Financial Inclusion Week

<p>Posts from partner organizations published during Financial Inclusion Week, Oct. 29 to Nov. 2, 2018, under the theme of “Getting Inclusion Right.”</p>
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For the final part of our Financial Inclusion Week 2018 podcast series, Tess Johnson, research associate at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion, sat down with former CFI Fellow and Independent Consultant Alexis Beggs Olsen for a conversation highlighting a specific case study on getting inclusion right. This episode, based on our publication <strong><em><a href="/uniting-tech-and-touch-why-centaur-products-are-better-for-consumers-and-providers-evidence-from-kenya">Uniting Tech and Touch: Why Centaur Products Are Better for Consumers and Providers</a> – Evidence from Kenya</em>, </strong>explores both some remaining obstacles and concrete solutions to getting effective human touch right in Kenya’s digital financial landscape.

Podcast: Getting Inclusion Right Podcast with Alexis Beggs Olsen

For the second part of our Financial Inclusion Week 2018 podcast series, Tess Johnson, research associate at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion, sat down with Accion in the U.S. CEO Gina Harman for a conversation highlighting the domestic U.S. perspective on getting inclusion right. Accion in the U.S. collaborates with all four Accion U.S.-based lending organizations to reach entrepreneurs on the ground and online with the latest innovations in mission-based small business lending.

Podcast: Getting Inclusion Right Podcast with Gina Harman

<em>This post originally appeared on Stellar's <a href="https://www.stellar.org/blog/together-we-can-a-decentralized-vision-for-financial-inclusion/">blog</a>.</em>

In this post, our contribution to <a href="http://financialinclusionweek.org/">Financial Inclusion Week</a> organized by the Center For Financial Inclusion, we’ll share Stellar Development Foundation's (SDF's) vision for achieving financial inclusion globally.

We’ll do this by first outlining how we define financial inclusion, which we think is an important place to start. We’ll then describe our philosophy and approach to enabling. Finally, and most importantly, we’re honored to present three guest posts by companies actively building financial inclusion solutions around the globe, powered by Stellar.
<h3>What is Financial Inclusion?</h3>
<em>“Financial inclusion means that individuals and businesses have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs – transactions, payments, savings, credit and insurance – delivered in a responsible and sustainable way.”</em> – <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/financialinclusion">World Bank</a>

Financial inclusion is the science (or art) of designing financial products and services that meet individuals and communities where they are. At its core, the movement is about localization, and requires entrepreneurs who are acutely sensitive to things like cost, culture, and connectivity when designing their solutions.

Personally, I’ve had first hand exposure to the importance of ‘meeting local needs’ in designing financial products and services. I’ve seen first-hand a statewide default on microfinance loans, driven almost entirely by cultural misalignment – in this case, sending male loan collectors to female-only borrower groups in conservative Muslim villages. I also helped form a functional village bank that used paper and pencil for its record keeping, and a metal box with three locks and three key holders as its vault. And it worked beautifully. Localized, relevant solutions are essential to move from aspiration to execution in the financial inclusion space.

But at SDF, we believe there’s something else.

Inclusion, for us, also means equal access, not just to products, but to the global marketplace. It means enabling greater economic participation. It means local service providers connecting their customers to the global economy – sourcing the best rates, goods and opportunities, and seamlessly delivering them through an accessible and relevant platform. For us, economic participation is fundamental in defining financial inclusion.

And this is where we believe blockchain is enabling a paradigm shift.
<h3>Our vision for Financial Inclusion</h3>
To truly achieve financial inclusion, we envision a world in which local fintech entrepreneurs utilize Stellar as their back-end infrastructure solution. We believe this will shift the playing field for financial inclusion innovators in three key ways:
<h4>Increase go-to-market speed:</h4>
Stellar provides an alternative to building your own back-end, both as an account management system and as a payment rails. This dramatically reduces the cost of launching a new product, as well as the time to market, reducing barriers to entry. This means more innovation and increased specialization. And all of this is delivered while simultaneously leveraging the scaling economics and continuous development common to open-source projects.
<h4>Reduce cost of products:</h4>
Those familiar with financial inclusion know that at its core, it often comes down to cost. The cost of account setup, transaction processing or lending are often too high given potential revenue, forcing businesses to walk-away, or operate at a loss. With Stellar, an account costs $.40 and transactions cost $.0000025, dramatically changing the calculus for businesses that service lower income households and lower revenue enterprises.
<h4>Enable access and interoperability:</h4>
One integration enables access to a global marketplace, that’s the future with decentralized financial protocols. With Stellar, companies can connect to a global network of regulated financial services counterparts, and transact over a modern, instant and low cost payment rail. Any asset or currency is tradeable in Stellar — creating interoperability between every participant, regardless of whether users save and spend with Naira, Pesos, airtime minutes or a new digital currency token.
The
<h3>The Future of Financial Inclusion in Practice</h3>
The Stellar community is full of inspiring projects building the financial products of tomorrow. Many of these projects simultaneously focus on services for the underbanked, a living and breathing incarnation of the theory presented above. Take a few moments to check out three initiatives working in the Caribbean, U.S. and southern Africa, respectively: <a href="https://www.seamless.money/">Seamless</a>, <a href="https://www.finclusivecapital.com/">Finclusive</a>, and <a href="https://getwala.com/">Wala</a>.

Together We Can: A Decentralized Vision for Financial Inclusion

<em>This post originally appeared on Every1Mobile's <a href="https://www.every1mobile.com/?p=9819">blog</a>.</em>

The theme for this year’s <a href="http://www.financialinclusionweek.org">Financial Inclusion Week</a> is Getting it Right. During this week, we share our insights in using a mobile-first approach to engage adolescent girls to drive small changes in savings habits in Uganda.

Mobile offers significant potential to engage people at scale, connecting them to services and solutions that can improve their everyday lives. The rise of mobile banking products, such as Safaricom’s <a href="https://www.techchange.org/work/the-story-of-m-pesa-2/">mPesa</a> in Kenya and other digital financial services, show that overcoming specific contextual challenges and responding to the demand of low-income people at scale, requires digitally-led solutions.

