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Consumer Protection at the Crux of Takaful Islamic Insurance

A growing need exists to design insurance products that meet the needs of the world's 2 billion Muslims. Takaful insurance is one possible solution, but consumer protection is a challenge.

Selecting a Site for Smallholder Financial Diaries in Pakistan

CGAP and Bankable Frontier Associates have begun a study that examines the financial lives of smallholder agricultural families in Mozambique, Pakistan, and Tanzania. Here, we look at how we chose an appropriate site in Pakistan.

Why Financial Diaries to Understand the Needs of Smallholders?

CGAP is working with Bankable Frontier Associates to conduct a financial diaries project on 90 families in Tanzania, Mozambique, and Pakistan.

Working with The Poorest Women in Pakistan

The design firm Continuum Innovation found that simplified ATM receipts and photographic instructions helped poor women in Pakistan access their money with more confidence.

Literacy a Hidden Hurdle to Financial Inclusion

Literacy is often a hidden hurdle to bringing financial inclusion to the unbanked. This means that the onus is on the designer of financial systems to make sure clients can use them confidently.

The “EasyPaisa” Journey from OTC to Wallets in Pakistan

While the founders of EasyPaisa guessed that they would reach a reasonable volume of customers through OTC services, they did not guess that OTC remittances would be the dominant activity by far for EasyPaisa's customers.

Comparing Branchless Banking in Bangladesh and Pakistan

What can be learned from benchmarking Bangladesh to the regional leader Pakistan which had begun two years earlier in 2009? Both have similar populations, mobile penetration and income levels making the comparison even more interesting.

Islamic Microfinance in Pakistan: The Experience so Far

There is huge potential for microfinance providers to expand outreach in the niche market of Sharia-compliant financial services in Pakistan. This could be achieved by diversifying products as well as expanding geographic outreach.

Mobile Life Insurance: Innovations From Pakistan

The commercial viability of businesses that provide life insurance to the poor is difficult to predict. The strong penetration of mobile phones in Pakistan provides a cost-effective method of acquiring customers that holds promise for the industry.

Branchless Banking in Pakistan: the Glass Half and Full View

Branchless banking is flourishing in Pakistan, which is on track to become the most competitive mobile money market in the world.

Does “Effective Interoperability” Equal Financial Inclusion?

The measurement of “effective interoperability,” depends on the ultimate policy goal, which could be financial inclusion. In the case of Pakistan, “effective interconnection” could facilitate a 100 million Pakistanis with electronic financial access within eight years.

Financial Inclusion In 2012: South Asian Highlights

Recent trends in South Asia reveal measured growth for microfinance, and a steady increase in branchless banking networks, across the region.

Pakistan: G2P Laboratory

Pakistan is becoming a laboratory for G2P payment innovations. A new report by CGAP discusses the G2P payments sector in Pakistan and demonstrates how social transfers can help bring poor people into the formal financial system.

Rural vs Urban Mobile Money Use: Insights From Demand-Side Data

The second post in our series described the importance of demand-side data for understanding consumers and their financial habits and needs. Various organizations are contributing to the global pool of demand-side data in branchless banking and in this post we’ll focus on two of the main sources. The Financial Inclusion Tracking Surveys (FITS) are annual household panel surveys in Uganda, Tanzania, and Pakistan while the Tanzania Mobile Money Tracker Study (TMMT) uses quarterly surveys to track market trends. Both are being carried out by InterMedia and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In this post, we’ll highlight some of the analysis on rural and urban households to demonstrate the actionable insights that can be gathered from such datasets.

Reaching Small Farmers Through Innovative Finance In Pakistan

In 2001, NRSP (National Rural Support Program) designed a research project to address the issues of access to finance and advisory services to small sugar cane farmers. The basic idea was to create an “out of box” microfinance model that threads together the small farmer, the MFI and the processor into a high impact value chain with high financial and social returns. The project “Sugarcane Production Enhancement Project” (the SPEP) focused on small poor farmers with a maximum land holding of around three acres, as well as share croppers and farmers who generally rent agriculture land from large land lords.

Banking 100 Million Pakistanis

This post on a recent report on Interoperability provides insights on why interoperability might be important, how we should think about it from a policy and market development perspective and how it should be measured, especially as it relates to financial inclusion.

An Independent MFI Board Adds Great Value: Lessons From Pakistan

If a microfinance bank wishes to be successful then both the management team and the board must be picked with quality in mind.

Branchless Banking Country Notes

Over the past several months, we have taken a close look at the branchless banking industry in our focus countries.

Platform-level Interconnection in Branchless Banking

Platform-level interconnection is what most people have in mind when they think of interoperability in branchless banking. When we speak of interoperable platforms, we are referring to platforms that permit the transfer of funds from one mobile account to the mobile account of another service provider.

Interoperability in Branchless Banking and Mobile Money

At the end of the day, we suspect interoperable systems will accelerate financial inclusion by allowing customers to use the infrastructure of multiple service providers to access their accounts. The question is how best do we get there?