Blog

When is Interoperability Right for Microfinance?

When is interoperability right for microfinance institutions? We draw on interviews with 40 small financial institutions to unpack the complex picture around a universal approach to ensuring all institutions benefit from real-time, digital payments.

What Gets Measured, Gets Managed: Findex 2021 Insights for the Future

The 2021 Global Findex data provides a promising trajectory for financial inclusion, but reach is just one defining success factor. Is it time for the financial inclusion industry to revisit how we think about and measure success?

Can Kenya’s Fintech Boom Address the MSE Finance Gap?

Kenya has seen an explosion of fintechs and nano credit providers, but they have yet to meaningfully serve MSEs in the country. We explain how fintechs could have a wider reach and distinct value proposition for MSEs in Kenya beyond digital credit.

How Can Data Sharing Support Inclusion?

Data sharing can unlock a number of opportunities for the financial inclusion of poor individuals in EMDEs. To understand how, we must look at the various models of data sharing and how they may result in an inclusive data ecosystem.

Peruvian Authorities Pilot Tool to Improve Consumer Listening

CGAP and Accenture LLP (Accenture) launched a pilot to help Peruvian authorities assess their consumer listening mechanisms and determine the necessary steps to design an integrated financial consumer protection platform.

Global Findex: Digitalization in COVID-19 Boosted Financial Inclusion

The new edition of the Global Findex contains a deep array of insights on global account ownership, usage, and financial resilience. Here, we explore two trends particularly worth exploring.

National Payment Systems in ECA Show Resilience in Crisis Times

Remittances channels are vital for the well-being of millions of low-income families in the ECA region. As international payment systems are disrupted, the integration of national payment systems have been filling some of the gap.

As PAYGo Moves Beyond Solar, Addressing Risks Can Ensure Impact

PAYGo financing is expanding beyond solar, creating the potential to improve the lives of low-income households through financial inclusion. The challenge will be to manage the accompanying consumer risks without killing innovation.

Why Don’t MSEs Trust Digital Credit Providers?

Lack of trust in formal financial service providers among MSEs (especially the smallest, poorest, and women-owned enterprises) is a looming concern. While technology offers hope, more needs to be done to gain the trust of customers at the last mile.

Can Platform Data Expand Access to Transformative Credit?

Digitizing microbusinesses and informal work can help low-income workers and businesses access more and cheaper financial services, but only if the data created by digitization can improve risk evaluation by lenders.

In an Era of Urgent Climate Risk, Does Financial Inclusion Matter?

This year’s World Environment Day theme “Only One Earth” reminds us that this planet is humanity’s only home, with finite resources that we must safeguard. Here, we look not only at who pollutes, but who suffers the impact of climate change most.

Playing the Long Game: Women’s Platform Work and Financial Services

Tailored financial services could help women platform workers mitigate some of the downsides of this growing source of livelihood and translate new opportunities into greater security for themselves and their families over the long-term

How Can Embedded Financial Services Better Serve Platform Workers?

Platforms’ extensive data on their workers could support customized product design, and their digital rails could seamlessly deliver financial services. What opportunities might financial services embedded within platforms enable?

Financial Inclusion is Key to Fulfilling the Promise of Platform Work

As platforms transform the nature of work in emerging markets, embedding financial services for workers into platforms is pertinent and could point to pathways for including the greater informal economy as well.

Mobile Payments Take Shape in Latin America & the Caribbean

Mobile payments took hold over a decade ago, but Latin America didn't experience the traction seen elsewhere. Since then, two emerging business models for digital payments in Colombia and Haiti achieved particular success. What did they get right?

Can Funders Afford to Ignore Gender Norms in Financial Inclusion?

Gender norms create a financial system where women do not have the same access and opportunities as men. If funders want to go beyond closing the gender gap in access and build more equitable financial systems, they need to address them.

Regulating Platform-Based Finance: Seeing the Big Picture

The scale and scope of platform-based finance extends beyond the powers of a single regulator – cooperation across agencies will be essential.

Consumer Protection: Top Policy Priority for Funders. What Lies Ahead?

Financial inclusion funders have been elevating financial consumer protection as a priority. Our latest blog discusses how funders can turn that interest into action.

Platform-Based Finance: How Can Regulators Preserve Competition?

As big tech platforms enter the financial services space, they could potentially undermine competition in ways that set back financial inclusion. How can regulators preserve healthy competition and harness the potential of platform-based finance?

The Pandemic Wake-Up Call: Gender Norms Matter in Financial Inclusion

COVID-19 is the latest reminder that the norms constraining women’s economic participation need to be addressed in global development efforts, including in financial inclusion.