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From Kentucky to Kenya: Celebrating Financial Inclusion’s Potential – And Facing its Limitations
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.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, NextBillion Originals
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Three Reasons Financial Health Matters – And Not Just for the Underserved
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.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, Technology
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Mobile Podcasts: A Cost-Effective Way to Boost Financial Literacy in India
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.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, Technology
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Inclusive Fintech: Four Lessons for Optimizing Customer and Tech Journeys
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.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, Technology
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Announcing NextBillion Financial Health: New Partnership with MetLife Foundation Reflects the Evolution of Financial Inclusion
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.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, NextBillion Originals
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Financial Inclusion Takes the Next Step: An Interview with MetLife Foundation President Dennis White
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.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, NextBillion Originals
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‘Like Using a Wall to Stop a Runaway Bus’: Cambodian Microcredit is Overheated, But Rate Caps Aren’t the Answer
Daniel Rozas says a proposed interest rate cap of 18 percent on most new microloans in Cambodia will, if enforced, hurt the very people it ostensibly seeks to protect. Taking issue with a recent post by Milford Bateman, Rozas argues the cap would create a clear preference for certain types of lending and could heighten problems created by Cambodia's saturated microcredit market.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion
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Agents Beat Mobile? Intriguing Research from MIX on Alternative Delivery Channels in Banking
Many financial service providers look to technology to enable new means of distribution and achieve universal access, but agent banking remains the most commonly deployed alternative delivery channel today – and arguably the most effective. To achieve scale, the authors say, providers should analyze each channel and develop the right strategies for their desired business and social outcomes. A webinar set for Thursday is designed to help.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion
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