Searching: Research & Analysis

Starting the Transaction: Payment Initiation and Customer Experience

This technical note is framed to help policymakers and payment system operators understand recent trends in payment initiation and customer experience in making interoperable payments work better for low-income populations.

Instant Payments and Merchants — Pricing Policy Considerations

This technical note helps explain why changes in instant payment pricing are occurring, assesses their impact on market development, and offers suggestions for the path forward.

Global Landscape: Data Trails of Digitally Included Poor (DIP) People

Many low-income people generate rich data trails that are not being fully leveraged in the design and delivery of financial services. CGAP's reading deck puts a spotlight on the specific data trails generated by digitally included yet poor people, the sources of these data trails, and variations of data trails across different segmentations.

Young Women and Financial Services: Maximizing Impact

Research has shown that marginalized young women can benefit from financial services in both economic and non-economic ways. But with over half a billion women aged 15-24 in the world, the life stages, needs, and contexts of this population are tremendously diverse. Among which segments of young women could investments in improved financial services make the most impact? This infographic highlights findings from a recent CGAP segmentation exercise.

Business Her Own Way: Creating Livelihoods Through Informal Online Commerce

This Focus Note outlines the characteristics of IOC, maps the personas of the women who engage in it, and provides guidance to funders looking to support women to generate livelihoods through IOC.

Debt Relief in the Pandemic: Lessons from India, Peru, and Uganda

The widespread use of debt moratoria in response to the COVID-19 health and economic emergencies has succeeded in stabilizing financial systems and given borrowers all over the world immediate, if temporary, relief. This Briefing examines how the debt moratoria unfolded in India, Peru and Uganda.

Agent Network Journeys Toward the Last Mile: A Cross-Country Perspective

CGAP's analysis reveals three distinct journeys country stakeholders have taken to extend the reach and quality of rural agent networks.

Eko Grows Agent Network Tenfold Through Open APIs

Eko India has used open APIs to become a platform business, which has enabled it to expand at considerably lower operational cost than its traditional agent business would have.

Inclusive Digital Banking: Emerging Markets Case Studies

What makes digital banking inclusive? CGAP looks at how three digital banks are innovating and driving financial inclusion: Tyme Bank in South Africa, Kotak 811 in India, and UnionBank of the Philippines.

Microfinance and COVID-19: Principles for Regulatory Response

As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, further policy steps have proven necessary, both within and beyond the financial sector, to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic on businesses and ordinary people. This Briefing applies five guiding principle to country contexts, and specifically addresses what each principle means for regulatory responses to the COVID-19 crisis.