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Does Digital Finance Really Address Low-Income Customers’ Needs?
Digital financial services are proliferating across the developing world, yet providers are having trouble coming up with products that meet low-income customers where they live. For instance, for a rural customer, how can a stagnant digital savings account compete with a productive egg-laying hen? Maha Khan and Annabel Schiff, representing the newly formed Mastercard Foundation Partnership for Finance in a Digital Africa, unveil new research exploring how digital financial services can meet people's needs alongside more traditional services.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
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Five Series in Social Business: Announcing NextBillion’s 2018 Editorial Calendar
In 2017, NextBillion organized our content around 12 monthly themes - in 2018, we’re taking a slightly different approach. We’ll still publish special series around topics of interest to our readers, but these series will be more tightly focused, and they'll continue throughout the year. Check out the five themes we'll be exploring alongside our broader social business coverage – and learn how you can contribute.
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- Social Enterprise, Technology
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Expanding Financial Access Means Expanding Security – How ‘Tokenization’ Could Be the Key
When Experian was hacked last fall, the breach exposed the social security numbers of 143 million people in the U.S. Shortly thereafter, in South Africa, approximately 30 million citizens' identity numbers and financial information were hacked and leaked on the internet. As more people in emerging economies are equipped with personal identification numbers for digital financial services, the need for securing sensitive data grows exponentially. Suresh Rajagopalan of FSS touts tokenization as a remedy – and outlines some challenges it presents.
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- Finance
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How Impact Investing is Advancing Affordable Housing
For millions of people, especially for the 13.2 million who have worked with the organization to build new or updated homes, Habitat for Humanity is a household name. But many don't realize that the international charity that put “sweat equity” on the map is also pioneering a different approach: A pair of funds that invest in businesses that advance affordable housing via financial products and services. Jyoti Patel, global director-capital markets at Habitat’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter, discusses the funds and their wide-ranging impact.
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- Investing
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Selling Without Selling Out: How to Avoid Harmful Sales Tactics in Financial Inclusion
You are probably bombarded with offers for useless products on a daily basis, with little consequence other than mild annoyance. But what if you were living at the BoP and the product being offered were at best useless, and at worst likely to undermine your economic future? That's the case for many financial services clients in emerging markets, says Barbara Magnoni of EA Consultants. She explores responsible sales tactics that providers can use to avoid doing more harm than good.
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- Finance
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Rethinking Food Security By Re-inventing the Cold Storage Chain
In developing countries, 40 percent of food losses occur after harvest and early on in the supply chain, leading to more than 250 million tons of food waste annually — mostly because of inadequate refrigeration and unreliable and expensive energy supply. Paula Rodriguez at InspiraFarms discusses the problem – and the company's innovative solution.
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- Agriculture, Technology
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The Under-Recognized Threat of ‘Ultra-Poverty’ – And How the World Can Tackle It
The world is likely to fall short of Sustainable Development Goal 1 to end poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030 – unless it addresses the estimated 394 million people living in “ultra-poverty.” Concentrated in 14 countries in Africa and Asia, the ultra-poor have largely been overlooked by the movement to end poverty, receiving a small fraction of official development assistance. The Global State of Ultra Poverty report aims to change that, and Jesse Marsden, Veronica Brown and Aaron Merchen of RESULTS explore strategies that could turn the tide.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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From Haiti to China: 5 Pilots Begin to Reveal Digital Credit’s Uneven Impact
Demand for digital credit is growing in emerging markets, sparking opportunities for providers – and critical questions about its impact on low-income borrowers. CEGA's Digital Credit Observatory awarded five short-term pilot grants to studies in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, India and China, which provided some intriguing answers. Alexandra Wall, Natasha Beale and Carson Christiano of CEGA explore some of the studies' takeaways.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment