NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, December 1, 2016

UNCDF’s MicroLead program team is proud to introduce its series of practical toolkits titled, “How to Succeed in Your Digital Journey: a Series of Toolkits for Financial Service Providers”. The toolkits (available both in French and English) are designed for financial service providers (FSPs) who want to go digital.

Digital finance via mobile banking and other technologies enables banks and microfinance institutions to reach the “last mile” of unserved populations. For the poor living in remote rural areas, local bank branches and microfinance offices can be hard to find. This, in turn, limits the ability of the rural poor to save for emergencies and investments and access a suitable range of formal financial services.

But digital finance is turning all that on its head. Today, banks and microfinance institutions throughout the developing world are able to cost-effectively serve rural populations with these new technologies.

However, for FSPs, implementing digital finance comes with its challenges. “Many FSPs realise the importance of utilising digital financial services (DFS) to reach their customers,” says Pamela Eser, the Global Head of MicroLead. “But they don’t necessarily know where to start.”