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> Posted by Jasmine Thomas, Program Officer for International Financial Capability & Asset Building, Citi Foundation
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.”
Lately, I’ve reflected upon the motto of a former clothing retailer that operated in the U.S.— “An educated consumer is our best customer.” In recent years, more NGOs, microfinance institutions, and financial service providers are beginning to embrace this notion. They are devoting more resources to building the financial skills of low-income microfinance clients and small savers, and increasing knowledge in the field about what helps them maintain positive financial behaviors.
Saving for the Big Day
So, does investing in the financial capability of clients really benefit both service providers and clients? Women’s World Banking and SEWA Bank in India believed that both investing in and ensuring that clients’ financial needs and goals were met would produce social and economic benefits for the institution and the clients. With our support, the organizations implemented Project Samruddhi to test this theory by embedding financial education within their core banking operations. To support clients’ efficacy, saathis, or bank agents, were taught how to embed short, concrete financial education messages in routine client banking interactions and services.
SEWA Bank and WWB also designed and launched a savings product that targeted clients’ specific financial goals, like paying for a daughter’s wedding. Each client established a savings plan, including the total amount needed as well as the frequency of deposits. A mobile phone app enabled clients with low literacy skills to visually see how their savings accumulated with each transaction. These regular graphic visuals of their progress fueled their motivation and sense of empowerment to continue saving to meet their goal. To measure client results, WWB assessed teller-client interactions, bank transactions, and client feedback.
> Posted by Mary Ellen Iskenderian and Rupert Scofield, Co-Chairs of the Microfinance CEO Working Group
As co-chairs of the Microfinance CEO Working Group, we are pleased to share with you a joint statement from the Working Group in support of the recently announced Smart Campaign Client Protection Certification Program. Certification will offer public recognition for institutions that meet adequate standards of care in appropriately protecting microfinance clients, as verified by an independent evaluation. It marks a clear step forward in ensuring the microfinance industry puts the treatment of its clients first.
Since we began meeting in early 2011, many of the Working Group’s discussions have focused on the fundamental question of what the microfinance industry requires to flourish in the future. We believe that client protection is central to the answer. It is common sense – and good business practice – that a fair and respectful relationship with clients is required to develop trust, reduce risk, and serve them appropriately. As leaders of FINCA and Women’s World Banking, we are especially concerned with the fair treatment of women clients, the traditional backbone of the microfinance industry, who are often more vulnerable to exploitation.
> Posted by Josh Goldstein aka Mr. Provocative
The elephant in the room of vulnerable minorities that continue to be excluded in large numbers from microfinance services is the globe’s second largest population after women: men. The vulnerability of men is often overlooked, due to their historic domination of women and their control of wealth in most societies throughout recorded history. Of course for every wealthy landowner or merchant, there were many slaves, landless laborers, and indentured servants, who controlled none of the world’s wealth and were lucky if they scratched out a living.
When microcredit first gained traction and credibility as a poverty alleviation strategy in the seventies, creating self-employment opportunities for women in the informal sector was central to its mission. Organizations like Women’s World Banking (birthed at the UN’s World Conference on Women in 1975) and Pro Mujer (1990) embodied this outreach strategy. There were very sound reasons to focus on women, who are and remain the poorest of the poor. And this emphasis reflected the zeitgeist of the time, as many of the early leaders of microfinance came of age in the women’s movement. Theirs was a struggle for equal rights and equal pay in societies that were patriarchal and discriminatory. It was a logical next step to bring this message of women’s rights to international development work.
> Posted by Amanda Lotz, Financial Inclusion 2020 Project Coordinator, CFI
Schwab Foundation describes a social entrepreneur as possessing a healthy impatience. Leila Janah arrived on a red eye to Washington to speak at the Business Civic Leadership Center (BCLC) and then traveled back to San Francisco for another engagement that afternoon. I’d call that a little healthy impatience.
I was fortunate to attend the Global Corporate Citizenship Conference at the BCLC in the company of a highly socially conscious audience to listen to Janah, founder and CEO of Samasource.
Initiated in Kenya in 2008, Samasource provides people at the base of the pyramid, currently earning less than a living wage, with the opportunity to earn a sustainable source of income in support of complex digital projects needed by large enterprises, such as Google and eBay. Through in-country partners, employees are recruited and validated. Using the internet, Samasource equips its employees with technological skills and 2-4 weeks of training. It then connects them to digital work that requires a “human touch” and is not easily completed by automated systems. Even better, the target employees of Samasource are women and youth (two client populations to consider when discussing current financial inclusion challenges). Since its inception, Samasource has expanded operations to a total of nine countries, including India, Haiti and Pakistan – more evidence of healthy impatience.
> Posted by Center Staff
For centuries, sages, poets, and scientists have punched the clock and collected paychecks for puzzling over “what women want.” Forbes journalist Lisa Quast is now posting her answer to that question, at least in terms of microfinance.
Quast interviews Women’s World Banking President and CEO Mary Ellen Iskenderian in a three-part series. In the second post, “What Women Want from Microfinance,” Iskenderian zeroes in on savings as a must-have product. Iskenderian also identifies financial education as a key to making savings accessible to women.
There’s a lot more to it, of course. Quast’s three-part series – well worth a read – starts here.
Image credit: Tango Desktop Project
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