You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘MicroSave’ tag.
> Posted by Alexandra Rizzi, Deputy Director of the Smart Campaign
The following is part of the Smart Campaign’s #FintechProtects series. We’re raising awareness about responsible digital financial services, spotlighting work from the Smart Campaign and others, and engaging with industry actors on how fintech can move forward in a way that’s best for clients. For more information on #FintechProtects, and to get involved, click here.
In financial inclusion circles there is palpable excitement around the promise of digital financial services (DFS) – most recently quantified by the McKinsey Global Institute as the potential for 1.6 billion individuals becoming banked, $2.1 trillion in loans disbursed, and 95 million new jobs. Yet, in order for this potential to be achieved, customers must trust the service. For instance, India-based MicroSave conducted research showing that while 85 percent of DFS customers said they would recommend DFS to others, they thought of it as a Plan B due to lack of trust. Issues that can erode or prevent trust from building include gaps in data protection and security, service downtime, insufficient transparency, agent misconduct and unauthorized fees, among others. As Graham Wright of MicroSave writes, “It is clear that there are immediate potential wins for DFS providers who address consumer protection issues.”
In this post the Smart Campaign spotlights a fast-growing fintech company, JUMO, that is helping to define what responsible digital finance means.
> Posted by Center Staff
Financial Inclusion Forum UK event yesterday at the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
This post is part of Financial Inclusion Week, a week of global conversation on advancing financial inclusion. This year’s theme is keeping clients first in a digital world. Throughout the week participants will share their thoughts in events and webinars, on social media, and through blog posts. Add your voice to the conversation using #FinclusionWeek.
We are one day into Financial Inclusion Week 2016 and are so excited to already see stakeholders from across the globe coming together to discuss the week’s theme of keeping clients first in a digital world. As our global financial ecosystem undergoes a digital revolution, we are presented with great opportunities and great challenges to extending financial services in a responsible manner. At CFI, we believe that access to financial services is not enough. We define financial inclusion as “a state in which everyone who can use them has access to a full suite of quality financial services provided at affordable prices, in a convenient manner, with respect and dignity. Additionally, financial services are delivered by a range of providers, in a stable, competitive market to financially capable clients.”
Keeping clients first in a digital world requires looking beyond access to the essentials of quality services and client treatment. Financial technology has the potential to improve access, as well as the potential to improve convenience, lower prices, and build financial capability. However, fintech also has the potential to take away some of the respect and dignity present in an in-person banking transaction, and it can present new risks. We hope that this week you will explore the best ways to ensure that this digital revolution is not compromising clients, but instead further protecting them against risks and empowering them through new channels.
What’s Happening
Financial Inclusion Forum UK: Last night in London, over 200 stakeholders gathered at the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for a conversation focused on “The Progress and Future of Financial Inclusion.” The three-hour event, organized by the Financial Inclusion Forum UK, consisted of a keynote and two panel discussions. The first panel discussion, featuring representatives from CDC, VisionFund, and EBRD, and moderated by Yasmina McCarty of GSMA, assessed current progress in financial inclusion. The second panel looked to the future with panelists from Financial Services for All, DoPay, Leapfrog Labs, and the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation.
> Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Senior Associate, CFI
India has received much fanfare for its financial inclusion efforts in recent years. A few weeks ago we declared it our Financial Inclusion Country of the Year for 2015 in recognition of the major steps it took, which resulted in achieving the greatest improvement in its Global Microscope score between 2014 and 2015. It recently granted new bank licenses that dramatically diversify and grow the country’s services landscape, widely applied new cost-saving technologies like biometric identification, and rolled-out historically ambitious public programs like PMJDY that dramatically reduce the portion of the population that is unbanked.
“Never waste a good crisis” said Royston Braganza, CEO of Grameen Capital India, at the Inclusive Finance Summit in Delhi last month, referring to the Andhra Pradesh crisis of 2010. The recently-released Responsible Finance India 2015 analyses the current state of practice on responsible finance and social performance management in India. In light of that report, Braganza questioned, “Have we learned from our mistakes?”
