The <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inclusive Fintech 50</a> application data from the third year signals continued progress on innovations to onboard low-income customers, despite the challenges posed by the pandemic:
<ul>
 	<li><strong>Inclusive fintechs are using creative approaches to serve new customers</strong>. From retail partnerships that help drive customer acquisition, to insurance platforms offering micro-coverage, to native language chatbots, to enhanced biometric identity verification solutions, early-stage inclusive fintechs are pursuing outside-the-box solutions to reach un/underbanked people around the world.</li>
</ul>
Nevertheless, there are two areas of concern:
<ul>
 	<li><strong>Funding concentration persists</strong>. While fintech investments across emerging markets have been increasing, early-stage inclusive fintechs continue to face disparities based on geography, funding status, and gender.</li>
 	<li><strong>Potential customer risks persist around data usage</strong>. Although data is central to the business models of inclusive fintechs, some applicants require customer consent related to data, and some still do not.</li>
</ul>

Insights from the 2021 Inclusive Fintech 50 Applicant Pool

A savings product helps pastoralists in northern Kenya smooth consumption during periods of drought. A microloan allows a woman in northern India to buy heat-reflecting white paint for her roof. An insurance policy from a fintech in Mali offers smallholder farmers insurance against increasingly unpredictable rainfall. A mobile money-linked clean cookstove allows a family in Zambia to reduce their exposure to harmful smoke. A combination of remittances and savings helps a family in Bangladesh that was forced to migrate due to rising sea levels.

While each of these is an example of a link between financial services and an aspect of climate change, there's little else tying them together. Customers are urban and rural. Financial service providers are old and new. Channels are analog and digital. Products relate directly and indirectly to climate change. The impacts of climate change are immediate and long-term.

But as the COP26 summit swings into action, one message is clear – climate change is going to affect everyone and in numerous ways.

When the financial sector development community talks about climate change and green finance, it tends to focus on the macro role of the financial sector in channeling investment to cleaner technologies and large-scale mitigation efforts. This is obviously critical, but what is the role of inclusive finance? How can we support the financial sector to work better for low-income people to improve their outcomes in the context of large-scale climatic risk as well as deteriorating localized environmental conditions?
<blockquote class="pullquote--right">We have mapped out a new way of thinking about green inclusive finance.</blockquote>
Putting a green lens on inclusive finance – or green inclusive finance – is one of CFI’s strategic priorities. Having studied various taxonomies at the overlap of the green economy and inclusive finance, we have mapped out a new way of thinking about green inclusive finance. These four distinct but interrelated pathways provide the framework for understanding how inclusive finance can help low-income populations prepare for and respond to climate change while improving green outcomes.
<h2>Mitigation</h2>
The poorest half of the world’s population only accounts for 10 percent of global CO2 emissions, and their carbon footprints are, in a global context, tiny. However, low-income communities are hit the hardest by climate-related disasters and environmental impacts resulting from climate change. Mitigation supports investments in cleaner technologies that can improve local environmental conditions for households and communities. For example, pay-as-you-go models for clean cookstoves can help reduce localized air pollution, and loans to build toilet facilities can reduce groundwater pollution.
<h2>Resilience</h2>
In this context, we think of resilience as the role financial services can play in low-income people’s ability to reduce their vulnerability to, and their ability to respond to, climate-related events. Index insurance, protecting people against extreme weather events, is an obvious example, but just as important is the ability to save money securely and access networks through which funds for emergency response and rebuilding can arrive. This includes everything from a social protection payment from the state to an emergency loan from a fintech to the operations of a local savings group.
<h2>Adaptation</h2>
Climate change will significantly impact the livelihoods of low-income people across the globe, and financial services are needed to help people and communities manage these changes. We often think of these changes in a rural context -- with smallholders adapting their farming practices and investing in different crops as climatic patterns shift, but urban populations will also need to adapt, for example by investing in low-cost cooling techniques for homes.
<h2>Transition</h2>
At times, climate change and deteriorating environmental conditions will fundamentally change people’s ability to sustain their current livelihoods, and financial services will help transition to new ones. This may mean investing in education and training, making long-term commitments to climate-smart agriculture, or the range of financial services need to liquidate assets in one location to start again in another.

While some of these pathways may be relatively simple to implement, others are quite complex. For example, when climate change leads to resource scarcity, which in turn causes localized conflict and hence forced migration, there may be a critical need for digitized savings and remittance services. This is also an inclusive finance solution to a climate challenge, albeit through a longer-impact pathway. These issues might seem abstract, but the World Bank estimates that the impact of climate change in reducing arable land could see over <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/03/19/climate-change-could-force-over-140-million-to-migrate-within-countries-by-2050-world-bank-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">140 million people forced to migrate</a> within their own countries by 2050. These are some of the complex pathways that green inclusive finance will need to support.

This complexity also means that green inclusive finance will intersect with other areas of the inclusive finance landscape. The connections with smallholder agriculture and rural livelihoods are clear. The fact that <a href="https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/womenin-shadow-climate-change">poor women are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change</a> means that green inclusive finance approaches must be gender intelligent. The fact that so many potential solutions leverage digital financial services presents both new opportunities, but also challenges (what happens if the storm that leaves people highly vulnerable also knocks out mobile money networks?).
<blockquote class="pullquote--left">For financial systems to support all four of these impact pathways, it’s going to take large-scale, systemic changes, and there is a role for all types of financial institutions.</blockquote>
For financial systems to support all four of these impact pathways, it’s going to take large-scale, systemic changes, and there is a role for all types of financial institutions. We will need to leverage the existing networks of microfinance institutions and build on community-based models, particularly to support rural transitions. Banking sectors need to become better at intermediating funds towards sustainable agriculture and cleaner technologies. New players, including fintechs, need to continue to push out the innovation frontier. Insurance companies need to incorporate more data relating to climate risks. Policymakers, investors, and donors need to support incentives and a positive enabling environment for investment, innovation, and learning in green inclusive finance.

Green inclusive finance isn’t on the agenda at COP because inclusive finance doesn’t have a huge role to play in reducing global emissions. However, it is critically important that we support low-income populations to weather the changing environments around them. What green inclusive finance can do is provide a diverse range of financial tools that can help low-income people and communities reduce their vulnerabilities and make the investments needed to improve their outcomes in the context of climate change.
<h3>Learn more about green inclusive finance at the <a href="https://financialinclusionweek.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Financial Inclusion Week</a> plenary session "<a href="https://app.swapcard.com/event/financial-inclusion-week/planning/UGxhbm5pbmdfNzEyMTM5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Greening Inclusive Finance</a>" on Nov. 3, 2021 and by watching the video below:</h3>

Green Inclusive Finance: A Framework for Understanding How Financial Services Can Help Low-Income People Weather Climate-Related Risks

Earth Day was held on April 22nd to celebrate and promote environmental protection, including climate action. In the past decade, it has served as a momentary reminder of the need to respond to the causes and effects of climate change.

For much of the world, though, a reminder is hardly necessary. Dramatic shifts in weather patterns yield bizarre, destructive conditions at an increasing rate. The impact of these shocks on low-income people is profound as this population is more likely to be affected by and have difficulty recovering from climate shocks. The evidence shows that financial tools can help low-income people prepare for and respond to these negative events. However, more work needs to be done to develop appropriate financial products that help low-income households, entrepreneurs, and smallholder farmers mitigate and adapt to climate risk, which is why this topic is one of CFI’s four <a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusion.org/crisis-and-opportunity-reimagining-inclusive-finance-after-the-pandemic/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">strategic pillars</a>.

In an effort to build the evidence base on this topic, CFI launched a dipstick survey of urban MSME owners on their experiences with climate shocks. This is part of our broader four-country, longitudinal survey <a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusion.org/research/covid-19-and-msmes-data-and-analysis-to-understand-impact/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">monitoring the impact of COVID-19 on MSMEs</a>. The goal of the dipstick survey was to illuminate MSMEs’ resilience to climate change by examining the shocks that impacted them, the consequences of those events for their businesses, and whether there was a correlation between experiencing negative impacts in the recent past and the ability to recover from COVID-19 today.

CFI completed the first of these dipstick surveys with its panel of MSME owners in Lagos, Nigeria, in early March, and the data is striking, showing a large portion of owners have been negatively impacted by recent climate events and those that have been impacted are recovering more slowly from COVID-19 than their peers. This research is part of our partnership with the <a href="https://www.mastercardcenter.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth</a>.
<h3>A quarter of MSME owners have had their business negatively affected by a climate shock in the past 5 years.</h3>
A coastal megacity, <a href="https://lcluc.umd.edu/hotspot/urbanization-lagos-nigeria#:~:text=Lagos%20experienced%20an%20influx%20of,urban%20area%20in%20the%20world." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Lagos has grown dramatically</a> in the past twenty years, with surrounding wetlands paved in favor of poorly planned urban development. Simultaneously, weather patterns have shifted, making Lagos <a href="https://qz.com/africa/628387/an-unusually-intense-lagos-heatwave-reminds-nigerians-theyre-not-ready-for-climate-change/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hotter</a>, encouraging the formation of massive thunderstorms with <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1054825/climate-change-in-nigeria-floods-in-lagos-abuja-niger-delta-are-going-to-get-a-lot-worse/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">heavy rainfall</a>. With no meaningful flood control system to speak of, these conditions have given rise to frequent, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/09/africa/lagos-flood-storms" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">destructive urban floods</a>. Rising sea levels and increased vulnerability to storm surges <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/how-rising-seas-may-wipe-off-lagos-others-by-2050/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">exacerbate the risk of flooding</a> throughout the city.

Over the course of the past five years, 24 percent of MSME owners in CFI’s survey reported that they had been negatively impacted by at least one of these trends, with flooding from heavy rains being the most common shock owners experienced. Of those owners who experienced a negative shock, most experienced a disruption to the supply of goods to their business and a reduction in customer traffic to their stores (see the graph below). Significant shares of respondents also reported longer-lasting, and likely more costly, impacts such as damage to or loss of inventory or their place of business.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-42354" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Negative-Impact-of-a-Climate-Shock.png" alt="" width="800" height="204" />
<h3>MSME owners who experienced a major climate shock in the past 5 years are struggling more than their peers to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.</h3>
A surprising finding from this survey was that there were no meaningful differences in the characteristics of owners—such as owner gender, industry, business size, and pre-pandemic profit level, among others—who experienced these shocks and those that did not, and yet these two groups are experiencing dramatically different outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

<img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-42355" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/Covering-Expenses-Climate.png" alt="graph covering expenses" width="500" height="485" />For instance, MSME owners who experienced a climate shock were less likely to report that they could cover their operating expenses from revenue. In addition, owners who did not experience a shock were much more likely to report that their profits were trending upward compared to their peers, suggesting a stronger recovery from the initial pandemic-induced downturn.

Their households were struggling too. Owners who experienced a climate shock were less likely to be covering household expenses from earned income than an owner who had not experienced a shock. And strikingly, of the respondents who reported that they were experiencing extreme household food insecurity, all of them had been impacted by one of these shocks in the past five years.

This is correlation, not causation — based on the survey design, CFI cannot say that experiencing a negative impact in the past five years caused an owner to be less resilient to the COVID-19 pandemic with certainty. However, there is a large body of research on the <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25335" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">compounding effects of disasters on well-being</a> — including livelihood opportunities, asset loss, and physical health — and the lack of resources available to low-income populations to recover from them. It is not hard to imagine that an MSME owner who leveraged her financial resources to recover from a flood is less likely to have resources available to respond to a future disaster.

