Daryl Collins

CEO, Decodis

Dr. Daryl Collins is the CEO and Founder of Decodis (www.decodis.com), a social research firm that creates tech-led, customized data capture and analysis to elevate the voices of vulnerable populations. She is the author of the acclaimed Portfolios of the Poor and a pioneer working at the intersection of finance and human vulnerability. Over the past 25 years, Dr. Collins has built a broad portfolio of work with social businesses, foundations, bilateral donors, and governments. Her work is grounded in a deep understanding of the financial lives of individuals through the execution of Financial Diaries studies in over 10 countries.  

Dr. Collins spent the last decade as Managing Director and CEO of BFA Global, a niche financial inclusion consulting practice.  

She holds a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. in economics from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from New York University.    

By Daryl Collins

Blog

Measuring the Influence of Financial Services on Reaching the SDGs

Learn about UNCDF Impact Pathways, a tool to measure the influence of digital financial services in reaching the SDGs, in this guest blog.
Blog

Can Digital Linkages Revitalize a Tried and True Savings Model?

What would it take to link savings groups and digital financial services? A team at BFA investigated the potential tradeoffs and benefits which savings groups and potential private sector stakeholders might encounter on this journey.
Blog

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.
Blog

What Is Keeping Kenya From Becoming More “Cash Lite”?

A couple of weeks ago, Daryl Collins and her team at BFA introduced granular, intra-day transaction data collected in the summer of 2011 across a sample of 61 urban and rural retail merchants in Kenya. The results starkly showed that cash still dominates the payment transactions in these areas, with mobile money representing being used for not even 1% of transactions. In this blog, they ask the question “What would move more customers and merchants to more cash-lite payment behavior?”
Blog

Is M-PESA Replacing Cash in Kenya?

How far away is Kenya from the goal of cash-lite? Between July and August 2011, Bankable Frontier Associates (BFA) conducted an intensive field study within an urban and a rural pilot area to study the mode and size of intra-day cash flows at the customer-to-merchant interface and the merchant-to-supplier interface. This research finds that despite Kenya’s reputation for being a leader in mobile money, cash is still king.