Responsible finance centers on client protection and market conduct, and has been extended in recent years to include many other good corporate citizenship issues such as employee management, governance, and social performance monitoring.
By way of context, here are a few numbers on the present-day BoP Indian finance landscape:
- Across MFIs in India’s MFIN network, which represent roughly 90 percent of MFIs in the country, loan books grew by 64 percent in the last fiscal year, compared with 43 percent in the year prior and 4 percent in the year before that.
- In total, MFI outreach in the country accounts for about 100 million clients.
- Reportedly, through PMJDY 180 million new bank accounts have been opened over the past year, and adjacent schemes covering insurance, pensions, and credit have been implemented, as well.
- For the first time in a decade, the RBI granted new bank licenses last year – to Bandhan Bank and IDFC. Bandhan now has 500 branches and over 2,000 service centers across 24 states. Sixty-five percent of IDFC’s first 23 branches are located in rural areas of Madhya Pradesh.
- Under the RBI’s newly created categories of payment banks and small finance banks, 11 and 10 providers, respectively, have received new licenses, further expanding the network of providers serving the poor.
> Posted by Center Staff
FI2020 Week is a global conversation on the key actions needed to advance financial inclusion, grounded in the findings of the recently launched FI2020 Progress Report. From November 2-6, 2015, stakeholders around the world are participating in more than 30 events and sharing their voices over social media, with #FI2020.
We’re two days in! FI2020 Week thus far has been a whirlwind few days, with events all over the world, a handful of public webinars, and robust social media conversations. We hope you’ve had the opportunity to take part in the action!
To get you up to speed, though certainly not comprehensive, here’s a snapshot of what’s been happening.
In Bangladesh, BRAC conducted an internal debate about the impact and benefits of its own microfinance program. Answering tough questions like “Does BRAC risk doing more harm than good by using microfinance in its model of fighting poverty?” staff shared their perspectives, providing insights into how to improve the program. Check out some of the presented arguments on BRAC’s Twitter feed.
In Nigeria, Accion and Accion Microfinance Bank discussed financial inclusion strategies for the country. The three biggest industry gaps identified were the lack of mobile and agent banking infrastructure, human capital in the microfinance banking sector, and a spirit of collaboration and partnership among the various players. Moving forward, the discussion participants will apply greater focus on savings as a necessary service offering that can be improved.
The World Savings and Retail Banking Institute (WSBI) conducted a webinar on the lessons drawn from a six year project (2009 – 2015) carried out with 12 WSBI member banks aimed at creating usable savings services in the hands of the poor. One call to action from the webinar was the need for greater connectivity to combat the challenge of reaching clients in rural communities. As WSBI aims to add 400 million customers to its network by 2020, it will need to partner with more organizations in order to reach very remote village groups.
> Posted by Center Staff
FI2020 Week is a global conversation on the key actions needed to advance financial inclusion, grounded in the findings of the recently launched FI2020 Progress Report. From November 2-6, 2015, stakeholders around the world are participating in more than 30 events and sharing their voices over social media, with #FI2020.
FI2020 Week is upon us! Around the world, interactive and participatory events are underway to explore the most important steps to achieving financial inclusion. The range of events features representatives from banks, insurance companies, payment companies, telecommunication companies, policymakers, regulators, NGOs, microfinance institutions, investors, financial inclusion support organizations, financial capability experts, and fintech companies. Across events and participants, FI2020 Week’s focus is the calls to action generated from the guiding prompt: What is an important action needed in your country (or industry segment) to advance financial inclusion?
Below are some of the first comments by financial inclusion leaders. But first, here are some ways you can participate.
Join one of the 12 webinars hosted by Accion’s Channels and Technology team, Andares, AVAL, GSMA, the Helix Institute, IFMR LEAD, Innovations for Poverty Action, LeapFrog Investments, MicroSave, MIX, and the World Savings and Retail Banking Institute.
