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> 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 Center Staff
Over the past year, financial inclusion leaders and advocates have bolstered airtime for banking the unbanked. In August, The Guardian launched a hub for financial inclusion content. In recent months, The New York Times produced an extensive reporting series on the consumer ills of the U.S. subprime auto loan market. In January, U.S. President Obama publicly commended and partnered with India in its robust inclusion efforts. Also in January, Bill Gates spoke about mobile money on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Today, The Wall Street Journal added its considerable weight with the launch of Multipliers of Prosperity, a micro-site sponsored by MetLife Foundation that explores the challenges faced in advancing financial inclusion.
> Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Associate, CFI
How can governments best regulate to advance financial inclusion? Effective regulation is often brought up when discussing essential components for expanding banking services. Like all industries, the world of financial services requires rules to ensure protection and fair practices. However, when it comes to advancing financial inclusion, the most effective way to handle regulation is not unanimous or even widely defined.
In recent years, more governments have taken steps to advance financial inclusion. Many have developed national inclusion strategies. A number have enacted regulation pertaining to new products and services, like mobile money. For government payment systems, such as social welfare benefits, some have switched over to electronic methods. Though on the whole, regulation struggles to keep pace with the increasingly complex services landscape, and progress is limited.
In the following video, global leaders discuss the role of regulation in financial inclusion, and how coordination within governments and between sectors can lead to more informed and enabling regulation and services environments.
> Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Associate, CFI
Corporate social responsibility or profitability? Why are more and more financial services providers expanding their focus to include banking the unbanked? After all, many of those without formal financial services don’t have incomes to support big or frequently-used products, and their circumstances often present challenges for access, risk, and other services dimensions.
Industry activity in recent years, organizational objectives aside, has demonstrated the potential for sustainable and profitable investment in financial inclusion. Advancements in product design, technology, and risk management, and trends in demographics and incomes are making it increasingly possible for commercial financial services providers, as well as stakeholders in adjacent industries like telcos and technology providers, to support inclusion.
In the following video, global leaders discuss how financial inclusion is not only good for individuals, markets, and countries, but also good business.
> Posted by Sonja E Kelly, Fellow, CFI
When we define financial inclusion, we need to think about the unique perspectives of each client. Financial inclusion is empty if it doesn’t add value to clients’ lives in some way. It’s essential to consider how financial inclusion would make the life of each individual better – which services are working for them and which aren’t. Along these lines, products should be framed, designed, and marketed relative to client needs. Instead of only thinking of how can we get more people to use a particular product, we should also be thinking about the needs of our prospective clients and how can we design products that meet those needs.
Constance Considers Financial Inclusion is a new CFI video, created by Elisabeth Rhyne and me, that tells the story of a fictional woman named Constance. Sharing some of the dimensions and needs in the life of Constance, the video shows how financial services could support her. We introduced the video earlier this week at the 6th African Microfinance Conference in Durban, South Africa, where we are pleased to say it was quite popular.
> Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Assistant, CFI
There’s no arguing that quality data is essential to achieving full financial inclusion. But of course if we want data to have an actual impact, it’s what we do with it that counts. The new Financial Services for the Poor (FSP) Interactive Map from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation incorporates financial inclusion data, country-specific supply-side data to be exact, into an interactive map with the aim of helping to identify gaps in access to financial services, to assist in designing policy, and to inform decision-making.
The tool uses GIS location data on financial access points – commercial banks, ATMs, microfinance institutions, mobile money agents, credit institutions, and post offices, among others – layered onto high resolution maps to create a visual representation of the financial services landscape for a given country. In addition to access points, the tool is able to display a country’s mobile coverage, urban areas, state lines, poorer areas, and population densities. The map is outfitted with a calculation tool that lets you generate numbers on financial services access, broken down in a number of ways including percentage of population covered, and urban or rural area. The countries currently available are Nigeria, Uganda, and Tanzania. Here’s a video of the tool in action.
The Power of Mapping Financial Services Data, a paper that describes the tool in greater detail and offers ideas on how it can be used to inform decision-making, was released last month. The paper lists the following points, broken down by stakeholder types, for how it might be used. Read the rest of this entry »
> Posted by Alyssa Passarelli, Communications and Operations Assistant, the Smart Campaign
In early June, the Smart Campaign traveled to Panama for a Steering Committee meeting and a Certification workshop, back-to-back with the annual Social Performance Task Force meeting, an event attracting over 300 microfinance practitioners and supporters.
In between all of the meetings Neal Kennedy and Eric Zuehlke from the CFI communications team caught up with event attendees to better understand how stakeholders are using the Client Protection Principles (CPPs) and why they think the work of the Campaign is important. We are pleased to release a series of interview videos in which these partners, stakeholders, and friends of the Campaign speak about their relationship with client protection.
> Posted by the Smart Campaign
Smart assessments. You know, a tool to help MFIs diagnose if their institutional practices adequately account for the well-being of their clients and can help them towards becoming ‘Client Protection Certified?’ We’ve written about them through the years (The Dawn of Client Protection Assessments in India, Straight Talk on Client Protection – Aggressive Sales Techniques, Mapping the Numbers of the Smart Campaign, etc.) but this is our very first video on the subject. Smart Assessments examine an MFI’s implementation of the client protection principles, taking the institution through a process of internal review to identify strengths, weaknesses, and ultimately opportunities to enhance business practices around client protection.
In the video, Smart Campaign Lead Specialist Sergio Guzmán offers an overview of assessments, discussing the client protection principles, how assessments benefit MFIs, what the assessment process looks like, common client protection challenges, and next steps for interested institutions.
As Sergio mentions, to date the Smart Campaign has trained a total of 29 lead assessors and 45 support assessors, who have conducted roughly 75 assessments around the world. For more information – including the self-assessment Getting Started Questionnaire – head over to the Smart Campaign website. And stay tuned to our newly launched Smart Campaign YouTube channel for the release of more videos on client protection in microfinance.
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