Blog
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.Blog
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.Blog
Harnessing Fintech in the Arab World: An Opportunity Worth Billions
New research suggests that fintechs in the Arab world could help millions of people and small businesses and generate billions in revenue by serving excluded customers.Blog
How Financial Services Can Help the Poor in the Climate Transition
Early evidence suggests that the financial sector could play a key role in helping low-income people prepare for and participate in climate transition. However, greater coordination among funders and other sector stakeholders is needed.Blog
How Does Tech Make a Difference in Digital Banking?
Digital banks have been innovating faster than traditional banks, and the secret to their ingenuity has a lot to do with the agile business cultures made possible by their modern tech stacks.Blog
What Makes Digital Banking Inclusive?
Just because digital banks can reach low-income customers doesn’t mean that they will. But new evidence suggests that in fact some digital banks are becoming more inclusive and sheds light on how they are reaching low-income customers.Blog
The Breaking Point: How Warranties Support Sustainable Asset Finance
Warranties can break down barriers to asset finance for low-income customers. Here's how.Blog
PAYGo Transformed Off-Grid Solar: Is Consumer Financing Next?
By partnering with pay-as-you-go (PAYGo) solar companies, electric utilities in Africa could expand low-income households' access to responsible consumer finance for refrigerators and other electric appliances.Blog
Digital Banks Increasingly Embrace a Platform Business Model
There are a billion mobile money wallets in developing countries that could be made far more relevant for low-income customers by a digital marketplace approach to banking.Blog
These Digital Banks Help Fintechs to Offer Banking Services
By enabling virtually any type of business to offer banking services cheaply and in record time, “banking-as-a-service” providers can dramatically reduce the barriers to entry into banking and potentially deepen financial inclusion.Blog
The Wrong Kind of Credit: Why Loans to Gig Workers Must Reflect Income
Volatile gig income and inflexible loan repayment schedules can be a dangerous mix, as this ride-hailing driver in Nairobi learned from experience. His story serves as a cautionary tale to lenders and borrowers in the gig economy.Blog
The Box, Not the Tools: Managing Credit Risk in Asset Finance
Pay-as-you-go solar companies and other asset finance providers are using cutting-edge tools to manage credit risk, but many lack the risk culture, governance structures and processes to use them effectively.Blog
Asset Finance Innovations Can Advance SDGs – If They Scale Responsibly
New asset finance business models are breaking down old barriers to putting life-changing assets into the hands of poor households. But to meaningfully advance SDGs, they’ll need to scale responsibly, and this is where funders can play a role.Blog
What Do Low-Income Customers Want from Asset Finance?
Here are six lessons for offering asset finance to low-income customers, based on in-depth interviews with dozens of asset finance providers and their customers in developing countries.Blog
Digital Finance APIs Come with Risks – Here’s One Way to Manage Them
Digital financial services providers can manage risks associated with open APIs by adopting standardized legal contracts with partners and third parties. Here are six key issues that a contract should clarify, along with a contract template.Blog
E-Commerce Is Taking Off in Rural China: 3 Lessons for Other Countries
China's e-commerce market has $2 trillion in annual sales and is growing as digital services reach rural areas. CGAP visited several villages and spoke with farmers and manufacturers about e-commerce. Here's what we learned.Blog
African Digital Credit Goes West
Digital credit is emerging in West Africa. Despite early reports of low default rates, consumer protection policies will be key to avoiding problems witnessed in East Africa.Blog
How Fintechs Could Digitize Store Credit in the Arab World
People in the Arab world rely on store credit almost twice as much as people in other regions. Here are three ways fintechs could digitize this type of credit.Blog
Smart Phones, Smart Partners: Linking Asset Finance and Microfinance
One company offers microcredit. The other offers PAYGo financing for smartphones, tablets and solar home systems. In what may be a template for other microfinance institutions, they are helping each other to reach more low-income customers.Blog