<img class="alignright size-full wp-image-42356" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/04/At-Least-One-Household-Member-Has-.png" alt="table" width="400" height="234" />There is data from the survey to support the hypothesis that it is harder for low-income households to leverage their portfolio of financial resources to respond to a series of shocks, even when those shocks are years apart. For instance, MSME owners who experienced a climate shock in the past 5 years reported they would be less likely to use credit, savings, or cash transfers from friends or family to recover from a similar shock in the future. The COVID-19 data shows that this phenomenon is in play currently: owners who experienced a climate shock saved and borrowed less often than their peers who had not been impacted by a shock in CFI’s most recent survey wave. They are sending money to and receiving it from their social networks at similar rates, though. Use of insurance is negligible in both groups despite <a href="https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publications/Building-Resilience-through-Financial-Inclusion-English.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">strong evidence</a> that it is an effective tool for helping people plan for and respond to economic shocks.
<h3>Stakeholders can help MSMEs build back better, but careful consideration will need to be given to the financial tools they need to make it through inevitable systems changes.</h3>
In the wake of COVID-19, there have been calls for communities to “build back better” by investing in development that makes them resilient to future disasters. For communities in Lagos, this data suggests that low-income entrepreneurs who have experienced a climate-related shock will need more support to build back better than their peers who have not experienced such shocks.

In the medium-term, this support will likely need to take the form of systems-level investments in infrastructure by the government to mitigate the risk of future shocks. Lagos needs improved flood control systems. But any large, public works project in densely populated areas is likely to disrupt MSME owners that live and work in affected communities. The government would need to consider how to keep an investment in resilient infrastructure from becoming another economic shock for these people. Offering grants or low-cost, government-sponsored loans to affected businesses during construction may help them survive.
<blockquote class="pullquote--left">FSPs, regulators, and policymakers will need to work together to ensure MSME owners have continued access to appropriate and affordable financial services.</blockquote>
In the meantime, financial service providers (FSPs), regulators, and policymakers will need to work together to ensure MSME owners have continued access to appropriate and affordable financial services. As climate science is mainstreamed into <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/risk/our-insights/banking-imperatives-for-managing-climate-risk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">credit risk models</a> and <a href="https://www.swissre.com/risk-knowledge/mitigating-climate-risk/decoding-climate-change-what-does-it-mean-for-the-underwriter.html">insurance underwriting</a>, financial services will become more costly for low-income consumers living and working in risky areas. In their current iteration, certain financial products, like flood insurance, are likely to become unaffordable as the systemic nature of the risk grows. It will be critical for the government and the private sector to work collaboratively in such circumstances to ensure the supply of financial services to underserved communities. This could involve things like packaging government-sponsored flood insurance with private loans to de-risk lending and investment for FSPs and MSME owners, respectively.

This will not be easy to do. The government will need guidance on what policy measures are effective; FSPs will need to discover new, effective business models; and consumers will need additional support to ensure that they understand and are protected from risks associated with climate-focused financial products. These takeaways underscore the need for CFI’s focus on these elements as part of our climate agenda.

<em>For us, studying climate risk will not be just an Earth Day affair: we will continue our dipstick surveys in Colombia, India, and Indonesia in the coming months to study MSME owners' experience with climate shocks. Stay tuned for announcements of new data releases to CFI’s <a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusion.org/research/covid-19-and-msmes-data-and-analysis-to-understand-impact/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">data dashboards</a>. Follow us (<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/center-for-financial-inclusion-at-accion/?viewAsMember=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">LinkedIn</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/CFI_Accion" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusion.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe/post?u=394352ae963270aef6c51680d&amp;id=9df382106a" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">newsletter</a>) on our journey of learning and advocacy.</em>

Climate Change is Exacerbating Obstacles to COVID-19 Recovery for MSMEs in Nigeria

The severe economic impacts of COVID-19 on low-income households and small businesses have underscored the need for innovative solutions that can build greater financial resilience. Findings from <a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusion.org/covid-19-and-msmes-data-and-analysis-to-understand-impact/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">surveys of MSMEs</a> conducted by the Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI) show that since COVID-19 struck, many small businesses in Indonesia, Colombia, and Nigeria have either had to close or found their profits significantly decreased. At the same time, the pandemic has provided opportunities for inclusive fintechs to <a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusion.org/rapid-innovation-how-fintechs-are-adapting-under-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">leverage their agility and adaptability</a> to strengthen and support the financial resilience of low-income, financially underserved customers.

Financial resilience is the ability to mitigate, adapt to, and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth. Individuals must deftly navigate a delicate balancing act to stay afloat and may be thrown off course by a whole host of shocks, ranging from unexpected health crises to weather-related disasters that can disrupt otherwise appropriate financial plans. The nuances associated with financial resilience can complicate the financial service industry’s ability to develop and design comprehensive solutions for low-income customers.
<blockquote class="pullquote--right">PesaKit and reach52, two winners of the 2020 Inclusive Fintech 50, have responded to the extraordinary challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic by continuing to innovate to meet their customers’ needs.</blockquote>
PesaKit and reach52, two winners of the 2020 <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Inclusive Fintech 50</a> -- a competition founded by MetLife Foundation and Visa, with support from Accion and IFC, and additional funding from BlackRock and Jersey Overseas Aid &amp; Comic Relief -- have responded to the extraordinary challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic by continuing to innovate to meet their customers’ needs. In this paper, we share insights on how these two fintechs have adapted to a challenging economic landscape to serve as early examples of how fintechs have leveraged their agility and innovation during crisis. These findings build on the 2020 Inclusive Fintech 50 <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/white-paper-2020" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">white paper</a> that draws on the data submitted by the 2020 cohort of applicants and highlights how fintechs are continuing to advance financial inclusion and resilience for the estimated 3 billion financially underserved people worldwide.

Agility Breeds Resilience: A Tale of Two Fintechs Innovating in the Face of a Pandemic

Climate change is having severe economic impacts globally, and low-income, vulnerable populations are being disproportionately affected. Many low-income countries are experiencing longer, hotter heat waves and more extreme storms, which is leading to food insecurity, income losses, lost livelihood opportunities, adverse health impacts, and displacement.

Additionally, climate change is a <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">threat multiplier</a>, exacerbating inequity for low-income households discriminated against based on gender, race, socioeconomic class, age, and disability.
<h2>Mitigating Climate Risk</h2>
The international consensus is that systems change is necessary to mitigate these climate risks. In this context, systems change refers to altering systems of production and consumption to stabilize the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. For example, the ongoing shift from non-renewable to renewable energy is an outcome of systems changes and required policy initiatives by government, public and private investment in renewable technology, and changes in fuel utilization by households.
<blockquote>Financial services will play an important role in helping low-income households adapt their livelihoods</blockquote>
Systems change will impact low-income communities through the creation and elimination of livelihood opportunities. The types of systems changes required to mitigate climate impacts at a global level will impact livelihoods in communities across the globe as carbon emitting industries are replaced or innovated with climate resilient technologies. Some estimates project 1.5 billion jobs will be created by this process. Arguably more importantly, many jobs will be <a href="https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2016/tp/07.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">altered, eliminated, or replaced</a>. Financial services will play an important role in helping low-income households adapt their livelihoods to cope with these changes as they will require significant investment to update production processes.
<h2>Resilience, Adaptation, and the Role of Financial Services in the Meantime</h2>
Systems change is a process which will occur in the medium to long-term. In the short term, financial services can support low-income households to improve their resilience to climate shocks. Before a shock, low-income households can prepare in a variety of ways, such as improving housing, diversifying their livelihoods, adopting climate-resilient business practices, and accumulating financial resources to respond to shocks when they happen. After a shock, low-income households need to respond to food insecurity, livelihood disruption, loss of assets, and increased health and safety risks. In addition to their pre-shock preparation, low-income households may seek to draw in other household and community resources to boost their resilience. Households may also choose to migrate to areas less exposed or better prepared to respond to climate events.

There is broad evidence of the critical role financial tools – cash transfers, savings, insurance, and credit – play in helping households respond to shocks. There is strong evidence for the role of person-to-person (P2P) and government-to-person (G2P) cash transfers in helping households survive in crisis environments. Studies have shown that P2P and/or G2P transfers have <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/537771507750178892/Philippines-Lessons-learned-from-Yolanda-an-assessment-of-the-post-Yolanda-shortand-medium-term-recovery-and-rehabilitation-interventions-of-the-Government" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">helped households respond</a> to various weather events in Kenya, earthquakes in Rwanda, and rainfall shocks in the Philippines.

A large body of impact evidence makes clear that savings is also a powerful financial tool in these environments. Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) has summarized the evidence supporting the role of savings in preparing for shocks. For formal financial services, they found evidence that low and no-fee savings accounts helped households self-insure against shocks, and there was strong evidence for the role of <a href="https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publications/Building-Resilience-Through-Financial-Inclusion-January-2019.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">behavioral approaches</a> (such as commitment savings devices) in promoting savings for shock mitigation.

There is some positive evidence on insurance and credit as well. Weather-indexed crop and livestock insurance can promote investment by smallholder farmers in communities likely to experience extreme weather events, and a review of the evidence by IPA articulates examples of credit products encouraging investment in farm inputs and technology by smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, a <a href="https://www.adb.org/publications/microfinance-disaster-recovery-lessons-nepal-earthquake" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">limited</a> <a href="https://www.mercycorps.org/blog/nepal-impact-report-earthquake" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">number</a> of studies have shown households with access to formal credit had better short and long-term outcomes following a crisis compared to similar households without access to credit.
<h2>Critical Gaps in the Current Knowledge Base</h2>
The evidence makes clear the promise of financial services in supporting low-income households’ response to climate change, but there are numerous demand side and supply side challenges that need to be studied in order to maximize the utility of financial services. Additionally, the role of government in creating an enabling environment and enacting social safety nets to promote mitigation and adaptation needs to be explored.

On the demand side, low-income households have less access to and are <a href="https://globalfindex.worldbank.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">less likely to use formal financial products</a> compared to middle and high-income households. This is also true of climate-related financial tools. For instance, the evidence shows that voluntary take up of weather-indexed insurance products is <a href="https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publications/Make-it-Rain-Policy-Bulletin.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">too low to sustain a market</a> for them without subsidy despite their effectiveness. There are numerous product design challenges that may be contributing to this. Gender bias in program and product design persists, making <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/484541544643269894/pdf/130659-REVISED-PUBLIC-Managing-Coal-Mine-Closure-Achieving-a-Just-Transition-for-All-November-2018-final.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">interventions less effective</a> for women and multiple studies have articulated the need for improved financial capability to promote uptake and regular, effective use of financial tools.

On the supply side, there is little visibility into the range of products and financial service providers (FSPs) offering climate-focused financial products to low-income households. This hinders industry learning about what products or services are working and why. This opacity contributes to financial institutions in emerging and developed markets being admittedly unsure about how to best design their products to support households’ resilience to climate change. There is good reason to think providers will need to learn what innovative models work as analysts expect climate risks to create new challenges for pricing credit and insurance products, among others. For instance, in 2019, Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance firm, warned that climate-risk could <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/21/climate-change-could-make-insurance-too-expensive-for-ordinary-people-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">make insurance premiums unaffordable</a> for most people.

