Our Approach - Technology

CGAP’s Technology Program aims to improve the lives of millions of poor people. We do this by helping financial institutions and others to expand access to financial services through the innovative application of technology. The program is co-funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Department for International Development (DFID). To read the program’s mobile banking blog, visit http://technology.cgap.org.
 
We aim to find solutions that will bring poor people:
•         physical access to financial services
•         service by a sound financial institution
•         the ability to make smart financial decisions
•         a range of affordable and tailored financial products

Leveraging our expertise, objectivity, access, and role as a public good, we advise and inform a wide range of actors including members of the microfinance community, technology and telecommunications firms, financial institutions and financial policy-makers and regulators. We act as a shared repository of knowledge and an experienced advisor in project selection and design for donors and investors.
 
ACTIVITIES AND RESULTS
 
Experiment with unproven technologies and new business models to understand how they will expand access to finance for the poor in different contexts.
 
To date, CGAP has shaped 14 projects with microfinance institutions, banks, mobile network operators and payment system providers targeting 14 million poor unbanked people in Colombia, Ecuador, India, Kenya, Maldives, Mali, Mongolia, Pakistan, Philippines and South Africa. For example, CGAP staff have provided technical advice and operational guidance to help Tameer Bank in Pakistan prepare to pilot the use of cards and point-of-sale (POS) devices to mobilize savings. We have also advised XacBank, a microfinance bank in Mongolia, as they complete design of their mobile banking channel and re-engineer internal processes. CGAP is also supporting “systemic” projects which develop or reconfigure entire payments or social welfare delivery systems. For example, CGAP is working with the Maldives Monetary Authority, in coordination with the World Bank, to design and field a mobile-banking system which gives every Maldivian an account and the means to access it easily and affordably.

For more information please write to us at technology@cgap.org.