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What Options do MFIs Have to Leverage M-banking?

There is no evidence that MFIs or their customers are driving the development of m-banking. MFIs that are successfully leveraging m-banking tend to be in countries where an m-banking service is already widely used.

Social Inclusion Cannot be Achieved Without Financial Inclusion

A view from Peru on how financial inclusion sits at the intersection between social and economic development.

Enabling Data Driven Decisions for Expanding Financial Inclusion

The Financial Service for the Poor (FSP) team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its partners have developed an interactive web portal that aims to improve the way financial access is measured and tracked.

Latest on Branchless Banking from Indonesia

In early May 2013, Bank Indonesia released long-awaited guidelines for banks and mobile network operators to outsource some banking operations to agents, unleashing the potential for branchless banking across the country.

A New Wave of E-Money in Latin America

In Latin America, the banking sector is highly rooted in the economy, and to think about non-bank issued electronic money is almost heretic. But things are changing.

A History Lesson for Advancing Interoperability in Mobile Money

What can we learn from the past in markets like the United States and Japan that can help advance interoperability between financial service providers?

Branchless Banking in Pakistan: the Glass Half and Full View

Branchless banking is flourishing in Pakistan, which is on track to become the most competitive mobile money market in the world.

Reducing Cash Turnover: Challenges In Russia

Despite the government's efforts to introduce cards and reduce cash turnover, Russians are not using cards for financial transactions. Find out why.

Financial Inclusion and Innovation in Russian Payment Systems

The payments sector in Russia has over recent years been at the forefront of innovation. The hope is that new developments will lead to an easily accessible and interoperable payment system that combines the advantages of various channels.

Mobile Money Agents in Tanzania: How Busy, How Exclusive?

The Financial Sector Deepening Trust of Tanzania (FSDT) undertook a census of cash outlets in the country, and discovered that half of all agents do more than 30 transactions per month and nearly two-thirds of agents are exclusive to M-PESA.

A New Framework For Digital Money Innovation

A new "Digital Money Innovation Framework" helps us organize our research and ideas in accordance with some of the biggest barriers we see in digitizing financial services for low-income populations.

Where’s The Cash? The Geography Of Cash Points In Tanzania

Places where one can exchange cash for transferable or storable electronic value is an essential component of financial access. Given the paucity of financial infrastructure in Tanzania, we wanted to know how deeply mobile money agents have penetrated rural areas.

Who Should Pay for Banking Infrastructure in G2P Programs?

In 2006, 300 of Colombia's 1,100 municipalities had no access to banks. Now, 99% do. Incentives, while not enough to stimulate investment by private financial institutions in all remote areas, played a significant role in helping to build agent networks througout the country.

Pakistan: G2P Laboratory

Pakistan is becoming a laboratory for G2P payment innovations. A new report by CGAP discusses the G2P payments sector in Pakistan and demonstrates how social transfers can help bring poor people into the formal financial system.

Consumer Education and Mobile Money Adoption

Consumer education adds value not only for clients, but also for mobile money providers and for their financial institution partners. This post from Microfinance Opportunities shines a light on client behaviors and challenges, and identifies ways to address them: either through information to the consumer, or by helping providers to look inwardly for solutions which result in an improved consumer experience that can lead to greater uptake and use of mobile money products.

The Emerging Landscape of Demand-side Data in Branchless Banking

The second post in a series on the emerging branchless banking data architecture focuses on the demand side of the data equation and attempts to answer questions such as: which clients are using which products for which purpose? What aspects of a service are they satisfied or dissatisfied with? And, perhaps most importantly, is the service having a positive impact on their general well-being?

A Digital Pathway To Financial Inclusion

A growing body of evidence suggests that connecting poor people to a digital financial system will generate sizable welfare benefits. But countries cannot bridge the cash-digital divide in one leap. Instead, they pass through several stages of market development.

The Emerging Global Data Architecture of Branchless Banking

This first post in this series lays out a conceptual map of the data landscape and takes a closer look at the supply-side data gathering efforts worldwide. It is important to note that while various initiatives have begun to look at the wider financial inclusion data architecture from the supply and demand-side, branchless banking and mobile money data is still missing from many datasets or is poorly represented.

Unintentional Consequences: Branchless Banking In Ghana

Ghana should be a ripe market for mobile money. Yet, as CGAP has written about before, the market has been slow to take off. In this post and video, Elly Ohene-Adu, Head of Financial Inclusion at the Central Bank of Ghana, speaks with CGAP about some of the issues with the current regulations and how the BoG is planning to tackle them.

Can Retailers and MNOs Provide More Efficient Financial Services?

When it comes to financial inclusion, retail has been one of the late driving forces in Latin America. In the past, banks have been unable to cater to over 50% percent of households in the region. Retailers have filled some of this gap and have started offering formal financial services to millions of previously unbanked customers.