Governments play a critical role, too. However, there are a limited set of evidence-based best practices for responding to this situation. For instance, unemployment insurance and other social safety nets have proven to be important tools in supporting livelihoods during systems change, but such benefits are less common in emerging markets than in advanced economies. They are also less effective at reaching low-wage and informal workers. How can governments establish policy and programs to better protect the livelihoods of these workers? Are there innovative safety net systems that they could use, or are other policy tools effective?
<h2>CFI’s Climate Agenda</h2>
CFI is embarking on an ambitious agenda to address these gaps. Our immediate focus is on building the evidence for what works on the demand and supply side and for government policies.

On the demand side, CFI will focus on two major activities. First, CFI will map the impact evidence, identifying what financial products and services help low-income households effectively respond to climate change. This is a critical early step as it will inform the industry of what is known and unknown about this topic. It will also serve as a foundation from which CFI will operate, helping us identify what evidence gaps need filling. Second, CFI will conduct qualitative and quantitative research with consumers to establish a baseline understanding of consumers’ experience with and financial needs for mitigating and adapting to climate change.
<blockquote>CFI will map impact evidence and conduct research to understand consumers' experiences with and financial needs for mitigating and adapting to climate change.</blockquote>
On the supply side, CFI will leverage the expertise acquired through its strategic <a href="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/mix-and-cfi-announce-strategic-integration-to-drive-industry-knowledge-for-inclusive-finance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">integration</a> with MIX to shed light on emerging patterns in climate-related finance and help catalyze investment in evidence-based solutions for low-income households. CFI will do this through two main activities. First, CFI will inventory financial products to understand their target market, design, reach, and effectiveness. This will enable us to promote the development of appropriate climate products with FSPs. Second, CFI will track investment in climate-related finance by monitoring funding flows from public and private sources. Given the attention to climate-related finance, it will become increasingly important for funders to have visibility on funding flows related to climate change and finance that impact low-income households.
<blockquote>CFI will shed light on emerging patterns in climate-related finance and help catalyze investment in evidence-based solutions.</blockquote>
Emerging market governments are enacting policies to help their countries mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. This gives us a sense of <a href="https://www.afi-global.org/publications/3036/Inclusive-Green-Finance-A-Survey-of-the-Policy-Landscape" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">what governments are doing</a> in response but it is unclear which policies are most effective for low-income households and why. In order to identify effective policy solutions, CFI will conduct mixed-method case studies of climate policies and their impact on the supply and demand side of the ecosystem.

Our goal for developing the evidence base is to provide information that decision makers need to deliver climate-informed financial products to vulnerable populations across the globe with the hope that it ultimately helps facilitate the transition to a more sustainable economy for all. Financial Inclusion Week is the first step in our journey, and we look forward to sharing our impact in the months to come.

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Financial Services are Needed to Help Low-Income People Mitigate and Adapt to Climate Change

The coronavirus pandemic has continued to ravage Western countries and is encroaching in a much more aggressive way into developing economies in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. In developing countries where the vast majority of the labor force is in the informal economy (estimated at <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_627189/lang--en/index.htm">over 60 percent</a> worldwide), COVID-19 is revealing the limits of individual financial behaviors for coping with the pandemic. This raises questions: Which public policy measures should be prioritized to support resilience? What are the economic policies that are creating the underlying vulnerability and marginalization in the first place?
<blockquote>Which public policy measures should be prioritized to support resilience? What economic policies are creating underlying vulnerability and marginalization?</blockquote>
COVID-19 is revealing that no matter the degree of someone’s financial cushion in the form of savings or remittance networks, it is simply not sufficient to cover a loss of income. From a research perspective, no matter how much information we obtain on someone’s behaviors, attitudes and circumstances, we will not be able to have visibility into their vulnerability to shocks, as these issues only marginally contribute to someone’s resilience. To be better equipped to understand the impact of shocks such as COVID-19 on the lives of the BOP, we need to understand critical variables such as income, wealth and safety nets available to them. This means we need to adapt the financial health measurement tools that were previously developed to serve the narrower purpose of helping providers understand the financial health of their customers. These frameworks were tailored to the information that providers needed to know and the tools available to them to improve the resilience of their customers. Broader contextual variables, like safety nets, let alone income variables, were not part of the equation as FSPs do not have the mandate to address these larger policy issues.
<h2>Need to Ask Bigger Questions</h2>
But for many of us working in the inclusive finance space, our toolbox is bigger. Advocacy on public policy is squarely within our mandate and having the right information to inform this advocacy work should be integral to the types of research work we undertake. Demand-side research such as the <a href="https://globalfindex.worldbank.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Findex</a>, <a href="http://finmark.org.za/programmes/finscope/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Finscope</a>, financial diaries, and the new crop of financial health surveys, all reveal a similar story. They tell us that being poor is bad and poverty <a href="https://cenfri.org/news-and-events/webinar-the-impact-of-covid-19-on-financial-health" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">limits people’s resilience to shocks</a>. These demand-side tools don’t tell us much about the underlying causes of this lack of resilience. So, narrowing our research efforts only to demand-side data can be misleading. Too often actors draw the wrong inference from it: that people’s behaviors and attitudes are the reason for their poverty or vulnerability, even though this has long been <a href="https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/development-jargon-helping-people-help-themselves" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">discredited</a>. Focusing only on what providers can do is also too narrow in scope: the ideology that markets can solve all problems has also been pronounced dead by many economists, including the Nobel Laureate <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/may/30/neoliberalism-must-be-pronouced-dead-and-buried-where-next" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Joseph Stiglitz</a>.
<blockquote>The economic fallout of this pandemic can’t be solved through any individual choices or actions or a ready-made market solution.</blockquote>
The economic fallout of this pandemic can’t be solved through any individual choices or actions or a ready-made market solution. We need to ask bigger questions around why people are vulnerable to economic shocks in the first place and the role of the financial system in addressing this vulnerability. How are public policy, social safety nets, systemic discrimination or other underlying issues influencing people’s financial health circumstances? What would make people resilient and how should the financial system be set up to improve resilience and well-being for the BOP? There is really no amount of planning and sound financial management that would be sufficient under these circumstances. For systemic shocks like COVID-19, we need other research tools and a different body of evidence.
<h2>Creating Financial Protections for the BOP</h2>
We should be thinking about the systems that undergird the financial system and how to use it to create financial protections for the BOP. There are at least three priorities that COVID-19 has revealed for the inclusive finance field. I argue that these should be elevated in our collective research and evidence-gathering agendas.
<h3>1. Strengthening the ability to distribute payments</h3>
If nothing else, this pandemic has made it clear that countries with robust digital payment infrastructures can quickly get money out to people who are most in need. It is heartening that countries like <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/adc604f6-7999-11ea-bd25-7fd923850377?accessToken=zwAAAXF1NqZAkdOtxgT2eZkR6tO9JX_ZI4UDdw.MEYCIQCq8LPiLCFzDU973kkOf7P9UFkYEYGATGjkdNeE4ORSaAIhAMR64HuZniONRGR2qjVaFlZm78iaJRht2C1EKlVruFsQ&amp;sharetype=gift?token=5f6d3c51-58ac-46c1-a629-fc74a677c3b2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Togo</a> are taking action to get money into people’s hands using digital payments. Pakistan’s <a href="https://nation.com.pk/09-Apr-2020/payments-under-ehsaas-emergency-cash-programme-started" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ehsaas Emergency Cash Transfer Program</a> is able to disburse to over 12 million families hardest hit by COVID-19. <a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusion.org/mobile-money-in-times-of-crisis-an-unlikely-hero/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Jordan has taken impressive steps </a>to expedite reforming electronic customer due diligence, expanding the cash in cash out (CICO) networks and other reforms to use a digital channel to disburse aid. These cash transfers are not only a critical lifeline for those most impacted by COVID-19, they also serve as a demonstration of the importance of the financial system for crisis response and for economic recovery. The challenge will be for those countries that do not yet have robust digital infrastructures or where there are still many limitations to getting certain groups -- like women or the elderly -- to engage with these digital channels. The inclusive finance community should focus its problem-solving skills on answering:
<ul>
 	<li>What will it take to extend digital infrastructure quickly? How can donors and investors partner with policymakers to make this a priority?</li>
 	<li>What are quickly scalable, second-best solutions for cash distribution in markets without digital infrastructure? Can MFIs, postal networks, and other community groups serve this last mile distribution?</li>
</ul>
<h3>2. Improving financial protection through “safety net-like” insurance</h3>
Prior to COVID-19, the role of insurance in the inclusive finance field was perceived as good to have or a problem of the health sector, but not the primary focus of our field. The challenge of commercializing micro-insurance was the main obstacle limiting progress. COVID-19 reveals the clear inadequacy of our solution set to date. The concept of employer-backed private insurance in situations where millions of employees are losing their jobs (an estimated <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/3-5-million-workers-likely-lost-their-employer-provided-health-insurance-in-the-past-two-weeks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">3.5 million in the US alone</a>) is fundamentally flawed; and this has always been the case in developing countries where the vast majority of the BOP has never had a formal employer in the first place, let alone employee-backed private insurance. We must start to see universal health insurance as part of the solution set for inclusive finance. And beyond health insurance, we should be looking for public-private solutions for other types of protections like unemployment insurance or disaster insurance. The inclusive finance community should be focusing on answering:
<ul>
 	<li>What are the private-public models that can be deployed to scale micro-insurance?</li>
 	<li>What are other ways we can reimagine safety nets to leverage private-sector insurers and balance the costs for policymakers and employers?</li>
</ul>
<h3>3. Linking food producers to the financial system</h3>
In <a href="https://larepublica-pe.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/larepublica.pe/economia/2020/04/09/atender-la-emergencia-en-lo-rural-por-carolina-trivelli/?outputType=amp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">La Republica</a> (in Spanish), Carolina Trivelli sounds the alarm bells on food security in Peru. Immediate demand reductions on one side of the value chain are having longer term effects on small producers who are at risk of not getting the seeds, fertilizer and other inputs they need to plant for the next season. A different but also compelling call to action comes from Maha Agriculture Public Co., Ltd., in Myanmar. In an effort to limit the spread of the virus, government policy is <a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusion.org/diary-of-a-myanmar-based-agri-focused-fsp-responding-to-the-covid-19-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">inadvertently shutting down the financial services providers</a> who are financing critical food production cycles. Maintaining the flow of capital to farmers, regardless of the pandemic, is paramount for all of us if we want to see food at the grocery store in six months and not allow the effects of the pandemic to include food shortages and starvation. The questions that are priority for our collective attention include:
<ul>
 	<li>How can we ensure that money is flowing to food producers? How can we expand work on value chain finance in critical food commodity value chains? Is there specific data that can increase investment to value chain finance? Are there important actors, like buyers or distributors, with whom our community needs to engage?</li>
 	<li>What would it take to support the FSPs that serve agricultural producers? How can we ensure the business continuity of agricultural cooperatives or other financial service providers that serve the agricultural sector?</li>
</ul>
The complexity and gravity of the impact of COVID-19 are demanding that we not only respond immediately, but also reflect deeply on what we prioritize as a community in the future. Do you agree with the ideas put forward here? Let us know what you think.

