Searching: Blogs

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.

Mapping Africa’s Latest Innovations in Digital Finance

CGAP received nearly 200 proposals from digital financial services providers across Africa interested in piloting new products. A look at those proposals — from 30 countries — shows that innovations are spreading beyond hot spots like Kenya.

Cultivating Opportunities for Women in Agriculture

National surveys in Mozambique and Tanzania show that women in agriculture do not diversify their incomes as much as men do. Equal access to financial services could help women to generate new sources of income.

Can Digital Savings Reduce Risks in Digital Credit?

An experiment in Tanzania suggests that offering savings and credit on the same mobile wallet can lead to more responsible borrowing.

Digital Financial Inclusion Supervision: Tanzania Pilot Program

The world of digital financial inclusion is growing quickly and outpacing capacity and resources to tackle it from a regulatory and supervisory standpoint. In response, CGAP and Toronto Centre piloted the first Digital Financial Inclusion Supervision training program in Tanzania.

Six Tips for Policy on Disruptive Digital Financial Inclusion

Digital technologies are changing the financial inclusion landscape worldwide by revolutionizing access to finance, connecting hundreds of millions to formal financial services for the first time. Financial market regulators, supervisors and overseers are racing to keep pace with these developments.

Paying for School: 6 Insights for Better Financial Services

The inability to pay fees and other education expenses keeps many children out of school. What is the extent of these challenges, who is affected and what kinds of financial services could help?

Interactive SMS Drives Digital Savings and Borrowing in Tanzania

Financial education is often delinked from customer actions–they may learn about interest rates now, but won’t need to borrow for months or even years. In rural Tanzania, an interactive SMS project brought information to farmers' phones, enabling customized learning in real time.