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From Smartphones to Solar Panels: Are Asset Finance Advances Pro-Poor?

Can asset financing improve the lives of low-income customers? And if so, which assets and financing approaches hold the most promise?

Is Digital Banking Better Banking for the Bottom of the Pyramid?

Digital banks are emerging in many developing countries. Can they do a better job than traditional banks of providing low-income customers with useful financial services?

Digital Credit Helping to Put Kids in Classrooms in Cote d'Ivoire

By partnering with farmers’ cooperatives to offer an innovative digital credit product, Advans is seeing high repayment rates and having an impact on school attendance in rural Cote d'Ivoire.

Growth vs. Sustainability: Credit Risk in PAYGo Solar

Rapid customer growth in pay-as-you-go solar can come with a cost: too many customers that don’t repay. Is it time to focus on reducing credit risk? To better understand the realities and challenges of running a PAYGo credit operation, we recently spoke with the people who live with it: heads of credit and risk at PAYGo solar companies, equity investors and creditors.

Where Do We PAYGo from Here? PAYGo Beyond Solar

Pay-as-you-go financing is increasing poor people’s access to life-changing assets beyond home solar systems, from solar-powered water pumps to smartphones.

Super Platforms: Connecting Farmers to Markets in Africa

In Africa, super platforms aren't just connecting customers and merchants. They're also connecting farmers to markets.

Client Registration: The Blind Spot in Agricultural Insurance

This agricultural insurance provider tripled its product registration rates in rural Nigeria by improving its registration process.

A Digital Platform to Manage Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenses

The M-TIBA mobile health wallet combines savings, remittances and other digital financial services to help low-income customers cover health care expenses.

China's Super Platforms: The Impact Question

What impact are super platforms having on low-income customers and small businesses? CGAP and Mastercard Foundation traveled to China to see firsthand.

Bringing Health Microinsurance to Kenyans via Mobile Phone

Bundling microinsurance with other mobile financial products is making health insurance more affordable and useful for low-income patients in Kenya.

Public Clearinghouse Could Shake Up China’s Mobile Payment Market

China will soon require payments providers, including Alipay and WeChat Pay, to connect to a public online payments clearinghouse. Here’s what we know so far about how this institution will work and what it could mean for mobile payments.

Kenya’s Digital Credit Revolution Five Years On

It's been five years since Kenya launched its first digital credit solution. A new CGAP survey shows that one in four Kenyans has taken a digital loan, mostly for working capital and day-to-day consumption.

5 Insights into Credit Scoring for Smallholders

Agricultural lending remains a frontier area even as the alternative lending space fills up with new players. Here are some early insights from CGAP's work on alternative credit scoring for smallholder farmers in Uganda.

Helping or Hurting? 10 Facts About Digital Credit in Tanzania

A nationally representative phone survey shows who's using digital credit, how they're using it, and whether it's living up to the hype of helping families cope with emergencies.

When Savings Aren’t Enough: How Low-Income Bangladeshis Use Loans

Today, some 25 million Bangladeshis borrow from microfinance institutions. Financial diaries from central Bangladesh show how poor people are using their loans, from coping with emergencies to on-lending to others.

Who Are Kenya’s Financially Excluded?

In Kenya, where nearly everyone knows about mobile money and a majority live within walking distance of an agent, why do nearly 2 in 10 adults lack access to formal financial services? And what can be done to reach them?

Merchant Payments: What About the Customers?

Shifting retail payments away from cash to digital instruments will require strong buy-in from end customers, who tend to like cash. How might they be persuaded?

Digital Innovations in Smallholder Agricultural Insurance

Fewer than 1 percent of smallholder farmers in Africa have agricultural insurance. Digital technologies, such as satellite imaging, could greatly expand access to insurance in Africa and around the world.

Want Your Customers to Save More? Use Behavioral Economics

A behavioral economics experiment in Tanzania increased customers' savings by up to 11 percent using SMS messages about the balances of better savers.

Will Digital Payments Unlock Financial Access for Small Business?

Bundling digital payments with services that address common challenges for merchants could expand access to finance for small businesses.