Photo by Ullas Kalappura, 2017 CGAP Photo Contest Photo by Ullas Kalappura, 2017 CGAP Photo Contest

Customers

The number of people with access to a financial account is steadily rising. Globally, 69 percent of adults in 2017 had accounts, up from 51 percent in 2011. But there are stark differences among countries—China and India are at 80 percent, while Pakistan and Sierra Leone have only 22 percent of adults banked. And the gender gap in account use is unchanged over the past decade at nine percentage points worldwide. Moreover, one in three people in developing countries had not used their accounts over the past year, according to the 2017 Global Findex.

CGAP's work on customers seeks to better understand the financial lives of poor people, particularly women, youth, and the forcibly displaced, among other vulnerable segments. What we learn will help financial services providers design products and services that better meet the needs of low-income people. We believe that creating value for customers increases account uptake and use, which in turn gives poor people more opportunities to improve their well-being. Providers also benefit because customers who see the value in services offered tend to be more loyal, use more financial products, and generate more revenue for providers.

Latest Research

Reading Deck

Social Media Monitoring to Assess Consumer Risks in Digital Credit Apps: Guidance for Supervisors from an India Pilot

To better understand the digital consumer credit and the risks they pose for customers, this reading deck contains supervisory guidance on the use of a branch of AI, Natural Language Processing (NLP), for social media monitoring. It is based on insights and lessons from an India pilot and provides examples of social media analyses carried out as part of that pilot.
Publication

Bolstering Women’s Climate Resilience and Adaptation through Financial Services

Financial services help people to reduce the impact of and to adapt to climate-related risks. Yet women have less access to such tools. This working paper illustrates how women are differently impacted by climate change and how financial services can play a better role in strengthening their autonomous adaptive capacities to climate change.
Publication

Strengthening Rural Women’s Climate Resilience: Opportunities for Financial and Agricultural Service Providers

Rural women are critical to ensuring global food security but disproportionately vulnerable to climate change. In this working paper, CGAP and Mercy Corps AgriFin provide an overview of 10 opportunities for service providers, investors, and donors to improve rural women’s climate resilience and share examples of innovative business solutions.

Latest Blogs

Blog

Four Ways to Integrate Gender in Financial Inclusion Investments

How can impact investors integrate gender throughout the investment cycle to improve women’s financial inclusion and contribute to WEE and gender equality? We highlight four emerging practices investors can use.
Blog

How do Industry Associations Promote Responsible Digital Finance?

CGAP undertook qualitative research on how industry associations can promote responsible digital finance. We identified 10 activities that support customer-centricity, capability, and collaboration – the three building blocks of responsible digital financial services ecosystems.
Blog

Out of the Norm: myAgro Breaks Down Barriers to Serving Rural Women

Gender norms often prevent rural women in Senegal from accessing financial and agricultural services. Pilot projects by CGAP and myAgro are providing insights into how companies can better serve rural women by addressing these norms.