COVID-19 Reveals the Limits of Individual Action and Market-Based Solutions

Dr. Kirengo, co-founder and CEO of <a href="https://imaramed.org/">Imara Mediplus Hospital</a>, wasn’t your typical <a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusion.org/board-leadership-for-impact-program-overview/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Board Leadership for Impact Program</a> (BLI) participant. Rather than a financial inclusion organization, the social enterprise he leads is a multi-specialty healthcare facility focused on providing quality medical services to low- and middle-income earners living in smaller cities and towns in Kenya. Last fall, a time that feels so long ago now, Dr. Kirengo was interested in strengthening board leadership at Imara, so he and two colleagues attended BLI. In this Q and A, Dr. Kirengo discusses the state of health insurance in Kenya, the economic impact of the virus, and even homemade hand sanitizer production and locally sourced masks. He also provides invaluable advice to the financial inclusion community and general public on how to make workplaces safer.
<h3>Q: What are you seeing on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response in Kenya?</h3>
<strong>Dr. K:</strong> Over the past two weeks, we have seen an increase of 10 to 20 patients per day because people are scared. Patients come in with a sore throat or with symptoms the news is telling them is coronavirus. This has been difficult because we are trying to tell people to maintain social distancing. We’ve had to increase security to prevent people from coming in with visitors. We want people to come so we can treat them, but we need to limit our risk especially since we have limited protective equipment.

Because of the lack of supplies in Kenya, we’ve also had to experiment and build our own face shields and masks. Just recently, one of our suppliers increased prices by 5 times, so we are looking for alternative ways to buy or make our protective equipment. We’re also making hand sanitizer for the public and organizations to use. Another concern is with delays to insurance payments as the insurance companies see an insurgence in demand for payouts.
<h3>Q: What’s been the response to making and distributing hand sanitizer? Who have you distributed it to?</h3>
<strong>Dr. K:</strong> We experienced a price hike for sanitizers immediately when the first case of COVID-19 hit Nairobi. For example, one of our suppliers tried to sell us, for $100, a quantity we normally buy for $20. We realized quickly that this would be an unsustainable cost, so we talked to our pharmacist and nurses, ordered supplies and started making our own. Businesses around Embu, where we operate, told us they were facing similar challenges and risked receiving and using substandard hand cleaning material or none. So, we started making in surplus and selling to them. We have provided sanitizer to banks, hotels, restaurants and even individuals.

[caption id="attachment_38108" align="alignleft" width="500"]<a href="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/04/Sanitizer-and-Mask-e1587576109170.png"><img class="wp-image-38108 size-full" src="https://content.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/04/Sanitizer-and-Mask-e1587576109170.png" alt="hand sanitizer and homemade masks" width="500" height="324" /></a> <em>Hand sanitizer and a face mask created by Imara Mediplus Hospital in Kenya.</em>[/caption]
<h3>Q: Economically, how will the pandemic affect your patients and their communities? What might be the repercussions of this on Kenyan society?</h3>
<strong>Dr. K:</strong> There is less cash flowing through the economy. Everyone is saving money. Businesses are shut down due to lock down and curfew, as well as reduced footfall and increased cost of running businesses. We have seen a change in the spending habits of most of our patients. Currently, patient numbers for regular clinics have declined. We are largely attending only to urgent and emergent care cases.

A lot of companies and SMEs have either enforced salary pay cuts or laid off people. The changes will not be reversible in the near term. It will take a while for businesses and the economy to bounce back to where it was. Tourism, one of the major economic activities in the country, is nearly at a standstill. Things may get worse as we haven’t had a full shutdown, and this may still happen.
<h3>Q: Can you speak to insurance coverage? Do your patients have insurance? Is it public or private? And does this insurance adequately cover COVID-19 testing or treatment? How might this affect livelihoods?</h3>
<strong>Dr. K:</strong> Less than <a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/newsplex/Worldhealthday/2718262-4375778-dhdk0ez/index.html">25 percent of the population of Kenya is covered</a> by health insurance. More than 90 percent of this insurance is the government run social insurance (National Health Insurance Fund, or NHIF). NHIF, however, provides very limited coverage and has low reimbursement rates, while private insurance that pays better has limited coverage and number of subscribers. With COVID-19, private health insurances had declined to cover their clients against the condition. This received a lot of negative publicity, so they reverted and accepted covering the condition, but only in government hospitals, where care is cheaper but generally considered to be of lower quality due to poor patient to staff ratios. Therefore, currently, COVID-19 is “exclusively" under government management. Some private hospitals are offering care, but I’m not sure how that is financed.
<blockquote>The challenge I foresee is the inability of the majority of the population to pay for COVID-19 healthcare needs.</blockquote>
The challenge I foresee is the inability of the majority of the population to pay for their healthcare needs when it comes to COVID-19, considering most businesses are shut down, experiencing tough financial times or have to cut salaries. For example, the cost of a single COVID-19 test in a private lab is $130. If positive, two more tests are needed that come out negative before a patient is released. On top of this, patients are placed in quarantine for two or three weeks. How does a common Kenyan afford this?
<h3>Q: What advice would you give leaders of financial service providers who are feeling the impact of the coronavirus on their employees, business operations, and clients?</h3>
<strong>Dr. K:</strong> For businesses that are lucky enough to work online or remote, just do it.  For any organization, it is important to reiterate the basics:
<ul>
 	<li><strong>Wash your hands</strong> for at least 20 seconds or use hand sanitizer.</li>
 	<li><strong>Avoid touching your face</strong>, especially if you haven’t washed or sanitized your hands.</li>
 	<li><strong>Wear masks</strong> as appropriate. First and foremost, what people often forget about masks is that they are disposable. I’ve seen a lot of companies buy just one mask per staff member; however, staff should not be wearing the same masks day in and day out.
<ul>
 	<li>If it is an N95 mask, and you are using it day to day, you should dispose of it after two days and get a different one.</li>
 	<li>Surgical masks should be disposed after a few hours of use, maybe a day maximum.</li>
 	<li>Wash your hands before and after touching the mask.</li>
</ul>
</li>
 	<li><strong>Eye protection</strong> is key. Do your employees have glasses or something to protect the eyes from droplets? This could be an eye shield as well.</li>
 	<li><strong>Social distancing</strong> must be enforced. How are you ensuring distancing? If it is a bank, how are you training your employees to ensure a safe distance is kept? You can put stickers on the floor to highlight the appropriate distance and where people should stand. Remember a safe distance is 1 to 1.5 meters. This goes for security guards and staff as well.</li>
 	<li>Anyone with <strong>symptoms</strong> may cause anxiety for fellow employees and clients, so you need to have a way to subtly and respectfully separate them from everybody else. You should know where to refer them to if they feel sick, so they can get the necessary attention. Send people home who are symptomatic.</li>
 	<li>If there are people who can <strong>take leave</strong> now, have them take leave because most places are locked down and a curfew is in place, at least in Kenya.</li>
 	<li>If you have <strong>SMS and message capability</strong>, you should be sharing information and highlighting the importance of social distancing and sanitation through your client channels.</li>
</ul>
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"We're Also Making Hand Sanitizer": Kenyan Doctor on COVID-19 Impacts

In my wallet, I have three bank cards. When I opened the accounts, I remembered reading a vague reference to insurance, but until today, I had no idea what the insurance actually covered, how to use it, or what I’m paying for the privilege.

I have now learned I have 26 kinds of insurance coverage on those three cards. However, in spite of several dozen clicks, 90 minutes of reading, and two aborted phone calls, I still don’t understand many of the basics of when and how I can use the coverage. None of the card companies could tell me the fees I’m paying them. Some of the click paths online were circular. And every long list of claim requirements included an escape clause, allowing the insurer nearly unlimited power to deny the inexplicable benefits for which I’m unknowingly paying.

In the religion of the Internet, user experience is gospel; if there were an inquisition into my experience today, insurance would be excommunicated.
<p style="text-align: center">*****</p>
Nearly nine years ago, I joined <a href="https://microensure.com/">MicroEnsure</a>, a pioneer in the field of inclusive insurance. Low-income customers in emerging markets experience risk as a fundamental fact of life. Opportunity – the focus of many a financial "inclusioneer" – is about something that doesn’t yet exist; meanwhile, risk is a present reality every day. If you’re a low-income mother in sub-Saharan Africa, risk is your breakfast, lunch, and dinner; you wake up in the morning worried if the bus driver will be drunk again, and you go to sleep hoping your rural uncle’s illness doesn’t get any worse.

The problem MicroEnsure wanted to tackle was how to protect these “emerging customers” – people in emerging markets who earn $2 to $20 per day – with sustainable solutions, since traditional insurance companies had no model to serve them. Traditional insurers have depended for decades on mandatory distribution channels: car owners must insure their vehicles, businesses their properties, and so forth. I like to call this, “making money in the dark,” where the product (like my credit card insurance) is largely hidden from view. In such an approach, customer preferences became less important to insurers. If a customer ever did really want insurance, that individual was likely to be either high-risk or a fraudster. Over time, this led to customers knowing little about their coverage, and being pushed away if they did try to access benefits. In the end, insurance became an industry that sees customers as the enemy. If you disagree, just consider that the industry calls claims “losses.” Let that sink in: when customers receive the service they paid for, insurers see a failure, not a success.

MicroEnsure, then, was clearly facing an uphill battle: we had no mandatory channels to leverage, and we had customers who faced significant risk. How could we protect customers who faced more risk than the average insured person, with less money to pay premiums, and no easy way to reach them?

The resolution we found, paradoxically, was to use these two problems to solve each other. If emerging customers faced more risk, then they would be more likely to buy products that help them, which meant that it should be easier to create channels to reach them.

The key to making the formula work was to upend the traditional insurance model. Instead of making money in the dark, we needed to make our value as clear as possible: to offer products that were easy to understand, valuable for the price, and straightforward to claim. We needed to respond to customer needs and requests quickly. We needed to be dissatisfied with low usage rates and nervous about unsustainably high profit margins. And we needed to think about our customers not only from a financial perspective, but also from social and emotional ones as well. In short, we needed to act like a company in any other industry, where customers are seen as an asset rather than a liability.
<blockquote>Instead of making money in the dark, we needed to make our value as clear as possible: to offer products that were easy to understand, valuable for the price, and straightforward to claim.</blockquote>
To be sure, there were tradeoffs to be made. Instead of paying the full cost of a customer’s loss, in most cases we paid a fixed part of it. Instead of covering many different customer needs, we limited our service to a few major ones. But by making our product and back office simpler, we also enabled scale much more quickly than traditional insurance. As a result, MicroEnsure reached more than 50 million low-income customers with their first insurance policies in less than a decade.
<p style="text-align: center">*****</p>
I recently had the privilege to speak at the <a href="http://financialinclusionweek.org/cfi10/">CFI 10th Anniversary Symposium</a>, which marked an important career transition for me. Having helped MicroEnsure to build its model, I attended the Symposium on my first day as part of AXA, the world’s 2nd-largest insurance group. AXA sees that the old insurance model is limited: there are only so many mandatory insurance policies that can be sold in existing markets. And while it looks to emerging customers for growth, at the same time it recognizes that the business model for emerging customers holds some of the keys for renewing the insurance industry overall.

Which brings me to my credit card experiment.

Emerging customers who now have insurance – <a href="http://www.impactinsurance.org/about/facts-on-microinsurance">more than 500 million of them</a>, at last count – don’t often feel the way that I did today as an insurance customer. They don’t have to slog through endless jargon when the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/may/02/ghana-mobile-free-insurance">policy wording is contained in 3 SMS messages</a>. They don’t have to struggle for six weeks to get a small travel insurance claim paid, as I did last year, but can <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX6TySibSU8">receive a claim payment in West Africa in two hours</a>. They are provided with clear, simple products, not sold with traditional ads that – almost unbelievably – show <a href="https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffile.vintageadbrowser.com%2Fl-gwjbeo488h2lj7.jpg&amp;imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vintageadbrowser.com%2Fmoney-ads-1990s&amp;docid=Xh9R6D9rEBQhiM&amp;tbnid=1Si3I3mwhFCe6M%3A&amp;vet=1&amp;w=660&amp;h=903&amp;source=sh%2Fx%2Fim">activities that aren’t covered by their policy</a>. Instead of seeing insurance as an annoyance, emerging customers tend to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FOH9E1pe9o">see it as a blessing</a>.