A <a href="https://nextbillion.net/does-greater-inclusion-lead-to-financial-health/">recent Gallup survey</a> of 10,000 people in 10 countries showed that owning a bank or mobile money account doesn’t automatically correlate with greater financial security. Simply increasing the numbers accessing financial services and accounts in isolation won’t improve the financial health of vulnerable groups: we must also be driving changes in financial knowledge, attitudes to money and savings practices, so that people can make the most of the services available to them and keep their money safe.

As young women in developing countries are more likely to be working in informal, low-income and high-risk work; and are disproportionately affected by poverty, discrimination and exploitation, they are the priority group for financial inclusion. It is well known that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lqkeDlWAHM">economic empowerment of women and girls</a> is a critical factor in sustainable poverty reduction.

In launching the digital platform ‘Trust Girls’, in partnership with the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and Finance Trust Bank (FTB) in Uganda, we explored digital approaches to improving demand for digital financial services among this group.

‘Trust Girls’ is a pilot digital community of young girls in low-income families in urban Kampala, Uganda. It’s a <a href="https://www.techopedia.com/definition/26221/feature-phone">feature phone</a>-ready digital hub where girls come to connect, share, exchange and learn about themselves and about money management. It links to FTB’s youth-targeted financial and non-financial services, and through engaging, digital behavior change strategies, drives not only demand but also – and importantly – sustained use of FTB’s products among this particularly vulnerable group.

In the six month pilot, we registered nearly 1,600 users, about a third of whom were under 18. By the end, over 340 users (around 20 percent) were actively saving and had accumulated, on average, a few dollars each. We recognize that there’s a lot more to do to achieve sustainable, scalable change, and the successful pilot is paving the way for bigger and better partnerships and approaches.

So, from our pilot "consumer network" of adolescent girls, what have we learned about empowering young girls with better financial knowledge and savings behavior?
<ul>
 	<li>Human-centered, adaptive processes are not just valuable for successful change and adoption: they are critical. It won’t be surprising that a digital company working in low and middle-income countries advocates for flexible, user-centered design. Research data on digital financial service uptake and financial security only tells one story: without knowing how girls engage socially in the digital space, what they talk about and the kind of content they would respond to, we could not have designed a platform that was appealing, accessible and useful to our users. We didn’t get it 100 percent right in the first instance:. Feedback from girls on the role of the community moderator, for example, told us we needed to give the moderator more personality, so we created a profile and persona that the girls could relate to and trust.</li>
 	<li>The socio-cultural and economic factors that drive financial exclusion are complex, so the solutions must be holistic. Trust Girls content (articles, quizzes, surveys, and e-learning) centered on the complex intersection of sexual and reproductive health and financial independence. This is a tricky area to navigate, but we couldn’t ignore the critical gender dynamics that young girls in poverty face.This was well rewarded: we saw that girls instantly related to this message. This became a strong point of leverage in our content: Trust Girls users expressed fears around being financially dependent on boyfriends or family members, and by introducing mobile banking products and empowering girls with basic financial literacy, we are offering them the tools to address this.</li>
 	<li>Don’t underestimate the value of digital peer networks and social learning in driving change in low-income groups. We saw an active social community develop very rapidly, and message boards quickly filled up with expressions of support and encouragement; of requests for advice and responses; and of requests for new/additional/different platform features on topics within and beyond financial management, sexual health, and relationships. ‘Super users’ emerged, who would organically take on a mentoring role to help other girls. Harnessing this energy, at scale and through digital, has enormous potential.</li>
 	<li>As with all social and behavioral change approaches, the key to driving meaningful change is engagement over time. Mobile is no different. We saw that girls engaged with content and responded to calls to action on the platform with little prompting. However, to really drive the outcomes in the long term, we needed to build trust and maturity in the community over time. We also need time to monitor the community and build evidence of changes in behavior and demand.</li>
</ul>

Getting Financial Inclusion Right…with Mobile

Low-income women, especially minority women, continue to be the group most excluded from traditional financial systems in the United States. Many don’t have bank accounts or credit histories. These are major challenges – and reasons why we are sharing our insights with a view toward “getting inclusion right” for this vulnerable population right here in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

Nearly <a href="https://www.fdic.gov/news/news/speeches/spmay2317.html">27 percent</a> of households in the United States, or 90 million people, are unbanked or underbanked—and many of these households are poor and led by women. Despite accounting for a growing share of new businesses, women receive only <a href="https://microbiz.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/21st-Century-Barriers-to-Womens-Entrepreneurship.pdf">4 percent</a> of all small business loans from conventional financial institutions.

These numbers have not improved much over recent years, and they are unlikely to change dramatically unless we give women, particularly those living in poverty, a chance. The deck is overwhelmingly stacked against them. To break out of this vicious cycle of poverty, women need tools to both save and borrow money, and to build their credit histories. Only then can they gain meaningful control over their lives and their futures.

Grameen America’s lending model does this by drawing on and building women’s social capital—an extremely valuable resource—to connect them to sources of financial capital.

Most financial institutions and traditional lenders require collateral. But this is a huge barrier for people with extremely limited resources. As a result, their ability to start or grow their businesses is severely curtailed. <a href="https://www.grameenamerica.org/">Grameen America</a> focuses on this population, women living below the poverty level, and our approach is different from that of traditional lenders.

We see immense value in women’s social capital. Our group-lending model is built not on traditional collateral, but rather on trust and a social contract that holds the members accountable to each other. There is joint responsibility. Moreover, the relationships the women form with each other and their shared values—and often their shared sense of identity—strengthens them individually. They have a sense of belonging, and because they are part of this social network, they have access to information that they wouldn’t have otherwise. They gain support and build greater confidence, along with stronger financial footing, through the group model.

This model itself is a form of social collateral. The women we serve may not be able to provide financial collateral, but they do have reputations within their communities. Their peers deem them responsible, disciplined, and reliable, and therefore they are accepted into the Grameen group. And by being a member of the group and getting and repaying their loans, their social capital grows as does their financial independence. They gain much by the solidarity they share, and by participating in the program, they are able to grow their businesses, save money, and ultimately break out of poverty.

