“…fintech innovations need to be more inclusive, easier to use, and designers should work harder to provide greater consumer protection and empowerment.”

Insights into the social value of financial services

Today, mobile money has managed to penetrate over 70% of the Kenyan population, with more people claiming access to services such as Safaricom’s M-Pesa than ever before.

Meaningful financial solutions can help poor people manage day to day, deal with risk and invest in the future.

The last blog in this series argued that using formal account access as the primary yardstick for progress in financial inclusion is a poor navigational tool for stakeholders working to strengthen the link between financial systems and the well-being of populations.

Open a report on – or read the mandate of an organization working in – financial inclusion and chances are that in the introductory paragraph you’ll read a variation of a single sentence that motivates the whole endeavor: “Worldwide, more than 2 billion adults do not have access to an account at a formal financial institution”.

Financial access is accelerating

This is the third blog in a series about Financial Service Associations (FSAs) and their potential for growth and customer value creation based on an FSD Kenya commissioned survey by BFA.  Read the first blog here: Financial services associations: an imperfect solution and the second blog here: FSA asset financing: when paying more yields more.

This is the second blog in a series about Financial Service Associations (FSAs) and their potential for growth and customer value creation based on an FSD Kenya commissioned survey by BFA. The survey took place in 2017 in Bamba, Kakeani and Mukuyuni and involved in-depth interviews with over 60 respondents including customers, their non-member neighbours and FSA staff. 

This is the first blog in a series about financial services associations based on an FSD Kenya commissioned survey by BFA.

Retail banks can still thrive in the face of mobile money, as long as they are prepared to adapt

This blog was originally published by CGAP.

Financial inclusion is growing, and fast. Kenyans excluded from any form of financial service dropped from over 40% of adults to 17% between 2006 and 2016.

n May 2017, I had the honour of being on a fascinating Euromoney panel about expanding the digital financial ecosystem. One of the many topics that we discussed was the dearth of debt financing available for fintechs and start-ups limiting the potential for scale.

Although this question seems simple and straightforward, answering it is more difficult than it looks.

Banking remains the largest sub-sector by assets and the most systemically significant in Kenya’s financial services sector. Developments, especially those enabled by technology, have brought a sizeable number of new, mostly poorer and vulnerable first-time consumers into the market.

Steps to a financial future where there are as many financial opportunities as there are young people.

Kenyans are learning about money earlier than you might think: as early as four or five they’re picking up financial lessons from their parents. By 18, almost a third have mobile money accounts.

Africa’s population is growing faster than anywhere else in the world. More than half of global population growth between now and 2050 is expected to occur in Africa and of the additional 2.4 billion people projected to be added to the global population between now and 2050, 1.3 billion will be in Africa.

Our first blog in this series discussed the Hunger Safety Net Programme and savings groups (SGs), for which we’ve also sought to use market based approaches. Part Two, discusses the use of a market based approach in graduation programmes.

Finance helps economic growth, and in turn, job creation.

Today is the first annual International Day for small and medium sized enterprises.

The impact of the recent six-month drought is readily apparent. The earth is dry and cracked and most of the trees and shrubs are barren. Riverbeds are full of dried branches and the livestock that roam the area are but skeletons, with many dead along the road.

Vibrant social networks are what make Kenya unique and modern technology is making them functional.

Friends and family make for a happier and more fulfilled life but in Kenya, they’re also the key to survival.

Across Africa, entrepreneurs and business leaders are increasingly aware that hiring top talent is critical to winning in the marketplace. In Kenya especially, technology-driven financial services companies (“fintechs”)  struggle to recruit efficiently and effectively: when they post a job opening, they are often inundated with a high volume of applications and selecting candidates feels like a subjective process prone to bias and inconsistency.

Africa is the continent that will experience the effects of climate change first and worst. Which is why, on World Environment Day, we are pleased that Kenya is a leader in both rural electrification and clean energy innovation.

Kenyan parents know that when you invest in education, you invest in the future. But that future isn’t cheap.

For seven years, Najiri has received bi-monthly cash transfers from the Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP) a Kenyan government program in Northern Kenya

Pauline Kimari is a pharmacist in Ndaragwa, Kenya, a small town several hours’ drive north of Nairobi. She moved there from rural Muranga, several hours away, to open a small shop, Ndaragwa Joy Chemist. It is white with blue and green doors and a blue bench inside. She sells medicine and cosmetics.

As an adviser, trainer and all-round advocate of the “making markets work for the poor” approach to more effective development, I get asked a lot of questions about the approach.

Market facilitation can (and does) work

Kenya is a good place to start when considering market facilitation. It is the poster child of financial inclusion, with access to formal finance growing dramatically from 27 percent in 2006 to 75 percent in 2016.

In an effort to understand the real needs of the people, our seventh ‘Field Friday’ exercise took us to Karagita in Naivasha. We set out to gather insights on which financial services people use and which ones they trust most.