Overview
The Customer-Centric Guide is a collection of practical, tested tools and case studies designed to help digital financial services (DFS) providers deliver products and services that low-income customers will use—and that create sustainable business value. This Guide is part of the Responsible Digital Finance Ecosystem (RDFE) guidance and tools, which helps ecosystem actors, including providers and industry associations, implement an RDFE vision that can lead to better consumer risk management and positive customer outcomes.
Between 2014 and 2019, CGAP worked with providers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to better understand what it takes to become customer-centric in financial inclusion. This work combined human-centered design, customer insights, and organizational change management to demonstrate how providers can align business goals with customer needs.
This collection brings together the lessons from that journey: guidance, toolkits, and real-world examples to help providers understand their customers, design solutions that work for them, and equip them to put those solutions into practice.
Note: This collection replaces the former Customer-Centric Guide website. The content on this page was last updated in 2019.
Featured Case studies
AMK, Cambodia
Leadership and Organizational Culture in Customer Centricity — AMK's journey shows how strong leadership and cultural alignment can drive customer-centric transformation. By treating agents as customers and empowering staff, AMK strengthened both customer experience and business outcomes.
- Leadership and Organizational Culture in Customer Centricity: The Journey of AMK Cambodia
- Treating Agents as Customers at AMK, A Cambodian Microfinance Institution
Digicel, Haiti
Building Usage Through Mobile Money — Digicel's MonCash highlights both the opportunities and challenges of mobile money in low-income markets. The case underscores the importance of customer insights, awareness-building, and trust to move beyond account openings toward active use.
Pioneer Microinsurance, Philippines
Customer Experience as a Business Strategy — Pioneer Microinsurance placed customer experience at the heart of its business model, proving that designing around customer needs pays off. Their focus on empathy, listening, and iterative learning led to both commercial growth and stronger client trust.
- Pioneer Microinsurance Building a Business around Positive Customer Experience Pays Off
- Card Pioneer's Journey to Customer Centricity (video)
Zoona, Zambia
Customer Centricity in Action — Zoona's story demonstrates how customer centricity can unlock growth in challenging markets. By focusing on trust, agent empowerment, and reliable service delivery, Zoona built a brand that customers valued and actively used.
Note: Since the publication of this case study in 2018, Zoona has transitioned from a consumer-facing mobile money platform to a B2B enterprise payments platform.