The reason emerging customers feel this way isn’t because they are fundamentally different from traditional customers; it’s because the industry changed to reach them in the first place. And if the changes have succeeded in reaching this new market, then – at least for me – the lessons learned are relevant for existing markets as well. Insurers will become consumer-centric, lest Amazon and Google do it for them. They will find ways to make money in the light – where customers who have 26 covers actually know that they are covered in the first place. User experience will eventually drive the insurance industry, just as it does everywhere else.

For me this is why, while the last decade has seen an explosion of micro insurance, the next decade may be when “micro” insurance becomes “macro.” On the one hand, emerging customers will continue becoming insured, as more and more commercial insurers see the <a href="https://microinsurancenetwork.org/groups/microinsurance-risk-protection-4-billion-people">size and potential of the market</a>. On the other hand, though, I’m making a bolder bet: that the emerging customer model will go mainstream.

It should be an exciting few years.

Insurance: from Micro to Macro

In celebration of its 10th anniversary, the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion asked 10 leaders in the financial inclusion community to set out their agenda for Getting Inclusion Right. The resulting essays and webinar series creates a roadmap to take financial inclusion into the next decade.

For the first virtual event in the series, Garance Wattez-Richard, Head of AXA Emerging Customers and Elisabeth Rhyne, Managing Director of CFI discussed the topics of getting insurance right and getting inclusion right from the customer’s perspective.

Webinar: Getting Inclusion Right

For the insurance industry, 2008 is more often reminiscent of the bailout of AIG than of new beginnings. However, 2008 also launched an unexpected wave of creative destruction. This essay series not only celebrates the 10-year work of the Center for Financial Inclusion, but also  several pioneers that strive to make insurance inclusive for all: the ILO’s Impact Insurance Facility, the Centre for Financial Regulation and Inclusion and the Microinsurance Network—all of which began a decade  ago.

As a more recent settler on the inclusive insurance planet – although almost three years have flown by – others may keep the flame, but I would like to offer a personal opinion on the past decade of innovation, and my perspectives into what more needs to happen to combine sustainable business and social impact for those who need insurance most.

Back in 2008, microfinance institutions predominantly distributed what was then called microinsurance. MFIs provided insurers with a readily available pool of clients for credit life insurance, which reimburses the outstanding loan amount in case of death or disability of the borrower.

This was the first era of inclusive insurance.

Ten Years Gone, Ten Years to Go: Taking Inclusive Insurance from Adolescence to Adulthood

Crop Insurance

Health Insurance

Inclusive insurance

Index Insurance

Insurtech

Life Insurance

Howard Miller

Eric Noggle

Tess Johnson

Mayada El-Zoghbi

Garrett Jaso

Dr. Thomas Kirengo

Peter  Gross

Elisabeth Rhyne

Garance Wattez-Richard

Amee Parbhoo

Rob Stevens

Susy Cheston

Nina Nieuwoudt

Nigeria

Sub-Saharan Africa

Cambodia

East Asia and Pacific

India

Kenya

Philippines

South Asia

Tanzania

Europe and Central Asia

Latin America and The Caribbean

Indonesia

Myanmar

Alternative Data

Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

Challenges and Crises

Credit

Data Analytics

Delivery Channels

Digital Financial Services

Enabling Environment

Financial Service Providers

Financial Technology

Fintechs

Human Centered Design

Insurance

Payments

Remittances

Rural Populations

Smallholder Farmers

Underserved Groups

Entrepreneurs of MSMEs

Microfinance Institutions

Agent Banking

Financial Inclusion Strategy

Agricultural and Rural Finance

Financial Health

Policy, Regulation and Government Initiatives

Resilience

Insurance Companies

Trends

Refugees and Migrants

Women

Pensions and Retirement Saving

Report

Blog Post

Brief

Webinar

Press Release

Though Nigeria’s government has set ambitious goals for financial inclusion, the majority of its people lack a formal bank account. Accion has worked in the country since 2007 to expand access to 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.

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.

<em>The following post was <a href="http://blogs.accion.org/features/changing-climate-technology-provides-agricultural-insurance-farmers/">originally published</a> on the Accion blog.</em>
<p id="d33a" class="graf graf--p graf-after--figure">Smallholder farmers are the bedrock of sub-Saharan Africa’s and Asia’s agricultural markets, providing <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4036e.pdf" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">over 80 percent of the food supply</a>, but they are growing increasingly vulnerable. Climate scientists estimate that over the next few decades, droughts will <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/2904/climate-change-drought-may-threaten-much-globe-within-decades" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">frequently affect Africa and Asia</a> as a result of climate change. As weather conditions cause decreased stability for family farms, there is an increased need for risk mitigation solutions that can add security to the lives of those most affected.</p>
<p id="9f1f" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p">Pula, <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://www.accion.org/content/pula-secures-funding-global-investors-support-smallholder-farmers-africa-and-south-asia" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">one of Accion Venture Lab’s latest investments</a>, provides insurance to smallholder farmers across Africa and India, enabling income security for a population whose livelihoods depend on climate patterns. <strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Pula uses cutting-edge technology coupled with expansive distribution partners to make large-scale agricultural insurance feasible for rural farmers</strong>.</p>
<p id="8d1f" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p">Across their product portfolio, Pula uses various technologies, including automated voice calls to register customers, satellite imagery to monitor cloud cover, and SMS messages to provide agronomic advice. In the event of a drought or poor season, Pula uses weather data and yield samples to offer compensation to farmers for their losses. By coupling technology with large-scale distribution, Pula can make insurance practical for smallholder farmers at scale.</p>
<p id="cf02" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p">At Venture Lab, we’re most excited about a few core areas of the typical microinsurance value chain that Pula disrupts:</p>
<p id="2264" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Eliminating the purchase barrier</strong>: Pula’s distribution model circumvents the challenges of customer adoption and education that we’ve seen insurers struggle with in the past. Customers read about Pula’s coverage on a sticker on the bag of seed or fertilizer they’re purchasing, and then they register their unique policy via their mobile phone. Pula’s partners put stickers on every bag sold in a region, and there’s no visible added cost to the products, simplifying the farmer’s decision-making process. To that farmer, Pula’s coverage is easy to activate and presents pure upside.</p>
<p id="2945" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Increasing yields for customers with massive need</strong>: Pula focuses on some of the most vulnerable populations on Earth, and the insurance coverage is only the beginning of the benefit they receive from the product. By de-risking the purchase of farm inputs, such as seed, fertilizer, or credit, Pula is also able to incentivize farmers to purchase higher-quality products than they otherwise might — without the risk of failure. As a result, they can attain higher yields and incomes. Further, Pula provides the farmer with direct agronomic advice via SMS, leveraging the farmer’s GPS coordinates and their climate science team, and boosting the farmer’s yields.</p>
<p id="9622" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Lowering the cost to serve</strong>: With its innovative distribution, Pula has the potential to reach a customer that has previously been prohibitively expensive to serve. Formerly, insuring smallholder farmers required multiple field visits to determine if conditions were right for crops to grow and to educate the farmer about the benefits of insurance, ultimately convincing them to pay for coverage. Pula can automate and significantly cut costs by assessing the farm’s weather remotely using satellite and regional yield data. Working through distributors also enables Pula to offer free and straightforward insurance coverage that is fully integrated with the input.</p>
<p id="3f7f" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p">Venture Lab is thrilled to be working with the Pula team on their mission to provide insurance to smallholder farmers across Africa and Asia. Co-founder Rose Goslinga is a pioneer in the space, with a decade of experience and a <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://www.ted.com/talks/rose_goslinga_crop_insurance_an_idea_worth_seeding" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">TED talk</a> on her resume. She is working alongside Thomas Njeru, who provides actuarial experience and financial expertise as the company’s CFO.</p>
<p id="38d2" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p">As <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://www.microinsurancenetwork.org/sites/default/files/Microinsurance%20Network_Africa%20landscape%20full%20report-WEB_0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">microinsurance in most African markets hovers at or below 5 percent,</a><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong"> there is a massive market opportunity to support the world’s most vulnerable as they grow food to provide for their communities</strong>. Pula tackles the arduous task of customer awareness by partnering with known brands and uses cutting-edge technology to make the product scalable. <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="http://www.thp.org/knowledge-center/know-your-world-facts-about-hunger-poverty/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Half of the world’s hungry</a> are farming families, and Pula strives to reach those most in need with security and stability.</p>
<p id="d671" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p">Venture Lab is excited to be supporting Pula as they take on one of the world’s most significant challenges.</p>
<strong>Have you read?</strong>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2018/01/22/7-fintech-trends-to-watch-in-2018/">7 Fintech Trends to Watch</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2018/02/27/the-radical-reinvention-of-inclusive-insurance/">The Radical Reinvention of Inclusive Insurance</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2017/08/28/catalyst-fund-lessons-on-getting-early-stage-fintech-startups-investment-ready/">Cataylst Fund: Lessons on Getting Early-Stage Fintech Startups Investment-Ready</a>

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&nbsp;

In a Changing Climate, Technology Provides a Lifeline for Farmers

<em>This post is adapted from the recently-released publication “</em><a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/storage/Inclusive_Insurance_Final_2018.01.06.pdf"><em>Inclusive Insurance: Closing the Protection Gap for Emerging Customers</em></a><em>,” a joint-report from the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion and the Institute of International Finance, in partnership with MetLife Foundation.</em>

With <a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2018/01/18/how-technology-is-propelling-inclusive-insurance/">digital channels</a> and <a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2018/01/29/inclusive-insurance-its-a-team-effort/">effective aggregators</a>, it becomes possible to offer insurance to lower-income segments. But the products themselves must also be designed with both cost control and the needs of the client segment in mind. After all, the financial margins for inclusive insurance are smaller, and the value proposition of insurance is typically tough to sell to customers.

Drawing on insights from our recently-released report <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/storage/Inclusive_Insurance_Final_2018.01.06.pdf">Inclusive Insurance: Closing the Protection Gap for Emerging Customers</a>, here are a few of the key approaches for building inclusive insurance products that work for the insurer and the customer.
<h3>Simplicity</h3>
Simple products are a requirement for this market segment, and many successful products we are seeing described are extremely simple. Simplifying user interfaces is, of course, in keeping with trends in product design across companies like Alibaba, Amazon, and Walmart that allow consumers to transact with just one click. Simple insurance products are easy to understand, easy to enroll in, and easy to claim against. Simplicity is perceived as transparent and “friendly,” helping to create trust.

Simplicity is essential not only because customers love it, but also because streamlined products are easy to manage, cutting administrative costs. Assessing claims can eat up premium revenue, particularly when a customer does not have a fixed address, is illiterate, or lacks standard documentation, and we are seeing some products, such as index insurance, that pay out without a claims process. Radical insurance designers also make products that do away with exclusions. In mainstream insurance, exclusions allow insurance companies to avoid customers with disproportionate risk, bringing down premiums for the majority. However, oversight of exclusions requires expensive verification. With very small-ticket insurance policies, exclusions may simply not be worth the money it takes to manage them.
<h3>Microterms and Micropayments</h3>
The same radical thinking can also be applied to the term length of coverage. In pay-as-you-go (PAYG) models, inclusive insurers calibrate timeframes to the size of the payments consumers have available. Customers who miss a payment can re-up without penalty. BIMA offers simple PAYG products with life, personal accident, or hospital insurance coverage that can be bought in monthly blocks, much as mobile credit top-up cards are sold.