Most banks believe that low-income women are among the riskiest borrowers. However, Grameen America has proven time and time again that this is not the case; we have served over 108,000 women over the last ten years, and they have maintained a repayment rate of over 99 percent. We have found that low-income women are highly dependable and trustworthy, and they can be highly effective entrepreneurs when given the opportunity. They are in fact one of the wisest investments we can make.

Aracely -- a member in Omaha, Nebraska -- recently said, “Other companies don’t believe in poor people, but Grameen does. They helped me start my business, changing my life in the process.” We have seen that when low-income women are entrusted with microloans and other financial services and support, they can start to build better lives for themselves—and building their social capital is crucial to achieving this.

Leveraging Social Capital to Expand Women’s Financial Opportunities

In 2014, Vitas launched a special needs loan program in Iraq, made available to people with disabilities (PwDs), particularly youth. The loan amounts range from US $100 to $3,000. Our current portfolio of almost $200,000 includes nearly 300 clients.
<h3>What was the need for a product to reach this segment?</h3>
We realized that there were huge negative misperceptions around and persistent stigmas associated with PwDs. People who are blind, deaf, partially paralyzed, have missing limbs, or have other special needs were mostly excluded from parts of society. Successive governments have failed to address the problem and the stigma has remained. We believe that PwDs have tremendous potential to be productive contributors to their communities, yet they are not given the tools to do so. Furthermore, natural disasters and conflicts create even greater numbers of PwDs, rendering this problem more acute. However, with a tailored approach to provide support, we believe that many PwDs can reach their full potential and become active and vigorous social and economic participants.
<h3>Young PwDs</h3>
According to the World Health Organization, during the years of war and the various disasters that have followed, the number of PwDs in Iraq has now reached approximately 2 million. A significant number of these are youth. It was vital for us to recognize disabled Iraqi youth as an opportunity rather than a problem. Contrary to the commonly-held belief that PwDs cannot be good clients because of their perceived inability to work, our experience has proven that PwDs do make good clients.
<blockquote>Contrary to the commonly-held belief that PwDs cannot be good clients because of their perceived inability to work, our experience has proven that PwDs do make good clients.</blockquote>
<h3>What is the impact?</h3>
The current political environment in Iraq leaves PwDs completely neglected by the government. Since launching our product two years ago, we are proud to report that the results are extremely encouraging. There has been a positive increase in social capital overall, such as improved self-esteem for PwDs and pride among members who have supported them. More importantly, we have been able to work toward changing social perceptions.
<h3>Scalability</h3>
Vitas’ outlook toward financial inclusion for PwDs is to increase the special needs loan outreach by implementing improved processes and tools, training staff to increase awareness, and continuing to organize and sponsor initiatives aiming at supporting these important members of our society. We want to establish strategic partnerships with various government institutions such as the Ministry of Social Affairs, civil society and local associations, to reach larger numbers of PwDs, and empower them to generate their own incomes and improve their standard of living.

There is a double social impact in changing harmful and ill-informed biases and unlocking the potential of PwDs to live full and productive lives. Given our experience in Iraq, we feel there is an opportunity to offer similar products across the Middle East. To this end, we have also renewed our focus on offering employment opportunities to PwDs at our subsidiaries. Breaking down this entrenched stigma takes time, but it is critical to fulfil our mission that all people should have access to the financial tools they need to improve their lives and become full social and economic participants within their communities.

<em><strong>Read about CFI’s work on the topic of PwDs <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/about/what-we-do/financial-inclusion-for-persons-with-disabilities/">here</a>.</strong></em>

Why We Serve People with Disabilities: Lessons from Iraq

To kick off Financial Inclusion Week 2018, Tess Johnson, research associate at the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion, sat down with CreditMantri co-founder Gowri Mukherjee for a conversation highlighting the fintech perspective on getting inclusion right. CreditMantri is a fintech company based in Chennai, India that aims to reinvent the credit landscape by giving consumers access to responsible and transparent credit.

Podcast: Getting Inclusion Right Podcast with Gowri Mukherjee

This week is <a href="http://financialinclusionweek.org/">Financial Inclusion Week</a> and today is <a href="http://www.world-savings-day.org/">World Savings Day</a>. In recognition of these concurrent days of reflection and support, we would like to use this digital space to discuss our work at the <a href="https://itad.com/knowledge-and-resources/mastercard-foundation-savings-learning-lab/">Savings Learning Lab</a>, where we set out to better understand the state of access to, and use of, savings in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). What we have learned will help prioritize and contextualize our work over the next few years.

The resulting report, <a href="https://itad.com/reports/briefing-paper-savings-count/">Savings Count</a>, provides a comprehensive synthesis of trends in demand and supply of savings services in SSA. It discusses behavioral trends in saving and barriers to saving, the range of providers and approaches that have made a difference, key policies and regulatory factors important to promote savings, as well as areas of progress, areas in which promising work is underway, and areas where significant progress is required.

Specifically, we set out to ask and answer the following questions.
<h3>Are savings part of the financial inclusion success story?</h3>
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like savings have increased at the same rate as access to formal finance.

According to the 2017 Global <a href="https://globalfindex.worldbank.org/">Findex</a>, in SSA, despite an impressive increase in account ownership from 23 to 43 percent since 2011, the percentage of people who saved money with a formal financial institution stagnated at a low of around 15 percent.

This is concerning. We now know with certainty that the consistent use of financial services can help the world’s poorest people better manage risks, step out of poverty, and build a better life. Strong evidence indicates that savings are an essential part of this package. And while savings rates are higher in SSA than in other developing regions, they are still much lower than in higher-income regions. The persistence of dormant accounts and infrequent use of digital savings – along with poor households’ predominant use of informal savings mechanisms – indicate that people, particularly the poor, continue to face significant barriers to formal saving.
<h3>Is there a demand from clients? Or is savings no longer important in the rapidly changing world of financial services?</h3>
Our research shows there is a demand and that saving is as important as ever.

