If there’s one thing the 2017 Global Findex teaches us about Myanmar, it’s that financial inclusion there remains a story about potential rather than achievement. The fact that most people in Myanmar own a mobile phone has fueled hopes in recent years that mobile financial services providers would take financial inclusion to the next level. The Findex shows us that this hasn’t happened yet, but there are reasons for optimism ..read more

March 1, 2017, was a milestone in the story of financial inclusion in Bangladesh. On that day, 10 million low-income mothers received their first digital payment from Mayer Hashi (Mother Smile), a long-standing government-run program that offers financial aid to the parents of primary school students ..read more

Few experiences undermine a digital financial services (DFS) customer’s finances and trust in DFS like becoming the victim of a cybercrime. This is especially true of low-income customers, who are least able to rebound from the losses, and of the newly banked, whose trust in financial services may be fragile. Unfortunately, cybercrime is a growing problem in developing countries, where customers often conduct financial transactions over unsecure mobile phones and transmission lines that are not designed to protect communications ..read more

With the advent of data connectivity in emerging markets, social media is likely to play an increasing role in people’s lives — including people who have smartphones but are financially excluded. Online connectivity is creating more opportunities for financial services providers (FSPs) to engage new and existing customers, even in remote places: listening to their voices, understanding their needs and adapting products and delivery methods accordingly ..read more

Patients in developing countries spent $148 billion in out-of-pocket health care expenses in 2015. The Sustainable Development Goal for health envisions universal coverage for “essential health services,” and there’s no doubt that efforts made to achieve this goal will reduce the burden of out-of-pocket expenses. But what about services that aren’t considered “essential” and covered by insurance ..read more

Super platforms are generating a lot of buzz in the financial inclusion community because of their potential to maximize scale and reach while embedding digital financial services into successful digital use cases. This is especially the case in China, where tech giants such as Alibaba and Tencent have integrated a range of financial services — from payments to micro-investments — into their product offerings. Yet for all the excitement around super platforms, not enough is known about the impact these platforms are having on low-income consumers’ lives ..read more

The 2017 Global Findex shows that India has significantly improved financial inclusion over the past four years. According to Findex, 53 percent of adults had accounts in 2014. By 2017, that number had jumped to 80 percent — a remarkable addition of 300 million accounts in just a few years. Importantly, traditionally excluded groups shared in these gains. Women saw a 30 percent increase in account ownership, and the poorest households saw a 40 percent increase ..read more

Expanding mobile money to low-income rural customers has been challenging for financial services providers in developing countries. Many mobile network operators (MNOs) have tried digitizing the bulk payments that agribusinesses make to smallholders who sell their crops, as a first step toward encouraging farmers to use digital financial services (DFS). To date, these efforts have not been widely embraced by smallholders or resulted in the widespread adoption of DFS ..read more

On 6 April 2018, the Reserve Bank of India issued a directive requiring all payment system providers and third parties operating in the country to store all data related to their payment system operations exclusively in India. Shortly thereafter, a government-appointed committee recommended a data protection bill to Parliament that, if passed, would restrict the transnational flow of data in other sec ..read more

Peer-to-peer digital fundraising platforms are becoming more popular as a way for people to reach a broader financing network beyond their immediate family and friends. But they’re not entirely new. They’re a digital version of more traditional kinds of charitable giving that exist in many cultures. And new research out of Kenya suggests that FinTechs and financial services providers learn from these deep-rooted fundraising traditions to make their twenty-first century financial services more effective ..read more