Recent Blogs
Regulating Savings Groups: Only a Proportionate Approach Will Work
Savings groups offer vital, community-run savings and loans, thriving even in fragile contexts. But rising government regulation in some countries risks harming them unless policies remain proportionate and risk-based.
Unlocking Invisible Barriers to Women’s Inclusion in East Africa
Invisible gender norms shape how everyone in the financial system behaves. CGAP & FSD Network research in Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda shows that making finance work for women means understanding those norms and how to intervene to change market actor behavior.
Beyond Borders: Expanding Financial Inclusion Through e-Commerce
Cross-border e-commerce enables women to expand their markets, reach new clients, and trade in greater volumes, while doing business remotely, saving time and improving efficiency. These transactions create a financial footprint that can help women qualify for loans, insurance, and other financial products.
Four Ways Funders Can Support Climate-Smart Women’s Financial Inclusion
Inclusive finance is a critical, yet underutilized, tool for supporting low-income women’s climate adaptation, and funders can play a key role by helping FSPs overcome key barriers to delivering climate-smart, gender-responsive financial products and services.
Rural Women in Tanzania Build Financial Resilience Through Groups
BRAC Tanzania Finance Ltd. (BTFL) supports rural women with tailored loans, financial guidance, and a "phygital" approach, helping them build resilience and sustainable livelihoods despite the unique challenges they face.
Everyone Loves Drama: Changing Financial Norms With Edutainment
Edutainment does more than entertain. It shapes our understanding of the world and sparks change – and even the use of financial services. Compelling characters in engaging stories can increase account ownership, savings, and financial planning.
Good News for Young Women’s Financial Inclusion in East Africa
Young women in East Africa are demanding and using financial services earlier and faster than a decade ago, according to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation analysis of Findex 2021 and 2011 data. The second blog in our series unpacks these findings.
6 Strategies to Promote Digital Financial Product Adoption Among Youth
Here are six insights about how to make financial services appeal to young people, coming out of a digital savings pilot in Tanzania.
Youth in Agriculture: A New Generation Leverages Technology
Digital financial services can help young people see a future in agriculture.
How Regulators Can Foster More Responsible Digital Credit
Regulators can help ensure digital credit helps, rather than harms, poor customers by taking these steps.
It's Time to Slow Digital Credit's Growth in East Africa
New research from Kenya and Tanzania reveals that digital credit is often used for consumption purposes and that delinquency and default rates are high, suggesting funders of digital credit markets should prioritize consumer protection.
The Case for Off-Grid Solar Companies as Mobile Money Agents
Off-grid solar companies could boost revenue and reach more low-income customers by becoming master mobile money agents in remote areas.
Proximity Matters: Improving the Viability of Frontier Agents
Easy access to agents makes people more likely to use digital financial services, but business as usual has left remote communities underserved. Here are some ways governments and providers are expanding agent networks in hard-to-serve areas.
East African Interoperability: Dispatches from the Home of M-Pesa
Kenyans can now send money between the country's two largest digital wallet services, Airtel and M-Pesa, the latest step toward interoperability in East Africa.
Can Agro-Dealers Be the Last-Mile Rails for Digital Finance?
New CGAP partnerships test large agribusinesses' potential to bring financial services to millions of rural farmers.
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.
A Digital Finance Prescription for Universal Health Coverage
Digital finance is just beginning to realize its potential in the health care sector. Take a look at some early examples of how digital financial services are contributing to the goal of universal health coverage.
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?
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.