Savings are critical for poor people’s consumption smoothing, risk management and financing of important life goals such as education and starting a business. As an industry, we have made significant advances in understanding the impact of savings on customers in key areas such as income, consumption, resilience and food security. We now have a solid understanding of savings behaviors, needs and preferences, of how poor manage their money and what savings mechanisms work best for them. Savings are also good for financial service providers’ bottom lines and are required for economic growth.
<h3>Who serves this market and what are their difficulties in providing the services?</h3>
The low-income savings market is served by a range of providers such as banks, microfinance institutions, savings and credit cooperatives, and mobile money providers. All providers continue to face challenges in reaching this market segment. This is because poor people tend to keep small balances, transact often and live and work far from traditional banking outlets. Despite the challenges, significant advances have been made in reaching poor people through alternative delivery channels, the rise of digital financial services, the proliferation of linking savings groups to formal finance, and the use of customer-centric approaches. However, providers continue to struggle to serve this population segment with appropriate savings products. They face a number of challenges, including high costs of providing services and low profit margins, insufficient understanding of their clients’ behaviors, the distance of clients from branches, and product offerings that do not meet client needs.
<h3>If savings are so important, then what are governments doing to promote it?</h3>
The promotion of savings is strongly influenced by government regulation and financial inclusion policies. For example, regulation can determine if certain types of financial service providers can mobilize savings by obtaining deposit-taking licenses, or whether providers can mobilize savings from clients who may not meet all the required identification documents – by allowing for tiered KYC requirements.

Our research shows that countries in SSA employ a range of policy and regulatory initiatives that can help promote savings for low-income clients. These include the widespread adoption of national financial inclusion strategies, the implementation of regulation of e-money funds and the widespread regulation allowing the use of agents to facilitate account opening. Significant work in progress also exists on implementing regulations supporting simplified customer due diligence requirements and enforcement of customers’ ability to receive account information at no cost. However, the uneven prevalence of these examples in the region indicates that continued progress is still needed.
<h3>Our main conclusion after unpacking the data and evidence?</h3>
There is a need for savings to be promoted more prominently and more explicitly within the broader financial inclusion agenda.
<blockquote>There is a need for savings to be promoted more prominently and more explicitly within the broader financial inclusion agenda.</blockquote>
Increasing poor people’s ability to use savings mechanisms effectively is fundamental to shifting the industry’s focus from access alone to financial health and meaningful financial inclusion. And while the numbers don’t look so great yet, we believe that collectively as an industry we can make savings work! Our confidence is based on what we identified as existing advances along with promising work in progress in high impact areas, coupled with recommendations of where additional progress will make a significant difference.

We invite you to read our report and to join us in our effort to help close the gap in savings.

<em><strong>Editor's Note: Like what you read? Listen to SEEP's Financial Inclusion Week podcast, <a href="https://seepnetwork.org/Webinar-Post/Navigating-the-Evidence-on-Savings-Focused-Financial-Inclusion-Webinar">Navigating the Evidence on Savings-Focused Financial Inclusion</a>,  </strong></em><em><strong>about a searchable, interactive evidence map that provides consolidated access to relevant evidence related to savings-focused financial inclusion.
</strong></em>

Savings in Sub-Saharan Africa: Access, Policies and Priorities

<em>La versión en español de esta entrada será publicada mañana, 31/10.</em>

In most countries there are well-defined metrics on the access, use and quality of financial products and services. Fewer assessments are available, however, on how they impact people's financial well-being. For this reason, CAF–Development Bank of Latin America ─ together with Sebastian Cardenas of the Financial Superintendence of Colombia, Paola Cuadros of the Central Bank of Colombia, and Catalina Estrada of the Universidad de los Andes ─ has worked on a study that provides a first assessment of financial well-being in Latin America, based on the <a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/research-reports/financial-well-being-scale/">Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s</a> (CFPB) research and the results of the <a href="http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/1086">financial capabilities surveys</a> carried out in seven countries of the region: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru. In addition, the study evaluates the determinants of financial well-being in each of these countries.

The CFPB defines financial well-being as a state of being in which a person can fully meet current and ongoing financial obligations, can feel secure in their financial future and is able to make choices that allow them to enjoy life. The CAF surveys, in comparison, inquire about people’s financial capabilities, which we define as the combined set of knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors in relation to financial issues. Although the formulation of these survey questions is not identical to that of the CFPB, we’ve identified survey questions that best fit the elements of financial well-being as raised by the CFPB.

The following table shows the elements of financial well-being as proposed by the CFPB and CAF survey questions that align with that definition:

<img class="aligncenter wp-image-33283" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-10-30-at-1.10.39-PM.png" alt="" width="642" height="501" />

The financial well-being scores proposed in the study measure the ability of people to fully meet current and ongoing financial obligations, feel secure in their financial future and be able to make choices that allow them to enjoy life, according to CFPB’s definition. The country analysis shows that top scores were found in Chile (66) and Colombia (63), followed by Bolivia (59) and Peru (58), and lastly Ecuador (57), Paraguay (56) and Argentina (55). These results suggest that Chile and Colombia are faring relatively well in the sub-region conformed by these seven countries. By contrast, Paraguay, Ecuador and Argentina are facing greater financial challenges.

<img class="aligncenter wp-image-33284" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/Screen-Shot-2018-10-30-at-1.38.01-PM.png" alt="" width="670" height="493" />

We find that this index provides greater insight into financial well-being beyond traditional measures of financial inclusion─that is, even when a person belongs to a group that is relatively disadvantaged (for example, those with lower income and education levels), there may be compensating factors or strategies that offer other opportunities for these individuals to increase their financial well-being, such as savings, planning ahead or being part of safety networks (family, community, etc.).

Second, differences in average financial well-being are largely based on savings behavior, rather than borrowing behavior. This suggests that not having or not using formal products to save may be more harmful to one’s financial well-being than not having access to formal credit.

