Netherlands for the World Bank

Your guide to the World Bank Group

Netherlands for the World Bank

New Findex notes showcase digital financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa

We’re thrilled to release five new data notes in collaboration with the International 2019-Findex01Finance Corporation and Mastercard Foundation Partnership for Financial Inclusion outlining Sub-Saharan Africa’s successes and challenges in building digital financial inclusion. The notes—all of which are available for download at our homepage—draw on tens of thousands of surveys to explore how adults in the region use accounts, digital payments, and savings to manage their financial lives.

Sub-Saharan Africa leads one of the most exciting development innovations of our time—the rise of mobile money. Our first note explains how this technology can expand the use of financial services and describes how it has spread over time.

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Financial Inclusion Beyond Payments: Policy Considerations for Digital Savings

Across the developing world, financial institutions have leveraged digital technologies and innovative business models to expand access to digital financial services (DFS), such index.jpgas digital transaction accounts and payment services, which serve as the gateway to financial inclusion. Providers are now diversifying their products offerings to newer DFS, such as credit, insurance, and savings. A recent World Bank Group report examines DFS products geared toward longer-term savings. Financial Inclusion Beyond Payments: Policy Considerations for Digital Savings, looks at how these digital savings products—though not yet mature–have the potential to advance an important element of digital financial inclusion.

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Making remittances work for the poor-Three lessons learned from three Greenback 2.0 Remittance Champion Cities in Southeast Europe

“Mother, you shall not fear as long as your sons live in Germany” goes a popular folk bc47fa5a-b961-4919-a1f9-3911757217d8song in Kosovo. Its equivalent in Bosnia and Herzegovina says “I am from Bosnia, take me to America” and in Albania the most famous morning show goes by the motto “Love your country, like Albania loves America”.  In these countries, migration and remittances are synonyms of economic prosperity in the homeland. More than 40 percent of the population of these countries lives and works abroad for decades, and regularly sends money to their families back home. Remittance inflows in 2018 are estimated to range from $1.3 to $2.3 billion in these countries, exceeding foreign direct investment and accounting for 10 to 16 percent of the GDP.[1]

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The Global Findex Database

The Global Findex database is the world’s most comprehensive data set on how adults 780x439_GlobalFindex_Coversave, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Launched with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the database has been published every three years since 2011. The data are collected in partnership with Gallup, Inc., through nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults in over 140 economies. The 2017 edition includes updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services. And it adds new data on the use of financial technology (fintech), including the use of mobile phones and the internet to conduct financial transactions.

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Achieving Financial Inclusion: Fintech, account usage, and innovation

Submitted by H.M. Queen Maxima of The Netherlands on June 14, 2018

For almost a decade, the global community and national governments have made concerted efforts to expand financial inclusion—creating a financial system that works for all and opens the doors to greater stability and equitable progress.

madagascar_0This has been a demanding challenge. At the start of our engagement on financial access back in 2013, we said that having a real target with an end date would keep us focused and give us a benchmark against which we could measure progress.

Last month we learned that we have made strong and consistent progress—a real cause for celebration. According to the Global Findex database, more than half a billion people gained a financial transaction account over the last three years, thanks to a combination of technology, private investment, policy reforms, and support from the global community. Since 2011, the share of adults with formal accounts has risen from 51 percent to 69 percent, and financial access has expanded to include an additional 1.2 billion people.

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Gains in Financial Inclusion, Gains for a Sustainable World

financial-inclusion-genderMary Banda in Zambia runs a small restaurant in one of Lusaka’s oldest markets. Before she learned that financial services could make the way she did business easier, her profits were low. But today, her profits have increased, both because she banks her money and because she uses mobile money transfer services.

Using financial services has simplified managing her business and increased profits. And business proceeds now pay her children’s school fees.

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The gender gap in financial inclusion won’t budge. Here are three ways to shrink it

financial-inclusion-genderby Kristalina Georgieva On Wed, 05/23/2018

I opened my first bank account as a new student at the London School of Economics in 1987. This seemingly small act meant that I could manage my own finances, spend my own money, and make my own financial decisions. It meant freedom to decide for myself.

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World Bank Group, ITU and CPMI launch ‘Financial Inclusion Global Initiative’

Connection of millions of unbanked people to formal financial systems acceleratedFI-thumbnail

27 July 2017, Geneva – A new global program to advance research in digital finance and accelerate digital financial inclusion in developing countries, the Financial Inclusion Global Initiative, has been launched by the World Bank Group, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The three-year program focuses on three different “model” developing countries – China, Egypt and Mexico – and consists of two complementary operational and knowledge work streams.

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eC2: Market Research for Digital Financial Services in Cameroon

Deadline: 04-Jul-2017 at 11:59:59 PM (Eastern Time – Washington D.C.)

Under The Partnership for Financial Inclusion, IFC is assisting a mobile networkIFC and the Dutch operator (MNO) in Cameroon to expand their existing customer segment to new clients and markets. IFC is supporting the MNOs plans to implement an expansion and financial inclusion strategy with research to identify opportunities in the market that will help the MNO develop the best products to service its customer base. IFC is looking for a market research firm (Consultants) for this research assignment on mobile money and access to finance in Cameroon. Consultants will be hired to conduct desk research, data collection and analysis on customer needs and preferences for financial services and the extent to which these needs may be met through mobile money. The market research will also involve a competitor analysis, agent profiling, customer segmentation, and product assessment. The goal is to identify and quantify the potential customer base in the Cameroonian market.

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eC2: Digital Transformation Strategic Client Workshops

Deadline: 26-Apr-2017 at 11:59:59 PM (Eastern Time – Washington D.C.) Financial Education

A wave of innovation is sweeping financial services, transforming channels products and processes and enabling broader outreach. This has resulted in improved product fit for underserved segments, and more efficient service delivery. Together these improvements can enable a more sustainable provision of high volume low value services to previously underbanked segments, as well as improved delivery across all segments. Some of this innovation is coming from new regulated and unregulated stand-alone financial services providers. The full potential for financial inclusion, however, will be more quickly attained by fostering innovation in the incumbent banks and financial service providers alongside fostering innovative entrants. IFCs goals of financial inclusion and servicing the real economy are therefore served by both investing in FinTech innovators and by helping incumbents build their capacity to innovate internally and adopt external innovations.

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