Fund, Innovations for Poverty Action
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.”
There are many obstacles on the road to good financial decisions. Financial choices are complex, and so are many of the products and tools available. Low-income households with little education, scarce experience in the formal financial sector, and an irregular income may have an especially hard time. They also have very little room for mistakes.
Last month, in our effort to identify ways to improve financial capability, we brought together a select group of researchers, managers of financial institutions, and policymakers from all over Latin America to discuss the merits of existing financial capability solutions and to brainstorm new ones. During two days at Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, over 150 experts attended Evidence on Innovations in Financial Capability and engaged in conversations around the evidence from recent evaluations, the scope of promising innovations, and questions in the financial capability space that remain unanswered.
We began, of course, with the type of intervention people may think of first: programs that seek to improve what people know about financial management and financial concepts. One study we spoke on, which was implemented in Mexico, examines why voluntary financial education is so unpopular. Finding very low attendance rates to a general purpose workshop on financial education, researchers conclude that not attending might indeed be an optimal choice for beneficiaries. Focusing on alternative channels for delivering basic financial education to the general population might be more promising.
> Posted by Nate Gonzalez and Alina Kogan, Investment Officers, Accion Venture Lab
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.”
Over the past year at Accion Venture Lab, a new program that invests in financial inclusion start-ups, we were initially surprised to see a rapid proliferation of online personal financial management (PFM) tools and rate comparison start-ups popping up across Latin America, particularly in Colombia and Brazil. These companies aim to present consumers with a consolidated view of their finances across various financial products (e.g., bank and investment accounts, loans, insurance products, credit cards), educate consumers on financial literacy, provide budgeting tools, and often, make money (through qualified leads to banks) by suggesting better products for consumers based on pricing and needs assessments. On the surface, this trend must seem premature, considering internet usage across the continent remains under 50 percent and online banking rates are even lower. But if you dig into the changing income distribution data across Latin America coupled with existing financial sector market dynamics, this trend toward increased financial education on available products and services begins to make a bit more sense. The rapidly evolving income shifts across the region highlight the importance of democratizing data as a means to further financial inclusion.
Latin America has experienced significant change over the past several years, which has resulted in millions of people moving into the ranks of the middle class. Between 2003 and 2009, Latin America’s middle class expanded by 50 percent, from 103 million to 152 million, accounting for roughly 30 percent of the total population in 2010. In Brazil alone, over half of Brazil’s 190+ million people are considered middle class, and a majority of them rose to middle class status in just the past five years. CFI just released a new report, Growing Income, Growing Inclusion: How Rising Incomes at the Base of the Pyramid Will Shape Financial Inclusion, which details changing income patterns across emerging economies and the subsequent implications for financial inclusion focused initiatives globally. In addition to the growth of the middle class, the report highlights that almost 40 percent of the current population in Latin America are considered part of the “vulnerable class,” defined as pre-middle class persons with incomes from $4-10 per day. This group has experienced similar high growth rates over the last five years. The CFI report predicts that this “rising tide” trend will continue.
> Posted by Sergio Guzmán and Sonja E. Kelly, Smart Campaign Lead Specialist and Fellow, CFI
Some call them the lower middle class, some call them assets-poor, some refer to them as the 4-10s for their earning average of $4 to $10 per day. In a publication released this year, the World Bank called this group the “vulnerable class,” bridging the gap between a class they refer to as “poor” and the class traditionally known as the “middle class.” Two of the lead authors on the publication, Dr. Augusto de la Torre and Dr. Julián Messina, presented their findings at a recent event at the Inter-American Dialogue, a forum for research and conversation centered on Latin America.
The authors distinguish between two economic strata. The first is the vulnerable class, which is above the poverty line, but is still in danger of losing their discretionary income. The second is the middle class, which is firmly above the poverty line, and is unlikely to lose their discretionary income. The vulnerable class is defined by a narrow dollar range—only $4 to $10 per day. Despite this narrow income definition, in the last decade this class has grown to now contain the highest proportion of the Latin American population when compared to other economic classes. (The same phenomenon is appearing in other regions, as well, although that is a story for another day.) The graph below comes directly from the authors’ presentation (for more on the report’s methodology, see the publication here).
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