Third, individuals with higher levels of financial knowledge and financial skills have greater financial well-being on average.
Fourth, there are key variables that help explain an individual’s financial well-being, such as previous experience with the formal financial sector, comparison shopping between financial institutions before acquiring a new financial product, and personal participation or involvement in the financial decisions of the household.

This research suggests the following two opportunities to improve financial well-being through financial education and inclusion programs:
<ol>
 	<li><strong>Embedding attitudes and behaviors</strong> – including saving, comparison shopping between different financial institutions before acquiring a new financial product, and personal participation or involvement in the financial decisions of the household – within financial education and inclusion programs could have a significant impact on individuals’ financial well-being.</li>
 	<li><strong>Financial knowledge is important for financial well-being</strong>. Thus, it is imperative that public and private institutions implement programs that effectively promote financial capability through interventions that aim to change behavior with teachable moments, learning by doing, nudges and reminders, heuristics, gamification, personalization, and socialization, according to <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/programs-a-projects/financial-capability">CFI's recommendations on financial capability</a>.</li>
</ol>
Ultimately, we believe more research is needed to understand the drivers of financial well-being in order to better design (and implement) financial education and inclusion programs across Latin America.

&nbsp;

Measuring Financial Well-Being in Latin America: A New Tool Tested

<em>This <a href="http://www.findevgateway.org/">FinDev Gateway</a> blog repost is part of the series "<a href="http://findevgateway.org/blog-series/getting-inclusion-right-fiw-2018">Getting Inclusion Right: Financial Inclusion Week 2018</a>."</em>

<em><strong>Findev</strong>: This year marks the fourth annual Financial Inclusion Week, a global collaborative event that the Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) launched in 2015. How did the idea for this event come about, and what does CFI hope to achieve with this week-long focus on financial inclusion?</em>

<strong>Beth</strong>: We launched <a href="http://financialinclusionweek.org/">Financial Inclusion Week</a> to engage the wide variety of actors involved in financial inclusion to coalesce around a shared vision and towards full global financial inclusion. Now in its fourth year, and with an ever-growing <a href="http://financialinclusionweek.org/2018-partners/">list of partners</a>, we are pleased to see that Financial Inclusion Week has become an annual focal point to assess the progress of the entire community towards greater financial access, usage, and financial health.

<em><strong>FinDev</strong>: The theme for this year’s Financial Inclusion Week is “Getting Inclusion Right.” Why did you choose this theme? What to you are the most important aspects of financial inclusion that we have still yet to get right?</em>

<strong>Beth</strong>: Early in CFI’s life, we put forward a vision for financial inclusion that consists of a full suite of services, provided with quality and consumer protections, to everyone who can use them, in a competitive marketplace, to financially capable customers. This is what we mean by getting inclusion right. In reality, there may be very few places in the world that truly get financial inclusion right. The sector has made a lot of progress on access to payments, but still has far to go on savings, credit and insurance, as recent Findex data shows. In terms of quality, we’ve made great strides in convenience, but not so much in affordability and relevance, and the record on consumer protection is mixed. The ecosystems are gradually improving, but new issues arise as technologies shift the competitive landscape. And we are very far from combining our knowledge of what works to increase financial capability (it’s not easy) with commitment by financial service providers and others to apply that knowledge.
<blockquote>Early in CFI’s life, we put forward a vision for financial inclusion that consists of a full suite of services, provided with quality and consumer protections, to everyone who can use them, in a competitive marketplace, to financially capable customers. This is what we mean by getting inclusion right.</blockquote>
<em><strong>FinDev</strong>: How does CFI work with partners around the world to promote Financial Inclusion Week? What are some of the most successful collaborations you've seen over these past four years?</em>

<strong>Beth</strong>: Each year, CFI extends an open invitation to organizations and individuals in the financial inclusion space to participate in and contribute to Financial Inclusion Week. We encourage our partners to host a conversation in a format of their choice – which can include webinars, in-person events or blog posts. Our partners have access to <a href="http://financialinclusionweek.org/get-involved/">resources and materials</a> that they can use to plan and promote their events. We find that the most successful collaborations are those in which partners join forces by thinking through the tough questions together before presenting their insights to the broader Financial Inclusion Week community.

<em><strong>FinDev</strong>: This year’s Financial Inclusion Week coincides with the Center for Financial Inclusion’s 10th anniversary. Congratulations! What are you most proud of from CFI’s first decade?</em>

<strong>Beth</strong>: I am very proud of many of the things CFI has accomplished over the past decade – from helping to forge a financial inclusion community through our research and convening, to offering high quality executive education through the Africa Board Fellows program and our partnership with Harvard Business School, to calling attention to issues such as the need for financial preparation for aging and financial inclusion of persons with disabilities. But if I have to single out one thing, it would be the Smart Campaign, which has helped ensure that consumer protection is an integral part of any conversation about the future of financial inclusion, and what’s more, has helped develop and spread many of the tools providers need to implement sound consumer protection practices.

<em><strong>FinDev</strong>: What about lessons learned in these ten years? Any spectacular failures, or at least some growing pains?</em>

<strong>Beth</strong>: CFI emerged from deep roots in the microfinance sector, and one of our initial aims was to help that sector transition from its traditional lending methodologies, to embrace that full suite of products mentioned above and to take advantage of emerging technologies. This has been harder than we expected. While some microfinance institutions have made these shifts, more have remained largely the same – and for very good reasons. It’s difficult and sometimes just not possible to fundamentally change institutions, especially institutions with successful models. So, to pursue our vision for inclusion, CFI has welcomed relationships with a wide range of actors, especially including mainstream financial institutions, payments providers and fintechs – in addition to microfinance institutions. It will take many different kinds of financial service providers to get inclusion right.

<em><strong>FinDev</strong>: Looking ahead, what secret hopes do you harbor for CFI over the next ten years? And more broadly, for the financial inclusion sector?</em>

<strong>Beth</strong>: In recent years, there has been tremendous progress in reaching low-income people with financial services that meet short-term and daily needs, and that is important because effective day-to-day financial systems are the foundation for financial health. However, people are only truly financially healthy if they can recover from the inevitable shocks poor people are exposed to and if they can pursue their major life goals. Here we see much less progress. In the next 10 years, I’d like to see attention turn to developing and scaling products that enable people to improve their shelter, educate their children (and themselves), maintain their health, build assets, and enjoy a comfortable old age.