Check out the findings from the web-based FI2020 Progress Report—and see our high-level summary of messages in this new 8-minute video.
> Posted by Center Staff
Next week, CFI will launch the first-ever FI2020 Week. From November 2-6, 2015, over 25 partners across the globe will organize conversations exploring the most important steps to achieving financial inclusion.
FI2020 Week will bring together diverse stakeholders to conduct interactive and participatory events, each of which will produce calls to action. The range of participants will include banks, insurance companies, payment companies, telecommunication companies, policymakers, regulators, NGOs, microfinance institutions, investors, financial inclusion support organizations, financial capability experts, and fintech companies, from around the world. All of these participants will focus on the question, “What is an important action needed in your country (or industry segment) to advance financial inclusion?”
We want YOU to join us! Throughout the week, many FI2020 Week partners will hold webinars – an opportunity for those who will not be attending in-person FI2020 Week events to participate in a variety of interesting conversations. The webinars cover a full range of topics, from client protection in mobile money use, to incorporating financial capability into product design. Check them out below and register now to join hundreds of people around the world in FI2020 Week.
And for more information, check out our Storify feed of social media and blog postings on the FI2020 Week website here and follow #FI2020 on Twitter for the latest updates.
Client Protection and Technology: The GSMA Code of Conduct for Mobile Money Providers
Hosted by: GSMA
Date: November 4, 2015
Time: 9:00 am – 10:00 am EST
This session will discuss how the GSMA – the global association for mobile network operators – is working with its members to ensure that mobile money services are safe, reliable, and secure, and that customers are treated fairly. The Code of Conduct for Mobile Money Providers includes eight high-level principles addressing topics such as safeguarding customer funds, AML/CFT, training and monitoring of staff and agents, reliable service provision, security, and fair treatment of customers. This session will provide a brief background to the Code of Conduct initiative and outline the plan for implementation of the Code. It will be useful for regulators, financial inclusion specialists, consumer protection advocates, and any other stakeholders who are interested in understanding what mobile operators are doing to ensure the safety, reliability, and fairness of mobile money services.
Register now!
> Posted by Susy Cheston, Senior Advisor, CFI
In three days the Center for Financial Inclusion will unveil the FI2020 Progress Report. In it, we define progress made toward financial inclusion and make predictions about the most critical issues facing the industry.
This web-based report has been a year in the making, the result of FI2020’s monitoring of industry trends, interviews with experts, and an analysis of financial inclusion data from both the supply and demand side. We organized the report around the five areas identified in the 2013 Roadmap to Financial Inclusion: Addressing Customer Needs, Client Protection, Credit Reporting & Data, Financial Capability, and Technology.
Perhaps the most fun—and most debatable—aspect of the report is the rating we will reveal for each area, marking where we are on the road to financial inclusion along these five dimensions. The financial inclusion community around the world will have the opportunity to weigh in with their vote – and we expect there will be some disagreement with our opinions. We hope you will not only mark your own rating, but also leave comments with your views. Most of all, we hope this thought exercise will help focus all of our attention on how to close the gaps to get to a 10 in each area.
To offer a sneak preview of the content, I thought I would reveal how we rated progress made on client protection:
Beyond the Basics…
> Posted by Evelyn Stark, Assistant Vice President, Financial Inclusion Lead, MetLife Foundation, and Graham A. N. Wright, Group Managing Director, MicroSave
Financial Inclusion 2020 (FI2020) is a global multi-stakeholder movement to achieve full financial inclusion, using the year 2020 as a focal point for action. This blog series will spotlight financial inclusion efforts around the globe and share insights from key thought leaders in financial inclusion, with a specific focus on quality beyond access.
In the first part of this blog series, we saw how understanding customer demand is not enough to deliver mass financial inclusion … or even a successful product. Supply side factors are key … if rather more difficult than a quick market research exercise. Even after careful pilot-testing and a structured roll-out, all that preparation and keen balancing of client desires and institutional capacity to deliver sustainably didn’t necessarily work! Where were the clients? Why weren’t they storming the doors and asking for these wonderfully designed products? Weren’t our loan officers as excited as the project team? Did the CEO’s endorsement and great speech at the annual meeting make loan officers ready to sell the new products? Weren’t clients telling each other, and their cousins and friends?
