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How a Retail Chain Became Mexico’s No. 1 Bank Account Supplier

Saldazo, a Visa debit card product co-branded with Banamex bank, has made Mexico’s largest corner store retail chain – OXXO – the country’s number one transactional account supplier. Here are some key success factors, challenges and insights from this project.

The Replication Limits of M-Pesa in Latin America

Is the challenge of replicating the success of the M-Pesa model in Kenya more about implementation and management or about context and market structure? In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), the evidence points to context.

Preventing the Digital Trail from Going Cold: Lessons from Mexico

In recent years, digitizing and delivering Government to Person social payments into individual recipients’ bank accounts has been considered a potential gateway to financially include significant numbers of poor people. A five-year project in Mexico is analyzed to help answer key questions.

Vivid Profiles of Mobile Account Users in Rural Mexico

Nearly 30 million Mexicans live in rural communities and lack basic infrastructure. As Telecomm brings basic mobile banking services to rural communities, we hear how users benefit from using these accounts in their daily lives.

Measuring Financial Sales Staff Behavior: Evidence from Mexico

A recently completed study in Mexico sought to determine how the perceptions sales staff have of different types of consumers and their knowledge impacted the quality and quantity of information consumers receive when shopping for an individual credit or savings product.

Mexico’s Tiered KYC: An Update on Market Response

In August 2011 Mexico approved a tiered scheme for opening deposit accounts at credit institutions. The innovation is that it incorporates several “levels” of simplified accounts – requirements increase progressively as restrictions on transactions and channels are eased.

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.

Why Go Mobile in Rural Communities?

Going mobile in a rural community is more than enabling remote communities to receive payments.

Re-Banking the De-Banked in Mexico

Earlier this year CGAP, in partnership with Bancomer, commissioned IDEO.org, the non-profit arm of the California firm known for its human-centered design methodology, to create a savings product that would meet the needs of low income Mexicans.

Early Insights into Rural Adoption of M-Payments in Mexico

CGAP has worked closely with Telecomm Telégrafos in Mexico to find out if people in isolated communities who lack cellular coverage, and are far away from any financial institution are willing to use a mobile account, and if so what kind of transactions are they more likely to carry out. This post provides some insights on how mobile accounts are adopted under these conditions and what is the value proposition in the eyes of the consumer.

Unlocking Barriers: Advances in Rural Mobile Banking in Mexico

Telecomm is a decentralized government agency that operates the telegraph services, bridges data connectivity across the territory, and offers financial services such as domestic and international remittances, as well as bill payments. It has decided to launch a pilot program which seeks to close the three most common gaps in financial inclusion: technological infrastructure, channels and products.

Why Don’t Low-Income Mexicans Use Formal Savings Products?

To understand why this is the case and to determine if there are ways in which low income Mexicans can be attracted to formal savings and other financial products, CGAP partnered with design firm IDEO.org and one of the largest banks in Mexico Bancomer over the last three months. The purpose was to incubate possible financial products that are financially sustainable for Bancomer but could reach scale and attract the low income Mexican market.

Savers, Planners, and Entrepreneurs

Mexico has 27 million households. Twenty-two million of them are middle and low income. Even though banks reach them physically, almost none of these people choose to use bank accounts to manage their money. Watch this eight-minute video in which Xavier faz talks with five low income Mexicans about their day-to-day money management strategies.

How to Save Lives and Lower Fuel Consumption: Clean Cookstoves

Exposure to smoke from traditional cookstoves and open fires – the primary means of cooking and heating for nearly 3 billion people in the developing world – causes 2 million premature deaths annually, with women and children the most affected.

Are Retailers Better Positioned to Offer Financial Services?

In our first post in this series on the role of consumer goods retailers in financial inclusion, we discussed how retailers are similar to MNOs in their ability to reach unbanked customers. However, the opportunity for financial inclusion via organized retail, while significant, is not present in every country and not necessarily for every type of retailer.

Small-balance Savings Accounts: Be Careful What We Wish For?

There is an underappreciated issue in the admirable push to help expand outreach and access to savings accounts amongst the poor: the potential that a savings account, if not suited to an individual’s financial profile, can actually wipe out much of a poor person’s financial assets in a year, or even a few months.

Can MTOs Accelerate the Adoption of Mobile Remittances?

As our understanding of the factors that lead to customer adoption of branchless banking expands, there is a growing consensus that for international remittances services to reach a significant level of scale, they will require an existing mobile money ecosystem that allows for downstream transactions which give users access to a wider array of cost-effective services and products such as payments and access to savings.

Scaling Climate Smart Agriculture by Financing Small and Growing Businesses

Excluded from formal markets and unable to access agricultural inputs, market information and credit, many rural poor adopt survival techniques such as illegal logging and slash-and-burn agriculture that degrade the environment and contribute to global warming.

Branchless Banking Country Notes

Over the past several months, we have taken a close look at the branchless banking industry in our focus countries.

Mexico’s National Council for Financial Inclusion

Over the last few years, the Mexican financial system has been moving toward a more inclusive financial system by expanding access to and usage of financial services.