Getting Inclusion Right: What Will It Take?

Posts from partner organizations published during Financial Inclusion Week, Oct. 29 to Nov. 2, 2018, under the theme of “Getting Inclusion Right.”

Tess Johnson

Alexis Beggs Olsen

Gina Harman

Lisa  Nestor

Henri  Habershon

Rajitha  Swaminathan

Elissa  McCarter Laborde

James  Robinson

Diana Mejia

Elisabeth Rhyne

Micol Pistelli

Philippe  Guichandut

Danielle Piskadlo

Nina Nieuwoudt

Kenya

Sub-Saharan Africa

North America

United States

Uganda

Iraq

India

South Asia

Latin America and The Caribbean

Financial Health

Financial Technology

Fintechs

Credit Provision

Women

Persons With Disabilities

Saving

Refugees and Migrants

Underserved Groups

Impact Investing

Social Impact Metrics

Challenges and Crises

Enabling Environment

Equity Investing

Financial Service Providers

Trends

Banks

Partnerships

Payments

Podcast

Blog Post

Event

Webinar

Financial Inclusion Week 2018

The majority of Kenyans have mobile money accounts; their activity demonstrates digital financial services’ potential. Accion helps Kenyan innovators harness emerging technologies to create new financial services.

India is a global leader in financial inclusion. For over a decade, Accion has worked with and learned from India’s innovators, investors, and policymakers to expand economic opportunity for its people and businesses.

<em>This <a href="http://www.findevgateway.org/">FinDev Gateway</a> blog repost is part of the series "<a href="http://findevgateway.org/blog-series/getting-inclusion-right-fiw-2018">Getting Inclusion Right: Financial Inclusion Week 2018</a>."</em>

“I attended six vocational trainings including cooking, make-up, how to make soap and hairdressing. But in the end I couldn’t work as I couldn’t buy the necessary equipment. Not even scissors for cutting my son’s hair.”

This testimony came from a Syrian woman at Zaatari Camp in Jordan. She is one of over 200 refugees interviewed in Jordan and Uganda as part of a market study commissioned by Grameen Credit Agricole Foundation and conducted by the consulting firm Microfinanza. The studies, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), are the first step in the implementation of a joint program between Sida, UNHCR and Grameen Crédit Agricole Foundation designed to expand access to financial and non-financial services for refugees and host communities in Jordan and Uganda.

The research aimed to assess refugees’ demand for and access to financial and non-financial services. While their landscapes differ in terms of market opportunities and regulatory environments, both Jordan and Uganda have protracted refugee populations with similar needs for financial services.

Since the theme of this year’s <a href="http://financialinclusionweek.org/">Financial Inclusion Week</a> is "Getting Inclusion Right," we’d like to share our top five recommendations for financial service providers (FSPs) willing to contribute to getting financial inclusion right for refugees.
<h3>1. Do not develop specific financial products for refugees.</h3>
This recommendation may seem surprising, but findings from the study demonstrate that there are already products on the market that meet the demands identified among refugee clients. You may need to adjust your internal policies and procedures for ID and collateral requirements but there is no need for exclusive “refugee products” to match demand. Just reach out more to the refugees in your area to include them in the products you offer.
<h3>2. Find out what type of credit refugees in your area need, and how much.</h3>
In Uganda and Jordan, we found that while refugees were borrowing regularly from Savings Groups, friends and family, they were not able to borrow enough to cover their business needs. They wanted access to formal credit, they would prefer individual loans, and most were willing to pay interest. The survey also revealed a need for financing green energy products in settlements, as well as the potential to leverage digital financial services, which are already used by refugees in both countries. In Uganda, where land is reasonably available for refugees, there is also demand for agricultural products, both for individuals and for companies looking for raw agricultural products.
<h3>3. Screen their business ideas. Refugees manifest a remarkable spirit of entrepreneurship.</h3>
In Uganda, 78 percent of refugee respondents have plans to start or develop their own businesses, and 60 percent have already taken the first steps - using savings, borrowing informally and enrolling in vocational trainings. In Jordan, most refugees prefer to start their own business over seeking employment in the limited available sectors for non-Jordanians. In terms of gender segmentation, about one every four women interviewed in Jordan have strong plans to start or develop their own, mostly home-based, businesses, a proportion which increases to one every three women in Uganda.
<h3>4. Overcome the fear of flight risk, as data shows that refugees rarely resettle.</h3>
Flight risk is an oft-mentioned concern for FSPs when it comes to considering refugees as a potential target market. However, our studies found that the vast majority of respondents do not have any plans, not even vague ones, to return to their countries or to relocate to another country. Resettlements are also rare within countries. Refugees’ aspirations were much more related to gaining economic independency than to moving on to a new location. Between 2014 and the end of April 2018, only 5 percent of the registered refugee population in Jordan and 1 percent in Uganda have resettled.
<h3>5. Consider adding on non-financial services to complement the credit offer.</h3>
In both countries, non-financial services – primarily financial education and business management support – are particularly relevant for refugees with limited or no prior experience with credit or running a business. FSPs should apply their client segmentation procedures to assess which refugees may need non-financial service provision. Then, consider partnering with existing specialized NGOs which offer these services, or developing your own curriculum.

Getting Financial Services to Refugees Right

Are you interested in a career in impact investing? Join us for a speed networking event where you'll have the opportunity to chat one-on-one with professionals working in both the public and private sectors, representing organizations such as Accion Venture Lab, Accion Global Investments, MicroVest, OPIC, USAID, and Quona Capital.

Location:

<span class="ng-binding ng-scope">Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion
</span><span class="ng-binding ng-scope">1101 15th St NW, Suite 400
</span><span class="ng-binding ng-scope">Washington, DC 20005, USA </span>

Questions? Contact <a href="mailto:tjohnson@accion.org">Tess Johnson</a>.

