Blog

Is Financial Inclusion a Reason to Push Central Bank Digital Currencies?

Advocates of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) often cite financial inclusion as a reason to introduce them. CGAP examines their three main arguments: improved access to digital financial services, enhanced efficiency of payments and lower cost.

How Can Financial Services Support Platform Workers?

The important question about platform work isn’t so much whether it is good or bad: it’s whether there are ways to make it better. Here are three reasons why CGAP is looking at how financial services could help improve platform workers' livelihoods.

The Social Impact Credit Trap in Asset Finance

Rapid growth in credit sectors, even if motivated by a desire for social impact, can lead to overindebted customers and insolvent lenders. For funders, it is important to recognize that investing in asset finance is investing in risk management.

How Are Fintechs Tackling the Arab World’s $123B SME Finance Gap?

Small and medium businesses are vital to the Arab world’s economic growth but face a massive financing gap. CGAP finds that only 5% of fintechs offer financing to these businesses today. Here are some that do.

Last-Mile Consumer Finance: Embracing Opportunity, Managing Risk

Last-mile distributors around the world are working to increase low-income households' access to solar systems, cookstoves, water purifiers and other important assets. Many offer financing to customers. How are they managing credit risk?

Does PAYGo Solar Improve Women’s Lives? A Look at the Evidence

Pay-as-you-go (PAYGo) solar financing has electrified the homes of more than 100 million people. What does the available evidence say about its impact on women?

How Peru Is Elevating the Collective Consumer Voice

The steps Peru has taken to ensure consumers have a strong voice in financial consumer protection regulation may be instructive for other countries working to protect vulnerable consumers.

Exploring Innovative Financial Services for Rural Women’s Livelihoods

CGAP's research points to two areas where innovations in financial services can help women with rural and agricultural livelihoods increase their incomes: returns to labor and access to markets.

The Benefits of G2P Choice: Zambia Leads the Way

In 2017, Zambia introduced a government-to-person (G2P) payments model that lets beneficiaries choose the provider they want to use to receive their payment. Today, the benefits to the recipients, providers and government are clear.

Fintech in the Arab World: Toward Gender Parity in 15, Not 150, Years

Gender-intelligent fintech solutions are hard to come by in the region with the world’s largest financial inclusion gender gap. But some fintechs are pointing the way.

COVID-19: A Trigger to Enhance Rural Agent Networks

COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of rural agent networks in reaching people with badly needed assistance. But the crisis has also exposed agents' vulnerabilities.

3 Ways to Elevate the Consumer Voice in Financial Regulation

When consumers have a say in the financial regulations that affect them, it usually makes regulations more impactful. Here are three opportunities to ensure consumers' voices are heard.

Opening Pandora’s Box: Revisiting the Impact of Small Business Finance

The debate over the impact of small business finance is far from settled. Here are four gaps in the evidence base that should be filled to move the debate forward.

Debt Moratoria in the Next Pandemic: Be Prepared, and Be Fair

Moratoria have been an important part of the COVID-19 response for millions of low-income borrowers. Reflecting on the COVID-19 experience, here are four ways moratoria could work better in a future crisis.

Women and Finance: Enabling Women’s Economic Empowerment

Reducing the gender gap requires that we put a gender lens on everything we do. CGAP CEO Greta Bull writes that without fully including women, we won’t solve financial inclusion or, for that matter, end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity.

What Drives the Financial Inclusion Gender Gap for Young Women?

Ahead of International Women's Day, CGAP and the Global Findex team analyzed how the account ownership gender gap varies across regions and age groups.

Flipping the Switch: How Locking Assets Unlocks Credit for the Poor

A new study out of Uganda offers strong evidence that lock-out technology can enable providers to sustainably lend to low-income customers, who may need credit for school fees and other critical expenses.

Can Free Phones Close the Digital Gender Divide?

Mobile phone affordability — the focus of most programs to distribute free phones to women — is far from the only barrier to women’s use of mobile phones.

In Uganda, Solar Home Systems Help Students Stay in School

A pay-as-you-go (PAYGo) solar provider in Uganda is proving that an often-overlooked benefit of PAYGo – financial inclusion – can also affect education outcomes by keeping kids in the classroom.

How Can Funders Promote Interoperable Payments?

Interoperability can make digital payments more convenient and useful for low-income customers. Find out how funders can support the development of interoperable payments systems.