Pioneer Life President and CEO Lorenzo Chan Jr. talked with us about “insurance in a sachet.” Throughout the Philippines, as in many parts of the developing world, neighborhood stores sell tiny packets, or sachets, of detergent, shampoo, spices, and other goods. Insurance “in a sachet” allows low-income customers to purchase small levels of cover, for short terms, at low premiums.
<h3>Building Customer Acceptance – Touch and Tech</h3>
Insurers are aware that their product is “sold, not bought”— especially by customers who are new to the very concept of insurance. A standard approach to building customer interest is to bring elements of high touch alongside high tech enrollment and payment interfaces.

Particularly in rural areas, customers may have <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/storage/Uniting_TechandTouch_Kenya_FINAL.pdf">strong preferences for interacting with people</a>, especially people they already trust, and may need continuing interactions to create a feeling of connection. High tech can be used to create a sense of high touch: Allianz Indonesia’s fictional character, Mrs. Ali, provides a comfortable, homey interface with clients as “she” sends text messages to customers about their products and their lives.
<h3>Trust and Understanding</h3>
Particularly for low-income people, it is hard to consider putting the little money they have into something that may never yield a tangible benefit. As Matthew Myers of LeapFrog Investments puts it, customers view the insurer’s pitch as: “Give me money and I’ll give you a promise, rather than anything tangible right now.”

As hard as enrolling a new customer is, many providers find that renewals are equally challenging. Customers may purchase insurance, but if they don’t see a benefit or receive a claim payout, they often do not renew. Michael McCord of the Microinsurance Centre notes that a very low rate of claims (such as five percent) is a sign that customers do not understand the product or may not even realize they have coverage. One response is educating clients about the products and their benefits, both to get customers on board and to help them stay.
<h3>Bundling and Cross-Selling</h3>
Martin Hintz, former coordinator of microinsurance at Allianz, notes that one solution to increasing uptake is, “Sell something else, then attach insurance into the package.” Many new customers have begun with compulsory products, such as credit life or loyalty products. “Freemium” models introduce customers to a new product free of charge, in the hope that they will see its merits and later start paying premiums.

Insurance providers and their partners can jumpstart an insurance relationship by bundling insurance, either with other insurance products or with other financial or nonfinancial services. Insurance can also be tied to tangible products, such as school fees, food, or discounts on medicine.
<h3>Aligning Organizations to Serve Unserved Markets</h3>
The frontline staff of financial service providers often don’t understand insurance themselves, or have no incentive to sell it. At CARDPioneer Microinsurance Inc. (CPMI) everyone in the company, from top management to frontline staff, spends three to five days per year in immersion visits with clients. The investment of time has paid off. As one example, CPMI learned that, although it had been paying claims to its partners within five days, the partners were slow to pass the payments through to customers. It reviewed its claims process and was able to fix the bottlenecks.

With these examples of keen attention to unserved and underserved customer segments, Garance Wattez-Richard, Head of Emerging Customers at AXA notes that the innovations required to make insurance work at the base of the pyramid can be relevant for more mainstream insurance markets. “Reverse innovation is occurring as new products, business models, and technologies pour over into traditional insurance,” she says.

<em>For more on inclusive insurance, read “</em><a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/storage/Inclusive_Insurance_Final_2018.01.06.pdf"><em>Inclusive Insurance: Closing the Protection Gap for Emerging Customers</em></a><em>.”</em>

<strong>Have you read?</strong>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2018/01/08/inclusive-insurance-closing-the-protection-gap-for-emerging-customers/">Inclusive Insurance: Closing the Protection Gap for Emerging Customers</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2018/01/18/how-technology-is-propelling-inclusive-insurance/">How Technology Is Propelling Inclusive Insurance</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2018/01/29/inclusive-insurance-its-a-team-effort/">Inclusive Insurance - It's a Team Effort</a>

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The Radical Reinvention of Inclusive Insurance

<em>This post is adapted from the recently-released publication “</em><a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/storage/Inclusive_Insurance_Final_2018.01.06.pdf"><em>Inclusive Insurance: Closing the Protection Gap for Emerging Customers</em></a><em>,” a joint-report from the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion and the Institute of International Finance, in partnership with MetLife Foundation.</em>

New technologies are dramatically changing the landscape for insurance around the world and enabling insurers to reach new mass market segments. New data sources and analytical tools are changing risk models by enabling new ways to create, capture, and analyze valuable information that can help insurers better calculate and manage the risk associated with customers. Machine learning applied to satellite imagery is changing agricultural and disaster insurance, allowing for more sophisticated claims management, even facilitating pre-loss payments that can help minimize the cost of a disaster before it is full-blown. The expansion of identity solutions and onboarding options is lowering operations costs and enhancing convenience. These innovations are helping the global insurance industry transform from a passive risk-transmission industry into an active risk mitigation and advisory partner for individuals, businesses, and governments.

The use of mobile phones to deliver insurance is no longer a novelty, but there is tremendous scope for growth. Mobile phone penetration in emerging markets is now 80 percent, making mobile devices excellent distribution channels. Mobile phones are convenient for enrollment, transmitting premiums and paying claims. Mobile phones have also been helpful for customer service, policy management, consumer education, and other vital functions.

While mobile insurance products have already broken important new ground, there is a much broader array of more recent innovations paving the way for growth. The joint CFI-IIF report found providers using technology to solve both front-end and back-end challenges. Here are some of the ways providers are addressing customer and business needs through technology.
<h3>Instant Enrollment</h3>
In many countries, advances in identification systems have made it possible to enroll customers instantly. Garrance Wattez-Richard, Head of Emerging Markets at AXA, notes, “National ID is changing everything in China and in India.” In Colombia, Margarita Henao Cabrera reports that customers can enroll in DaviPlata’s insurance in seconds by entering their national IDs into their mobile phones. Richard Leftley, CEO of MicroEnsure, notes that even basic questions such as the customer’s name, age, and other demographics can create a barrier to enrollment, so enrolling customers based only on phone numbers eliminates those barriers. “We don’t know anything about them until they make a claim, not even their name or age,” says Leftley. Depending on the market, automated enrollment mechanisms include internet-based products in China and point-of-sale devices among retailers in Latin America.
<h3>Technology-Enabled Claims Verification and Payouts</h3>
<a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/daviplata.png"><img class="wp-image-24911 alignright" style="border: 0 solid #000000" src="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/daviplata.png" alt="" width="465" height="507" /></a>

Since paying claims fast builds trust and adds customer value, Allianz is experimenting with payments that do not require customers to submit a claim—for instance, if the distribution partner reports that a customer has been in an accident. Parametric or index insurance using data from weather satellites enables automatic payments for farmers. Claims payouts and management are even being enhanced by drones. Drones allow access to isolated and dangerous areas after disasters to collect aerial data and assess loss through cutting-edge imagery analytics. Munich Re has been experimenting with the technology and has partnered with U.S.-based drone company PrecisionHawk. The two companies worked together in the aftermath of the April 2016 earthquake in Ecuador.
<h3>Back-Office Systems</h3>
Modernizing back-office IT systems helps bring down administrative costs, making low-premium products cheaper to manage. When AXA acquired MicroEnsure, its first investment was to improve legacy IT infrastructure. LeapFrog Investments also prioritizes IT with its microinsurance investments. To further reduce transaction costs, some experiments use blockchain technology, such as Consuelo, offered by the Mexican-based mobile platform Saldo.mx, in this case to facilitate microinsurance for Mexican migrant workers in the United States. By providing a universal and tamper-proof record of transactions, blockchain technology could reduce human error, fraud, data duplication, processing delays, and opaqueness—ultimately increasing efficiency and lowering operational and administrative costs for the insurance industry. (Though at a very high energy cost.)
<h3>Using New Data to Reappraise Risks</h3>
Historically, there has not been enough data to feed actuarial analysis that can inform a relevant product at a fair and attractive price for newer and lower income market segments. However, data has now become available on people who have a national ID or mobile phone number. Data analytics can then be effective at identifying prospective customers and their behavior patterns. Salmaan Jaffery of DIFC Authority looks forward to using artificial intelligence and machine learning in product development and risk assessment. With new data tools, the sector will look at risk differently. As Jaffery explains, “It may become apparent, through the analysis of behavioral and social data, that lower-income people may not be any greater risk than those with higher income profiles.”

<em>For more on the uses of technology in inclusive insurance, including how it’s enabling integrated services for health insurance, read “</em><a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/storage/Inclusive_Insurance_Final_2018.01.06.pdf"><em>Inclusive Insurance: Closing the Protection Gap for Emerging Customers</em></a><em>.”</em>

<em>Image credit: Accion</em>

<strong>Have you read?</strong>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2018/01/08/inclusive-insurance-closing-the-protection-gap-for-emerging-customers/">Inclusive Insurance: Closing the Protection Gap for Emerging Customers</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2017/04/13/making-microinsurance-work-in-bangladesh-three-takeaways/">Making Microinsurance Work in Bangladesh: Three Takeaways</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2014/10/06/bundling-mhealth-info-and-microinsurance-to-improve-health-outcomes-in-kenya/">Bundling mHealth Info and Microinsurance to Improve Health Outcomes in Kenya</a>

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&nbsp;

How Technology Is Propelling Inclusive Insurance

<strong>Washington, D.C. (January 8, 2018) </strong>— The Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion (CFI) and the Institute of International Finance (IIF), with the support of MetLife Foundation, today released a new report detailing the factors spurring inclusive insurance around the world. It reveals how both traditional and new insurers are breaking open new markets and reaching underserved customers through the use of innovative technologies, business models, product design, and partnerships, enabled by effective regulatory environments.

Insurers Leverage New Technologies and Reinvent Business Models to Reach Underserved Consumers, Report Finds

I have been an inclusive insurance enthusiast ever since I worked for Opportunity International and witnessed the experiments that later became <a href="https://microensure.com/">MicroEnsure</a>. In those early days, Richard Leftley framed insurance as the missing piece in the game of Chutes &amp; Ladders (Snakes &amp; Ladders for those outside the U.S.). He likened credit and savings to ladders that could provide a way up for those with lower incomes --but without insurance, each borrower or saver was just one disaster away from slipping back down into destitution. I remember his—at the time—revolutionary concept of paying insurance claims within 10 days or less. He would say that days-to-payout was the only report he wanted on his desk every morning. (Today, of course, payouts can be automatic or even come pre-loss.)

As is often the case with breakthroughs, Richard, of course, was not alone. Thanks to many innovators, an entire industry has emerged with profitable models reaching millions of people, and there is a growing understanding around the world, across social strata of the impact that insurance can have for families, communities and societies. The NGOs that pioneered microinsurance spurred the interest of commercial giants such as Allianz, AXA, MetLife, Swiss Re and Zurich, which have lent their considerable weight to solving the business challenges of extending insurance to underserved and unserved customers. Market catalysts such as A2ii, MicroInsurance Centre, MicroInsurance Network, ILO’s Impact Insurance Facility, and Cenfri have offered insights on everything from the customer experience, to good product design, to proving the business case, to creating an enabling regulatory environment for reaching new insurance markets.