&nbsp;

Breaking Into Impact Investing Speed Networking Event

This virtual industry dialogue will explore how innovative financing structures from different sectors help incentivize impact, and their potential applicability to financial inclusion. We'll explore specific examples of how innovative financing structures are being used to achieve concrete outcomes, including income share agreements, social impact incentive models, Good Jobs Good Business Toolkit, and the Women's Livelihood Bond.

<strong>Featuring:</strong>
<ul>
 	<li>Rashmi Khare, Director, Social Finance. Rashmi will discuss income share agreements,  an approach to align workforce development providers with recipients' positive economic outcomes.</li>
 	<li>Rory Tews, Programme Manager, Roots of Impact. Rory will explore the social impact incentive model – a funding instrument that rewards high-impact enterprises with premium payments for achieving social impact.</li>
 	<li>Kristy Henrich, Social Impact Analyst, Pacific Community Ventures. Kristy will advise on the Good Jobs Good Business toolkit which incentivizes quality jobs.</li>
 	<li>Anna Kanze, COO, Grassroots. Anna will share experiences from Aligning for Impact, an outcome-based financial incentive model for financial inclusion.</li>
 	<li>Natasha Garcha, Associate Director, Impact Investment Exchange (IIX). Natasha will discuss the Women’s Livelihood Bond</li>
 	<li>Danielle Piskadlo, Director, CFI will moderate and share experiences from Aligning for Impact</li>
</ul>
&nbsp;

Webinar: Innovative Financing Structures for Incentivizing Impact and Advancing Financial Inclusion

This virtual dialogue provides an opportunity for the <a href="/about/what-we-do/africa-board-fellowship-program/">Africa Board Fellowship</a> (ABF) network and <a href="/about/what-we-do/fiec/">Financial Inclusion Equity Council</a> (FIEC) members to discuss the role disruptive technologies play in advancing financial inclusion. This dialogue will also provide opportunities for peer exchange on investment evaluation and which technology solutions have the potential to be the most disruptive.

<strong>Discussion Topics:</strong>
<ul>
 	<li>The theme of financial inclusion week is “getting inclusion right”. What role do disruptive technologies have in advancing that agenda?</li>
 	<li>What are the most innovative and disruptive technologies that you are seeing in the FI sector?</li>
 	<li>Are there technologies from other sector that we should be watching/following?</li>
 	<li>How can investors evaluate different technologies for financial inclusion? What criteria to you use to assess which technology solutions have the potential to be the most disruptive?</li>
</ul>
<strong>Featuring:</strong>
<ul>
 	<li>Wayne Hennessy-Barrett, CEO, 4G Capital, ABF Fellow</li>
 	<li>Ami Dalal, Managing Director, FINCA Ventures, FIEC Member</li>
</ul>
<strong>Moderator:</strong>
<ul>
 	<li><a href="/bio/danielle-piskadlo">Danielle Piskadlo</a>, Director, Investing in Inclusive Finance, CFI</li>
</ul>
&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Webinar: Disruptive Technologies Advancing Financial Inclusion

We are excited to announce the fourth annual Financial Inclusion Week! Over the past three years, over 80 partner organizations have engaged thousands of people worldwide to discuss the most pressing actions needed to advance financial inclusion globally. In 2018, we aim to continue the conversations from last year and engage an even wider community of stakeholders to discuss this year’s theme Getting Inclusion Right.

In 2018, the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion is celebrating its 10th anniversary and using this moment as an opportunity to celebrate progress, but mostly to look to the future. CFI invites the Financial Inclusion Week 2018 community to join us in this journey and reflect on the question, “What do we need to get right?” What do we need to get right to ensure that gains in financial services access lead to true improvements in the lives of the underserved? What are the great upcoming risks that we need to address now to ensure that customers are adequately protected?

During Financial Inclusion Week 2018, partner organizations around the globe will hold conversations focused on what the industry must do to ensure that access to financial services brings real value to customers’ lives. <em>Getting Inclusion Right</em> means creating products and implementing policy that bridge the gap between access and financial health. We want to hear from you on how to best do this from October 29 – November 2, 2018.

Join the Financial Inclusion Week community today by <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1IpZZep9OTzaIAmrWUDzopx3yolD3Km-XY3a0pdJWwH8/edit">signing up</a> to receive updates and information on partnership. Visit <a href="http://www.financialinclusionweek.org/">www.financialinclusionweek.org</a> for a list of past partners and a round-up of the Financial Inclusion Weeks of year’s past. And stay tuned for a full calendar of Financial Inclusion Week events to be released at the beginning of September 2018.

Over the past three years over 80 partner organizations have engaged people all over the world to discuss the most pressing actions needed to advance financial inclusion globally. In 2018, we aim to continue the conversations from last year and engage an even wider community of stakeholders to discuss this year’s theme of <em>Getting Inclusion Right</em>.

<img class="aligncenter wp-image-25567" style="border: 0 solid #000000" src="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/finclusion-week-banner.png" alt="" width="777" height="259" />

In 2018, the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion is celebrating its 10th anniversary and using this moment as an opportunity to celebrate progress, but mostly to look to the future. CFI invites the Financial Inclusion Week 2018 community to join us in this journey and reflect on the question, “What do we need to get right?” What do we need to get right to ensure that gains in financial services access lead to true improvements in the lives of the underserved? What are the great upcoming risks that we need to address now to ensure that customers are adequately protected?

The 2017 <a href="https://globalfindex.worldbank.org/">Global Findex</a> revealed that an additional 515 million people have opened a bank account since 2014, however key metrics for usage and savings have declined. Additionally, the just-released Gallup Global Financial Health Study revealed that at the country level greater account ownership does not correlate with greater financial security and control. During Financial Inclusion Week 2018, partner organizations around the globe will hold conversations focused on what the industry must do to ensure that access to financial services brings real value to customers’ lives. <em>Getting Inclusion Right</em> means creating products and implementing policy that bridge the gap between access and financial health. We want to hear from you on how to best do this from October 29 – November 2, 2018.

