Blog

Consumer Protection? Ask the Consumer

The main objective of the diagnostic study undertaken in Senegal in early 2011 was to develop a better understanding of microfinance clients’ protection and suggest possible improvements.

The Role of Government in Mobile Financial Services

How can governments effectively support mobile financial services (MFS) expansion?

Making Finance More Responsible

If you ask social investors whether responsible finance should be the “new normal” in microfinance, the answer is always yes.

Banks Have Some Good News…Are They Listening?

CGAP, in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank and Akya, a banking consultancy, recently completed some analysis on the business case for banks in branchless banking.

CGAP and Microfinance Investors: New Questions and Role

MIVs constitute the largest group of MIIs. MIV investment levels quadrupled between 2006 and 2008, and today, according to Symbiotics and MicroRate 2011 MIV surveys, more than 100 MIVs manage total assets of around US$7 billion.

Client Protection: Are We There Yet?

Since its launch, the Smart Campaign has made enormous strides toward ensuring that clients of microfinance would receive transparent, respectful, and prudent treatment.

What Does Research Tell Us about Consumer Protection?

Recent behavioral research on financial decision-making has demonstrated how we often rely on imperfect information and limited options to decide things like which bank has the best terms, whether we should save now and buy later, or maybe turn that extra cash into an investment.

Cash Transfers and Mobile Money: Making it Work

There are many reasons to be excited about mobile phones as a way to distribute cash transfers, such as government payments or NGO cash-for-work programs.

Is Responsible Finance in Your DNA?

Responsible finance is a way of doing business – a never-ending process of adapting your products, processes and policies to keep your clients at the center.

Partnering with Private Sector on Branchless Banking

Working with commercial actors with multi-million dollar balance sheets is incredibly rewarding and can be very different from interactions with traditional MFIs.

Branchless Banking Headlines & Highlights: Updates from Africa and Beyond

Summer is now officially over here in Washington and the busy fall season is off to a quick start. If you are just getting back into high gear, maybe this is a good time for us to recap some of the things we’ve been discussing on the blog over the last couple months, some of the latest news that’s caught our attention, and some things to keep your eye on in the coming weeks.

Microfinance Should Have Started with Savings

Much of the world is in trouble today because of debt, too much borrowing, presumably not enough saving, by individuals, companies, countries and groups of countries.

Public Funders in Branchless Banking

Public funders have been instrumental in promoting and developing the microfinance industry; close to 70% of cross border public funding going into microfinance comes from public sources. Currently, the financial inclusion world is abuzz with excitement about branchless banking and the potential of services like M-PESA in Kenya to dramatically reduce costs and increase access to financial services. Yet branchless banking is a new delivery channel mainly implemented by private stakeholders such as for-profit mobile network operators or commercial banks.

Responsible Finance: The “New Normal”?

We should expect the great majority of microfinance providers, funders and others that are double bottom line institutions to be able to measure the extent to which they’re benefiting their clients and to use this information to improve services.

Why Can’t We Answer the Question: Does Aid Work?

Whether you find it extraordinary or trivial, we still cannot answer the simple question of whether aid works or not.

Why Poor People Don’t Use Savings Accounts

Recently a colleague shared results of the follow-on (forthcoming) study that Dupas and Robinson did on their landmark 2009 RCT study on savings in Western Kenya.

Innovation in Branchless Banking at the Bangladesh Post Office

On a recent visit to Bangladesh Sarah Rotman and I met with Post Office Director General, Mobasherur Rahman, at his office in the middle of busy downtown Dhaka to hear about his foray into the world of branchless banking.

Voices from the Poverty Trap

Qualitative research gives us deep insight into how the participants of the Graduation program experienced change.

The Faces of Graduation

The essence of the qualitative research series are the participants themselves. Get to know the faces of graduation. Read their words, and become acquainted with their stories.

Can SmartAid Improve Accountability within Funders?

Interesting lessons came out of the recent CGAP Aid Effectiveness conference where the SmartAid Index for Microfinance was featured.