Research & Analysis

Addressing Gender Norms to Increase Financial Inclusion: Designing for Impact

To advance women’s financial inclusion and economic empowerment, funders and market facilitators need to acknowledge gender norms and understand how they limit women’s ability to access, use, and benefit from financial services.

Digitization in Microfinance: Case Studies of Pathways to Success

This Working Paper takes a unique look at microfinance institution innovation with digital technologies by featuring case studies on five MFIs that successfully created measurable customer and business value through digitization:

Microfinance Solvency and COVID-19: A Call for Coordination

This COVID-19 Briefing looks specifically at how to address the solvency risks facing medium and small microfinance providers, which often reach into communities and geographic areas that are not served by larger lenders.

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.

Snapshots: MFIs During the COVID-19 Crisis

CGAP and Symbiotics analyze COVID-19's impact on the performance of the more than 300 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Symbiotics global portfolio, in this series of brief papers published between November 2020 and July 2021.

PAYGo PERFORM: Financial, Operational, and Portfolio Quality KPIs for the PAYGo solar industry

With the help of 600 colleagues from the PAYGO offgrid solar sector, a new set of 36 standard metrics covering portfolio quality, unit and firm-level economics, and company operational indicators are available today.

Getting Repaid in Asset Finance: A Guide to Managing Credit Risk

From Sub-Saharan Africa to the Indian Subcontinent, asset finance and leasing companies are doing invaluable, innovative work to finance critical assets for low-income and informal borrowers. But unlike banks and microfinance institutions, many of these companies do not have deep experience in organizing a credit operation, mitigating risk throughout a credit transaction or managing a portfolio of loans or leases.

Fintech and Financial Inclusion: A Funders' Guide to Greater Impact

This practical guide, based on two years of global research, describes how development funders can identify promising fintechs and maximize the impact of their support.

Fintech and Development Funders

With a strategic approach, development funders can expand fintech's impact on low-income communities and small businesses. See key findings from CGAP's fintech research at a glance in this infographic.

Development Funders and Inclusive Fintechs: Analyzing One Decade of Funding Flows

Are development funders providing catalytic support that helps build inclusive fintech markets? This slide deck analyzes a decade of funding flows into the fintech sector.