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Public Clearinghouse Could Shake Up China’s Mobile Payment Market

China will soon require payments providers, including Alipay and WeChat Pay, to connect to a public online payments clearinghouse. Here’s what we know so far about how this institution will work and what it could mean for mobile payments.

Smartphones Are Common in Myanmar: Is Digital Finance Far Behind?

Smartphone penetration of 80 percent and low bank account access suggest that digital financial services will take off in Myanmar. China’s experience may offer clues about how and when this will happen.

QR Codes and Financial Inclusion: Reasons for Optimism

QR codes are gaining traction in China as a way to make digital payments, but will they catch on in other countries?

What Can Mobile Money Make Possible? China Has Many Answers

What's the secret to Alipay and WeChat Pay's success in mobile payments? Creating in-app universes of bundled services has played a big role by making mobile payments more useful to customers.

Inside QR Codes: How Black & White Dots Simplify Digital Payments

QR codes last year facilitated $2.5 trillion in retail payments in China, and their use is gaining momentum in countries like India. But how do they work? And what is their potential to increase financial inclusion?

How to Transform Agent Banking with an Agent-Centric Approach

What happens when financial services providers begin thinking of agents as customers? Follow the story of AMK, a microfinance institution in Cambodia, as it embarks on this journey.

How SMS Messaging Can Change Financial Behaviors

Pilots with mobile money providers in the Philippines and Paraguay showed that simple SMS messaging can increase mobile wallet transactions.

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.

Wave Money Myanmar: The Power of Smartphone Design

Myanmar has experienced remarkable growth in smartphone penetration compared to other frontier markets. A partnership between Wave Money, CGAP and Small Surfaces is leveraging human-centered design to build a digital finance app, seeking to capitalize on this opportunity to reach the unbanked.

Emerging Opportunities for Digital Finance in Indonesia

The recent visit to Indonesia by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA)–H.M. Queen Máxima of the Netherlands–provided a unique opportunity to better understand key accomplishments, challenges and opportunities for financial inclusion in the country.

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?

Leading – by Learning – on Customer Centricity

Pioneer, a Philippines-based company, participated in a May 2016 learning visit to South Africa and Zambia to learn from other CGAP partners working on customer centricity: Zoona, PEP, and Hollard. What did they learn?

The Graduation Approach Works: Now how do we Reach Scale?

Over half of 40 new Graduation projects are being implemented by governments. Some are adjusting the approach or integrating technology to make it more efficient and easier to scale.

20 Years of Financial Inclusion in East Asia and the Pacific

China, with its new business models for internet banking, may be the space to watch for financial inclusion progress in East Asia, but a lot has changed in the region over two decades.

Adapting the Graduation Model to Reach Indonesia's Ultra Poor

The Indonesian government is testing and adapting the Graduation Approach in both rural and urban areas, targeting women who have participated in existing programs. Here's what they have learned so far.

Putting Mystery Shopping to the Test in the Philippines

Typically, mystery shopping is associated with consumer market research. However, financial regulators - such as the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas - are also using it as a tool to check if financial institutions are complying with regulations.

Vulnerable Households Need Resilient Institutions in Disasters

In Indonesia, MercyCorps is pioneering a program to help MFIs prepare for natural disasters, respond quickly when clients are in need, and stabilize the financial sector serving low-income people post-disaster.

Gaining Insights into Digital Design from Cambodia’s Smallholders

Insights from smallholders are informing the design of better digital financial services for farmers in Cambodia, through a human-centered design process.

Mobile Merchant Payments: The Next Battleground?

In order to take off, mobile payments offerings need to be not only as good as cash, but decidedly better in at least one respect.

Designing Digital Financial Services for Cambodian Smallholders

As Cambodian providers continue to develop innovative new digital financial products and services, tailoring them to the unique needs of smallholder households remains a significant challenge.