Content Type
Friday
June 9
2017
Financial inclusion is one of NextBillion’s core topic areas, and we’re dedicating special coverage this month to the many innovations, opportunities – and challenges – that are shaping the sector. This coverage will run the gamut from the usage of machine learning in credit scoring, to the latest trends in fintech, to innovative approaches for measuring the impact of financial inclusion initiatives.
Friday
June 30
2017
The financial inclusion industry is arguably more innovative and attuned to the needs of low-income clients than ever before. But how much of an impact can it make in a world where the problems of poverty and income inequality increasingly plague not only low-income countries, but wealthy ones too? We discuss the issue as NextBillion's Financial Inclusion Month concludes.
Wednesday
June 28
2017
It's easy to affirm that financial inclusion is increasing. It's more difficult – because of a lack of reliable and actionable tools – to determine how adults derive value from financial inclusion. To address that need, insight2impact recently developed and tested a needs measurement framework concept that takes users’ actual usage patterns into consideration.
Tuesday
June 27
2017
Forty-three percent of Americans struggle to pay bills and make credit payments, while 23 percent of workers making $50,000 to $99,999 a year are living paycheck-to-paycheck, and underserved Americans spend $141 billion in fees and interest to meet their financial needs. That's why, as the Center for Financial Services Innovation puts it, "Financial health matters to all of us." Today (June 27) CFSI and other mission-based organizations are celebrating #FinHealthMatters Day, to highlight what we all can do to improve financial health.
Guest Articles
Friday
December 22
2017
Smallholder farmers often live in remote villages, located hours away from towns and cities where they might be able to access consistent mobile networks, bank accounts or other formal financial access points. So while many farmers are curious about the idea of receiving the payment for their cash crops in digital formats, the options for them to use that digital currency are limited. Instead of pushing technology for technology’s sake, financial inclusion projects ought to seek diverse solutions that are appropriate and accessible for customers based on their needs.
Friday
June 23
2017
As a reader of this blog, you likely find it easy to read and understand instructions about basic banking processes, and breeze through simple transactions like ATM withdrawals. But what about those who lack literacy skills, or who are just getting introduced to the world of finance? Mobile phone podcasts, particularly those delivered to targeted audiences in their language, can be a solution. With the potential to reach more than 1 billion mobile subscribers in India, mobile phone podcasts could bring financial literacy to underserved communities.
Thursday
June 22
2017
Established in 2015 as a resource centre to help find new ways to use data to assist the financial inclusion community, insight2impact recently released its "i2i Measurement Framework Note series." The document introduces a new theory and set of measurement frameworks designed to help stakeholders achieve their good intentions and is underpinned by three key insights.
Wednesday
June 21
2017
Chris Dunford / Carmen Velasco
In an effort to find which microfinance practitioners are most successfully alleviating poverty, Truelift – with the help of other microfinance rating agencies and technical experts – designed an assessment tool and beta-tested it on nine institutions around the world. The result, essentially, is a global “trust mark” for anti-poverty action. Organizers are looking for opportunities to use the tool to support assessment of a variety of service providers.
Friday
June 16
2017
Catalyst Fund – a unique accelerator model that provides direct and tailored technical assistance to complement a startup’s skill sets – spent the past year working directly with early-stage fintech businesses in emerging markets. Here are some of the lessons they gathered, both on the tech side and the customer side. A key takeaway: Trust is slowly built but easily destroyed.
Interviews
Thursday
June 15
2017
As NextBillion launches our new Financial Health site under the sponsorship of MetLife Foundation, we touched base with its president and CEO, Dennis White. In this wide-ranging interview, White discusses the evolution of the financial inclusion movement, and the work the foundation is doing to advance it – including its grant-making and investing approach, its ongoing challenges, and what it has learned from both success and failure, among other issues.
Thursday
June 15
2017
NextBillion is officially re-launching our Financial Innovation site with a new name and partner. The site will now be called Financial Health, and it’s being sponsored by MetLife Foundation. The Foundation shares our concept of how the new NextBillion Financial Health site can best serve our readers: By providing a platform for sharing insights, data, and analysis through articles that ask the big question of what works – and what doesn't – in the movement to help more people use financial services to improve the quality of their lives.
Tuesday
June 13
2017
Financial diary methodology is a powerful tool for studying financial inclusion, especially if digital tools are used. Using a mobile data collection and analysis app (which also worked offline) and a cloud-hosted database, Catholic Relief Services drew household data from rural areas in real time and amassed thousands of data points generated by tracking people’s financial lives each week.
Guest Articles
Friday
June 9
2017
Fintech models have proliferated in most developing countries, but alternative lending has struggled to gain scale. That's why FIBR, a project by consulting firm BFA in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation, is bringing together fintechs and banks to use networks of small businesses – shops, clinics and even local schools – to deliver digital financial services to low-income customers.
Guest Articles
Tuesday
June 6
2017
Investment in predictive algorithms for credit scoring is a no-brainer for sophisticated digital financial service providers. Brick-and-mortar financial institutions that are just beginning to explore technology applications should follow suit, according to BFA, because credit scoring optimizes three business layers that improve the overall bottom line.
Monday
June 5
2017
The whole framework for digital money is inadequate, says Ignacio Mas, because people don't have a proper digital identity. That's partly due to governments and financial institutions having different needs. He recommends dividing identity rules into two: one set that serves financial integrity and law enforcement needs, and another that fulfills the bank's fiduciary duty toward customers.