Into this mix comes a new paper on inclusive insurance from the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion and the Institute of International Finance. <a href="http://bit.ly/2AFOUZa"><em>Inclusive Insurance: Closing the Protection Gap for Emerging Customers</em></a> gives a global snapshot of the inclusive finance sector, examining how providers have extended service offerings using new technologies and innovative business models, and highlighting the challenges that persist. It suggests how the industry can further expand its reach to this massive, virtually untapped potential market. The study focuses on actual on-the-ground experience of providers in emerging markets.

Here are a few of the report’s main takeaways:

<strong>Insurers are bullish on the <em>size of the market opportunity</em>.</strong> Using Allianz’ model, which refers to the inclusive insurance market as those with the bottom 60 percent of incomes, we estimate the potential market to be 3.8 billion people worldwide (though more study is needed on segmentation). Insurers report feeling great personal satisfaction about the social impact of their products -- but by far the most significant drivers of inclusive insurance are the base of the pyramid (BOP) market size and the rise of the middle class. In fact, Martin Hintz, previously with Allianz, said, “Don’t get distracted by charity! There is a clear business case.”

<a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/market-graphic.png"><img class="wp-image-24870" src="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/market-graphic.png" alt="" width="614" height="349" /></a>

<strong><em>Insurtech</em> goes far beyond mobile payments.</strong> Insurers are using tech innovations to build new products, increase trust among customers, and more. In Colombia, prospective DaviPlata customers can send an SMS with their national ID number and they are instantly enrolled. In Indonesia, robo-calls and automated text messages teach Allianz customers about the products they are already enrolled in and build customer trust and loyalty.  In Zimbabwe, weather satellite systems provide data that allows Blue Marble Microinsurance to offer parametric insurance with automatic payments in the event of drought – without customers even submitting a claim! And all around the world, new sources of data are available on customers who were previously invisible, with sophisticated analytics making it possible to design products to meet their needs.

<strong><em>Simplicity</em> is the best innovation for the BOP.</strong> Insurers are cutting down costs and reaching new customers by simplifying processes and products. MicroEnsure has designed life, accident and hospitalization products with no exclusions, which dramatically reduces the cost of enrollment. Some policies are based only on phone numbers, without even capturing customer names, ages or any demographic information. Recognizing that lower income people often prefer to pay for things in small increments, Lorenzo Chan of Pioneer Life in the Philippines promotes “insurance in a sachet”—a concept that in many emerging markets is yielding trials of micro terms, micro cover and micro payments. And Aviva looks at the full range of services people need at different life stages (not limited to insurance), and bundles them together into simple packages that, in their words, “kill complexity.” Take, for example, the wonderfully named <em>YOU</em>, <em>ME</em> and <em>WE</em> products in Poland. In the case of WE, the needs of young families are met through a bundle that includes insurance for property, education, childcare, critical illness for parents and children, disability, and household goods.

<strong><em>New customers </em>are being identified.</strong> AXA has shared a <a href="https://cdn.axa.com/www-axa-com%2F57b5a3a4-c7cc-4dea-97c9-5f7d9f47232c_sheforshield_final-web2015.pdf">landscape study</a> on the women’s market for insurance, predicting the annual premium value of the women’s global market to grow six to nine times by 2030 to between $569 and $874 billion. Met99 is reaching rural residents in Mexico by partnering with the Government. And insurers are looking at the customer journey for low-income mass markets for health insurance in India as well as for niche markets such as motorcyclists working in the sharing economy.

<strong>Insurers see new opportunities to move risk models <em>from protection to prevention.</em></strong> This is especially apparent in regards to climate risk. As an example, Blue Marble Microinsurance, Swiss Re, and others are not only ensuring that farmers have agriculture insurance and other financial services, but they are also working with a range of partners to provide access to farm inputs that help guard against climate risk through water conservation methods and other climate-smart strategies.

<strong><em>Distribution channels</em> make or break inclusive insurance.</strong> Microinsurance was first distributed through community organizations, microfinance institutions and cooperatives that addressed the last mile challenge and served hard-to-reach customers. In the last 10 years, mobile network operators have stepped in with the convenience of payments by mobile phones and banks have begun to cross-sell as part of their bouquet of services. Insurers are working with retailers, postal banks, workplaces, governments, and everyone you can think of to aggregate customers and find convenient ways to reach them. CARD Pioneer Microinsurance (CPMI) in the Philippines works with over 70 distribution partners.

This last point is one of the key findings of the report -- that insurers are doing their part, but they can only do so much on their own. They need partners from the private, public, and non-profit sectors to come alongside to make protection possible for all. In his foreword, Denis Duverne of AXA writes that “Informal risk management is ten times less efficient than formal protection mechanisms, and one single emergency can force families to sell productive assets, move back to the village, remove children from school to help the household earn extra income or go back into poverty.” With these kinds of consequences, the real life game of Chutes &amp; Ladders takes on added urgency, and all those who can play a part in ensuring protection for the vulnerable should seek an insurer to partner with. The insurers are ready.

<em>To learn more about inclusive insurance, from the many sources doing good work around the world, see the curated <a href="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/inclusive-insurance-resource-list-pdf-final.pdf">Resource List</a> that accompanies <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/publications-a-resources/browse-publications/973-inclusive-insurance-closing-the-protection-gap-for-emerging-customers">the paper</a> to get a glimpse of the wealth of material that insurance experts have produced.</em>

&nbsp;

<strong>Have you read?</strong>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2017/04/13/making-microinsurance-work-in-bangladesh-three-takeaways/">Making Microinsurance Work in Bangladesh: Three Takeaways</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2014/10/06/bundling-mhealth-info-and-microinsurance-to-improve-health-outcomes-in-kenya/">Bundling mHealth Info and Microinsurance to Improve Health Outcomes in Kenya</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2014/08/29/the-formula-for-mobile-microinsurance-success-in-senegal-and-pakistan/">The Forumula for Mobile Microinsurance Success in Senegal and Pakistan</a>

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Inclusive Insurance: Closing the Protection Gap for Emerging Customers

We use the term “inclusive  insurance” to encompass many different approaches to reaching the unserved,  underserved, vulnerable, or low-income populations in emerging markets with appropriate and affordable insurance products. These range from microinsurance for people with very little disposable income to new  products and  services for an emerging middle class around the globe who have not been served by traditional  insurance. Based on insights from written submissions and in-depth interviews with 30 people across 22 institutions, this report invites us to re-think the concept of insurance and its fundamental role in society.
<h2>Major Findings</h2>
In  the  broadest  terms,  the  challenges  of  providing  insurance  to  lower-income  population segments are similar to those of providing mainstream insurance: identifying, understanding, and connecting with customers; providing relevant products; and carrying out the administrative work of collecting premiums and paying claims. For customers at the base of the economic pyramid, the small incomes from which premiums must come require insurers to solve these challenges in highly cost-efficient ways. Adding to the intensive cost pressure, several factors amplify the challenge of connecting with these customers: their remote locations, lower education levels, and lack of experience with formal institutions.

Strategies for effectively serving this target market include:
<ul>
 	<li>Simplifying products so they are easy to understand, easy to enroll in, and easy to claim against. For institutions, such simple products engender trust and are lower cost to provide.</li>
 	<li>Finding new distribution channels and aggregators-from telcos to farmer cooperatives to banks—to identify and connect with low-income customers.</li>
 	<li>Leveraging digital channels and new “insurtech” (insurance technology) innovations to connect with, and serve, low-income customers.</li>
 	<li>Implementing new business models and products to provide and administer the risk mitigation solutions at scale that meet low-income customers’ needs.</li>
</ul>
This report is part of a two-year initiative, <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/programs-a-projects/mainstreaming-financial-inclusion">Mainstreaming Financial Inclusion: Best Practices</a>, to help advance efforts of financial institutions to reach customers at the base of the economic pyramid. This report was completed in partnership with the <a href="http://www.iif.org">Institute of International Finance</a>, and made possible with support from <a href="https://www.metlife.com/about/corporate-responsibility/metlife-foundation/index.html">MetLife Foundation</a>.

<em>AXA shares insights on and solutions to women's unmet insurance needs in emerging economies.</em>

<em>By <a href="https://group.axa.com/en/about-us/profile/garance-wattez-richard">Garance Wattez-Richard</a>, Head of Emerging Customers, AXA Group</em>

Women-focused insurance solutions are a central part of AXA’s Emerging Customers work. In our <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwiPgJOBxo7XAhUK2oMKHQBJCJMQFgg0MAA&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.axa.com%2Fwww-axa-com%252F57b5a3a4-c7cc-4dea-97c9-5f7d9f47232c_sheforshield_final-web2015.pdf&amp;usg=AOvVaw0YQN3Y_Twiv2ykoHDo86TX">SHEforSHIELD</a> report, launched with the International Finance Corporation in 2015, we found that the market is growing quickly, as women become more risk-aware and willing to invest in protection. We conducted focus groups with women in Indonesia, Nigeria, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and learned that women have very specific, yet unmet needs when it comes to insurance. I am happy to share the stories of three of the women we met on our customer insights journey, diving into their fears and desires and the role that inclusive, women-focused insurance solutions could play.



<strong><em>Nurul</em></strong>

<em>”We are in good health, there are no problems,”</em> we hear from Nurul and other women at the beginning of a focus group in rural Indonesia. Nurul, a 33 year old mother of three, is in her 4<sup>th</sup> loan cycle with a large group micro-lender. She and her husband live just above the national poverty line, earning an average of 3 million Indonesian Rupiah per month (around USD 220) through dairy farming, selling food and doing small jobs in the nearest town.

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When we ask more, we discover that while Nurul does not worry about her own health, she is concerned with that of her husband, children and parents. She shares, <em>“My husband is the head of my family, so if something happened to him, my family would not survive.”</em> While her husband is the primary income earner, Nurul serves as the family’s primary caregiver, ensuring everyone is taken care of—particularly if anyone becomes ill.

This dichotomy is reflected in Nurul’s financial priorities, as well as that of many of her fellow borrowers. Despite the fact that one-fourth of Nurul’s neighbors have experienced pregnancy or newborn complications, with one-third of her fellow group members having given birth at home, our maternal health insurance concept was rejected unanimously during the focus group. Meanwhile, spouse life insurance and family hospitalization coverage a with transport allowance are in high demand among the women in the village.

While we still see a need for maternal health packages, we are adjusting our products to meet the actual desires of community members. We have bundled our family hospitalization coverage and spouse life protection, with health check-ups and basic education during weekly repayment meetings. In addition, we continue to improve our maternal health offerings. Together with medical device manufacturers and telemedicine providers, we have prototyped a solution that would make maternity care, including pre-paid check-ups and insurance for complications, safer and more affordable.

<strong>Ifunanya</strong>

Across the ocean, we speak with almost-middle-class women in bustling Lagos. Ifunanya, a 36-year old mother of three, graduated from agricultural university and followed her husband 10 years ago when he got an accounting job in Lagos. After maternity break, Ifunanya got back to teaching, and together the couple earns a regular income of 200,000N every month (USD 566)—very close to a middle-class threshold in Nigeria. Ifunanya, along with the other women in the focus group, say all the right things about healthy lifestyle: prevention is better than a cure, good diet is important and physical activity is a must. They laugh when asked if they apply these concepts in practice, but are hungry for more information on how to live a healthy life.