No, they weren’t.
The supply side (staff) had not conveyed to the demand side (clients) that they had new products based on their feedback; they hadn’t convinced and trained staff, who were concerned that their jobs were about to get harder. Clients weren’t buying, and staff weren’t selling these new products. Once again, the action research partners* attacked the issues and MicroSave worked alongside, frantically learning and documenting.
Read the rest of this entry »
Why Being Customer-Centric Is a Supply Side Strategy…
> Posted by Evelyn Stark, Assistant Vice President, Financial Inclusion Lead, MetLife Foundation, and Graham A. N. Wright, Group Managing Director, MicroSave
Financial Inclusion 2020 (FI2020) is a global multi-stakeholder movement to achieve full financial inclusion, using the year 2020 as a focal point for action. This blog series will spotlight financial inclusion efforts around the globe and share insights from key thought leaders in financial inclusion, with a specific focus on quality beyond access.
In recent years Human Centered Design (HCD) became a buzzword in the financial inclusion world. It focused financial service providers on the design of products and services based on customer insights. Design firms became part of the technical provider fraternity, servicing financial service providers in the quest to improve inclusion. At the same time, the network of financial service providers broadened to include mobile network operators and retail chains, in addition to microfinance institutions (MFIs), banks, cooperatives, and a myriad of microfinance suppliers. With new entrants come new ideas – and repetition of old ones. One consistent, but underrated idea, is to focus on the customer.
Customer-centricity is not a new concept in the microfinance and financial inclusion world. In 1998, MicroSave was set up (by UNCDF/DFID who were then joined by CGAP, the Ford Foundation, and the Austrian and Norwegian governments) to promote savings in the microcredit landscape of East and Southern Africa. Initial research in Uganda revealed that although microfinance institutions (MFIs) did not have a legal mandate to collect savings, they did have another problem: drop-outs as high as 60 percent per annum. Further investigation revealed that much of the problem lay in poorly designed credit products. Much of 1999 and 2000 was spent understanding the problem, re-designing products, and developing the “market research for microfinance” tools and training.
This past experience resonates with the current realization among proponents of financial inclusion that customers are not using products. This is evident in the GSMA research that found that 68 percent of registered mobile money customers do less than one transaction in 90 days. No frills accounts in India, and transactional accounts in many other settings, are mostly dormant (GAFIS, 2011, DNA, 2015). The market-led research approaches aimed at microfinance, and the human centered design approaches of the recent years, did not fully succeed in focusing provider efforts on the customer, nor did they help to increase the use of financial products and services. In the quest to understand this, we return to the unfolding story of the early years of market-led approaches, based on the MicroSave experience.
> Posted by Jenn Beard, Global Learning Manager, Water.org
Nearly 800 million people lack access to safe water, and 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation. As many NGOs and microfinance institutions are now discovering, the way forward will include lending to individuals for their water and sanitation (WASH) needs. WASH microfinance is making it possible for the poor to take control in instances where access is difficult. However, most providers in the position to meet this financing opportunity are not yet offering these services. One thing standing in the way is the tools to get institutions started.
The business case for financial institutions to add WASH financial products to their portfolios is significant. A study sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation estimated global demand for microfinance for water and sanitation at over US$12 billion between 2004 and 2015. After all, the poor are already spending money in these areas—both directly (purchasing water from vendors/kiosks or paying to use a community toilet) and indirectly (higher healthcare costs and/or lost time and wages while looking for or collecting water). Microfinance providers have highly relevant goals, experience, processes, and outreach activities to play a key role in increasing access to WASH facilities. As financial institutions broaden their services beyond business lending and develop products to more fully address their clients’ diverse financial service needs, WASH financing emerges as a clear opportunity.
Facebook
Twitter
Recent Comments