Blog

The Global Findex: Filling A Major Gap in the Data Landscape

We believe both policy making and private sector decision making is much improved when it is rooted in rigorous research and analysis. Better evidence can improve outcomes in a number of ways:

What is the Telecom Regulator’s Role in Fostering Mobile Money?

Mobile money feels right for mobile network operators (MNOs): it is an extension of the basic prepaid platform and distribution networks they already operate. Mobile money does require greater surveillance against fraud and money laundering measures, but it’s all fundamentally about secure messaging.

India’s Microfinance Industry: An Anatomy of Risk for April 2012

With around 20 million borrower accounts estimated for March 2012, India still has one of the largest microfinance industries in the world. However, in March 2012 it also had the dubious distinction of having perhaps the worst portfolio quality in the world (at the national level).

Interest Rates on Microloans in Russia: How Much Is Too Much?

Just as the dust settled after a controversial entrance of new players in the Russian microfinance sector about a year ago – those claiming themselves to be ”microfinance organizations” and yet charging 730% interest per annum, another “innovative microfinance” product has totally shocked visitors of the Russian Post, as reflected in a multitude of blogs and in numerous media articles published in recent weeks.

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.

Formality and Informality: Lessons from the New Findex Survey

The Findex project helps to correct a long-standing imbalance in evidence on global finance: an abundance of data on the supply of financial services but curiously little that’s systematic and comparative about global demand.

ARPU Going Low: The Role of Financial Services in Latin America

The model for obtaining significant revenues must be one in which the carriers are efficient players of the ecosystem, beyond the mere provision of connectivity to mobile phones.

Can We Sustainably Reach the Poorest?

Recent reports reveal that we’re making some progress in the fight against poverty, but there’s been little effect on the most challenging to reach—the ultra-poor.

Two Persistent Divides in Financial Inclusion: Gender and Rural

For the first time, we have hard data to evaluate how women and rural residents around the world save, borrow, make payments and manage risk both inside and outside the formal financial sector.

Measuring Financial Exclusion: How Many People Are Unbanked?

Thanks to the launch of the Global Findex data set, based on nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults in 148 economies, we know that approximately 2.5 billion adults lack a formal bank account and most of these people are concentrated in developing economies.

How Perception and Trust Shape Adoption

How does a company, or in this case – a new player in the financial services market – change the way it is perceived among a new customer segment it is trying to reach with new products and services?

Meanwhile in Brazil...Are We There Yet?

The job of financial inclusion in Brazil is arguably done. Brazil’s banks have made it a global leader in branchless banking. The underlying retail payment infrastructure is in place. There are agent locations in almost every municipality. New agent management companies from around the world regularly visit more than 30 of their counterparts in Brazil to understand how the business works. And Brazil’s Bolsa Familia program, already successful in moving beyond G2P payments to credit and savings, is considered a global flagship. We start here by presenting our learnings from Brazil and share our summary note on the industry.

Better Data Can Mean Better Decisions For Financial Inclusion

Better financial inclusion data is critical to inform financial inclusion policy making and advance financial inclusion, globally and nationally.

How Does Mobile Money in Kenya Affect Financial Inclusion?

The rapid uptake of mobile money transfer in Kenya has ignited enthusiasm globally over the potential to bank poor people via the platform of mobile phone technology. On the basis of research undertaken for Financial Sector Deepening Kenya, I argue that the evidence suggests an alternative explanation which means that formal service provision for poor people needs to be thought through in a very different way. It means going beyond the expectation that mobile technology can adequately lower transactions costs to produce a revolution in inclusion, to recognising that managing financial resources has important social dimensions.

Making Clean Technology A Viable Business for Women in Africa

Energy poverty, climate change, financial inclusion and women empowerment are all closely related. Of the 1.6 billion people globally without access to electricity, 70% are women and girls.

Jipange Kusave: A Mobile-only Attack on the Kenyan Mattress

When we launched Jipange KuSave – a mobile-only savings product – in Kenya in early 2010, our goal was to out-compete the mattress. Back then, Safaricom’s M-PESA service was in hyper-growth phase and ramping up to become the de facto national retail payment system. But even more exciting was M-PESA’s potential as a pervasive and low-cost delivery channel for a wider set of financial services.

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.

Evolving Microfinance–Why We Might Appear to Talk Past Each Other

Now, over time the field realized that this story, while true at its narrow core, is too simplistic and other factors are important to achieve sustained, large-scale poverty reduction and growth of local economy.

Can Third-Party Providers Lead to New Business Models?

Until recently, Zoona, formerly known as Mobile Transactions could have been considered the best kept secret in Africa. Operating in Zambia on a shoe-string budget, they have been developing their own unique business model for electronic financial services slowly and with little media attention. Now, as of February 2012, this small company has secured investments from three big investors, Omidyar Network, ACCION Frontier Investments, and Sarona Asset Management. All three are banking on the fact that Zoona’s experience and innovative approach to serving a range of consumers situates them to fill crucial gaps in the mobile money transactions and payments market in Africa.