[caption id="attachment_25568" align="aligncenter" width="490"]<img class="wp-image-25568 size-full" style="border: 0 solid #000000" src="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/finclusion-week-stats.png" alt="" width="490" height="163" /> Financial Inclusion Week Through the Years[/caption]

Join the Financial Inclusion Week community today by <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1IpZZep9OTzaIAmrWUDzopx3yolD3Km-XY3a0pdJWwH8/edit">signing up</a> to receive updates and information on partnership. Visit <a href="http://www.financialinclusionweek.org">www.financialinclusionweek.org</a> for a list of past partners and a round-up of the Financial Inclusion Weeks of year’s past. And stay tuned for a full calendar of Financial Inclusion Week events to be released at the beginning of September 2018.

<strong>Have you read?</strong>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2016/11/17/financial-inclusion-week-roundup-e-magazine-keeping-clients-first-in-a-digital-world/">Financial Inclusion Week Roundup E-Magazine: Keeping Clients First in a Digital World</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2015/12/14/fi2020-week-e-magazine-themes-highlights-and-calls-to-action/">FI2020 Week E-Magazine: Themes, Highlights, and Calls to Action</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2017/11/08/telenor-opens-mobile-money-apis-for-third-party-developers/">Telenor Opens Mobile Money APIs for Third Party Developers</a>

Save the Date – Financial Inclusion Week 2018

<div class="reader-article-content">

Posted by Nina Nieuwoudt, Global Product Development, New Consumers, Mastercard

Around the world this week, governments, multilaterals, and companies are coming together to celebrate <a href="http://financialinclusionweek.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"><u>Financial Inclusion Week</u></a>. It’s an opportunity to reflect on the progress that we’ve made in extending financial access to un-banked and underbanked communities, and also a time to take honest stock of how far we still have to go. As Mastercard’s Chief Product Officer Michael Miebach <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/time-money-fast-track-financial-inclusion-now-michael-miebach/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><u>noted</u></a> following his speech at Money 20/20 last week – we’re making progress, but at our current pace we won’t achieve full financial inclusion for another 200 years. Needless to say, we’ve got work to do.

The theme of this year’s Financial Inclusion Week is how new products and partnerships can enable financial inclusion. At Mastercard, this topic is close to our hearts. We believe that cross-sector partnerships are key to extending access to consumers at the base of the pyramid and building products that truly improve their lives.

To be clear, promoting inclusion is not corporate social responsibility for us. Not only is pushing for a world where everyone has access to the security, transparency, and control of digital payments the right thing to do, but it’s also critical to the future of business.

We’re proud that this commitment to new partnership models can be found at all levels of our company. Several of these partnerships have been highlighted in a joint report by Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion and the Institute for International Finance, entitled <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/storage/CFI_IIF_FI_Fintech_Partnerships_Report_2017.07.pdf" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"><u>“How Financial Institutions and Fintechs are Partnering for Inclusion: Lessons from the Frontlines”</u></a>. The report recognizes our collaboration with <a href="https://newsroom.mastercard.com/mea/press-releases/250000-african-merchants-will-be-financially-empowered-by-masterpass-qr/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"><u>Kopo Kopo</u></a>, a fintech start-up, and <a href="https://newsroom.mastercard.com/mea/press-releases/dtb-and-mastercard-partner-to-enhance-digital-payments-in-kenya/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"><u>Diamond Trust Bank</u></a> to create a QR-payment ecosystem in Kenya that allows customers to pay with their phones, by simply taking a photo of a QR code and manually entering the transaction amount.

Later this week, I’ll be speaking about ways financial institutions and fintechs can partner during a <a href="https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/845125705152860161" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"><u>webinar</u></a> hosted by the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion.

Beyond our partnerships, we’ve done our own on-the-ground research. For example, we recently released a report that offer insights into <a href="https://newsroom.mastercard.com/documents/report-building-electronic-payment-acceptance-at-the-base-of-the-pyramid-to-advance-financial-inclusion/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"><u>how to build a digital payments ecosystem</u></a> for small and micro businesses. To learn more about how we’re supporting financial inclusion across the company, watch this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&amp;v=sVSsrfQ9iB0&amp;__prclt=xpyp1Vmf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><u>video</u></a>.

Despite these gains, we still face a host of challenges in reaching the two billion people who are locked out of the formal financial system. At Mastercard, we know that the only way we will ever transform this equation is by creating partnerships that leverage relevant sector expertise, and that offer in-depth knowledge of base-of-the-pyramid needs – from health and education, to payments and digital finance.

It is perhaps the biggest ecosystem we have tried to build yet, but it is incumbent on all of us to do so. 200 years is too long to wait.

<em>This post originally appeared on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-financial-inclusion-can-move-people-from-poverty-nina-nieuwoudt/">Nina Nieuwoudt's LinkedIn profile</a> and is republished with permission. </em>

</div>
&nbsp;

Financial Inclusion Week 2018

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Podcast: Getting Inclusion Right Podcast with Alexis Beggs Olsen

Podcast: Getting Inclusion Right Podcast with Gina Harman

Together We Can: A Decentralized Vision for Financial Inclusion

Getting Financial Inclusion Right…with Mobile

Leveraging Social Capital to Expand Women’s Financial Opportunities

Why We Serve People with Disabilities: Lessons from Iraq

Podcast: Getting Inclusion Right Podcast with Gowri Mukherjee

Savings in Sub-Saharan Africa: Access, Policies and Priorities

Measuring Financial Well-Being in Latin America: A New Tool Tested

Getting Inclusion Right: What Will It Take?

Getting Financial Services to Refugees Right

Breaking Into Impact Investing Speed Networking Event

Webinar: Innovative Financing Structures for Incentivizing Impact and Advancing Financial Inclusion

Webinar: Disruptive Technologies Advancing Financial Inclusion

Financial Inclusion Week 2018

Save the Date – Financial Inclusion Week 2018

How Financial Inclusion Can Move People Out of Poverty