[caption id="attachment_24389" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-24389" src="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/photo-17-05-2017-11-24-53-e1509171338285.jpg?w=2048" alt="AXA Photo Nigeria" width="1024" height="700" /> Focus group in Nigeria. Photo credit: AXA[/caption]

<em>“Cancer is a situation that is feared in Nigeria. It is very difficult to handle... It cannot be managed,” </em>admits Ifunanya. She is right. According to the World Health Organization, about 10,000 cancer deaths <a href="http://www.who.int/cancer/country-profiles/nga_en.pdf">are recorded</a> annually in Nigeria, while 250,000 new cases are recorded yearly. Specifically, Nigeria records 14,000 cervical cancer cases annually, part of the 85% of deaths from cervical cancer that occur in low- and middle-income countries. While Ifunanya does not know much about cancer, it is top-of-mind for her, and she and the other women in the group rank cancer as the most difficult health event to manage financially. <em>“You will definitely need to have at least half a million naira to cope with it.” </em>Ifunanya’s husband has a good insurance package from his employer, but it does not cover her at all.

All of this demonstrates demand for a solution that bundles health information, diagnostics and critical illness insurance, which can be delivered on a mobile platform.

<strong>Mary</strong>

The last stop of our consumer insights journey is the UAE, where we researched the needs of migrant women from Asia. Mary is 34 years old and has worked as a domestic helper in Dubai for the past five years. She earns AED 2,000 every month (USD 283), half of which she sends half home to her husband, two children, mother and sister. Improving the well-being and future prospects for her children is what motivates Mary. She is worried that if something happens to her, they will not be able to prosper. While she is very interested in our diaspora life insurance policy, she would prefer to put her mother or sister as beneficiaries to ensure her children’s welfare. Mary also saves money in a joint account with her sister to make sure she has easy access to funds when she gets back home. Many other Filipino domestic workers in our group in the UAE have accounts for the same purpose, creating a touch point with formal financial services. Migrant workers like Mary have a clear need for life insurance to cover their families in the event of a death, as well as easy ways to save money while they're abroad.

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<strong>Lessons Learned and Implications </strong>

Nurul, Ifunanya and Mary have many things in common. Being exposed to and unprotected against many risks, they are responsible caregivers with high aspirations for the future of their children. At the same time, they are so different. We need to start with a very simple offering for customers like Nurul in rural Indonesia, but if we build awareness, the solution prototyped for Ifunanya in Lagos might be also relevant for Nurul in the medium-term. Mary shows us that women face specific risks but also have specific preferences that need to be at the center of product and process design. For us, this is a thorny challenge, but also an incredible opportunity to ideate solutions for different stages of the emerging customer journey.

This all might look familiar to those of you who have been in the financial inclusion space for a long time. We are aware of the work done by <a href="https://www.freedomfromhunger.org/microfinance-and-health-protection">Freedom from Hunger</a>, among others, on bundling health and microfinance. Is this a <em>déjà vu</em>? We don’t believe so. We are taking lessons learned in the past and using them to fuel business model innovation. The issues are the same, but the rise of new technology and new health players makes it possible to come up with scalable and affordable solutions. It’s not only about cost anymore, it’s about changing behaviors by offering the right solutions to the right segment at the right time. For us, at AXA Emerging Customers, this is "make it or break it." If we can’t provide health solutions to emerging customers, we won’t be successful in the long term. Join us to make it a reality.

Insuring “Emerging Women” – Old Issues, New Solutions

<em> </em>

<img class="aligncenter wp-image-24227" style="border: 0 solid #000000" src="https://centerforfinancialinclusionblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/fi-week_cropped.png" alt="" width="616" height="273" />With Financial Inclusion Week 2017 less than two weeks away, we’re excited to share a full <a href="http://financialinclusionweek.org/calendar17/">calendar of events</a> and specifically, 11 webinars or online events that you can join from wherever you are. Topics include micro pensions, IndiaStack, interactive voice response technology, and more. Don’t pass up an opportunity to hear from organizations and experts from around the world – register today!
<h4><span style="color: #ff6600"><strong>Monday, October 30</strong></span></h4>
<strong><a href="https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5232828010844793347">Digital Fireside Chat: How Are New Products and New Partnerships Unlocking Access to Insurance?</a></strong>
<em>Hosting Organizations: <a href="https://us.axa.com/home.html">AXA</a>, <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/">Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion</a></em>
To kick of Financial Inclusion Week 2017, Elisabeth Rhyne, Managing Director of the Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion will join Garance Wattez-Richard, Head of AXA Emerging Customers for a digital fireside chat. During the webinar, Rhyne and Wattez-Richard will discuss how new products and partnerships are opening up new potential in the inclusive insurance space. They will take a specific look at how AXA is working to reach emerging customers.

<strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Thitsaworks/">Technology-Enabled Financial Inclusion in Myanmar</a></strong>
<em>Hosting Organizations: <a href="https://www.thitsaworks.com/">ThitsaWorks</a>, <a href="https://www.magzter.com/MM/Information-Matrix/Myanmar-Internet-Journal/Computer-&amp;-Mobile/">Internet Journal</a>
</em>ThitsaWorks and Internet Journal will host a Facebook Live conversation on the impact of digital services on financial inclusion in Myanmar, where mobile phone ownership has grown rapidly from 5 to 90 percent between 2011 and 2017.


<h4><span style="color: #ff6600"><strong>Tuesday, October 31</strong></span></h4>
<strong><a href="https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/8455245903222706945">The Digital Landscape of Financial Inclusion: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities</a></strong>
<em>Hosting Organization: <a href="https://responsiblefinancialinclusion.org/">The Partnership for Responsible Financial Inclusion</a> (formerly MCWG)
</em>The Partnership for Responsible Financial Inclusion (formerly the Microfinance CEO Working Group) and their senior staff who work in digital financial services and fintech will present on the trends, challenges, and opportunities for sector-wide collaboration in digital financial inclusion. Join the discussion and share your thoughts on the technology and innovations that are shaping the inclusive finance landscape.
<h4><span style="color: #ff6600"><strong>Wednesday, November 1</strong></span></h4>
<strong><a href="https://mix.webex.com/mw3200/mywebex/default.do?nomenu=true&amp;siteurl=mix&amp;service=6&amp;rnd=0.9052351292117116&amp;main_url=https://mix.webex.com/ec3200/eventcenter/event/eventAction.do%3FtheAction%3Ddetail%26%26%26EMK%3D4832534b00000004931da127582115b1d0736ecfcb3b55bac591f4f402a78992b74709dd5584d48a%26siteurl%3Dmix%26confViewID%3D75612919730059323%26encryptTicket%3DSDJTSwAAAAR8kbqDsowOMB0HcHiCIxdYCb3-Oq_N6uyieiCBtymWFA2%26">Voice of the Client: Using Mobile Phones and IVR Technology to Understand Client Satisfaction in Cambodia</a></strong>
<em>Hosting Organization: <a href="https://www.themix.org/">MIX</a></em>
MIX’s webinar is focused on their <a href="http://www.themix.org/mixmarket/publications/voice-client-cambodia">Voice of the Client</a> project, a pilot developed for financial services providers (FSPs) to leverage mobile technologies as a means to analyze client satisfaction. MIX will share research findings from Cambodia and offer insight on how to best use interactive voice response (IVR) technology to gather client-level data for decision-making.

<strong><a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/uncdf-and-visionfund-present-whats-next-for-microfinance-in-myanmar-tickets-39003624892">UNCDF and VisionFund Present: What's Next for Microfinance in Myanmar?</a></strong>
<em>Hosting Organizations: <a href="http://www.uncdf.org/">UNCDF</a>, <a href="http://www.visionfund.org/">VisionFund</a></em>
Isolated for decades, Myanmar has only recently opened up to the global economy. This has brought a lot of discussion about the Southeast Asian country being the 'last frontier' of financial inclusion. Microfinance legislation was passed in late 2011, but what has happened since? And what does the future look like?
<h4><span style="color: #ff6600"><strong>Thursday, November 2</strong></span></h4>
<strong><a href="https://bfaglobal.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pQVJ6I9gTOOpO2ylEI5gBA">A Fintech Approach to Financial Inclusion</a></strong>
<em>Hosting Organization: <a href="http://bfaglobal.com/">BFA</a></em>
BFA will host a webinar focused on the benefits and challenges of fintech approaches to financial inclusion. The webinar will highlight key findings from three of BFA’s global programs: Catalyst Fund, FIBR and OPTIX.

<strong><a href="http://bit.ly/MIXvoc2">Voice of the Client: Using Mobile Phones and IVR Technology to Understand Client Satisfaction in Peru (Spanish)</a></strong>
<em>Hosting Organization: <a href="https://www.themix.org/">MIX</a></em>
This webinar presentation will be the same as the preceding Voice of the Client webinar, expect it will be in Spanish and it will share project research findings from Peru instead of Cambodia.

<strong><a href="https://successfulmicropensiondesign.clickmeeting.com/financial-inclusion-week-webinar-bpps">Successful Micro Pension Design</a></strong>
<em>Hosting Organization: <a href="http://www.blueprintpensionservices.com/">BluePrint Pension Services</a></em>
BluePrint Pension Services is hosting a webinar on designing successful micro pension schemes as a solution to mitigate the risk of old age poverty for men and women working in the informal sector.

<strong><a href="https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1959278429738133251">What We Learned from Micro Pensions So Far: Case Studies from India and Ghana</a></strong>
<em>Hosting Organization: <a href="http://www.enviu.org/">Enviu</a></em>
In this one-hour interactive discussion, Ashish Aggarwal of Invest India Micro Pension Services and Samuel Waterberg of People’s Pension Trust Ghana will share their experiences and perspectives on setting up micro pension products in India and Ghana.

<strong><a href="https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4179631111385479170">IndiaStack - The Change Catalyst</a></strong>
<em>Hosting Organization: <a href="http://www.accion.org/">Accion</a></em>
Accion will be hosting a webinar to discuss the ways that IndiaStack – a combination of complimentary financial technologies – is catalyzing change in financial inclusion in India. The webinar will highlight the risks and rewards of IndiaStack and the considerations FSPs should take before integrating with this system of APIs.
<h4><span style="color: #ff6600"><strong>Friday, November 3</strong></span></h4>
<strong><a href="https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/845125705152860161">How Financial Institutions and Fintechs Are Partnering for Inclusion</a></strong>
<em>Hosting Organizations: Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion, <a href="https://www.iif.com/">Institute of International Finance</a>
</em>Contrary to the popular narrative, financial institutions view fintechs as partners in innovation, not threats to their core business. By offering better, less expensive, and more innovative products, financial institutions can assert their continued relevance as customer-facing institutions with help from fintech partnerships. This webinar will explore how partnerships between mainstream financial institutions (e.g., banks, insurers, and payment companies) and fintechs are addressing financial inclusion challenges and expanding access to the formal financial economy for underserved segments of the global population, particularly in emerging markets.

<em>For more on Financial inclusion Week 2017, head to <a href="http://financialinclusionweek.org/">the Financial Inclusion Week website</a>.</em>

<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/2017/04/11/save-the-date-financial-inclusion-week-2017/">Save the Date: Financial Inclusion Week 2017</a>

<a href="https://cfi-blog.org/2017/10/12/have-you-marked-your-calendars-for-financial-inclusion-week-2017/">Have You Marked Your Calendars for Financial Inclusion Week 2017?</a>

Webinars for #FinclusionWeek -- Register Today

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