“…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.

Up until now studies concerning mobile money and financial inclusion have focused largely on aggregate adoption rates and usage trends. Few have shed light on the ways in which women, men and young adults (men and women ages 18-25), use mobile money differently.

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.

Kenya’s more successful mass market financial solutions have demonstrated the importance of social values by enabling poor Kenyans to manage their money in ways that cultivate their visions of well being.

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.

This study was originally published by GSMA on their wesbite.

FSD Kenya commissioned Oxford Policy Management (OPM) to conduct an in-depth impact assessment of their savings groups programmes which were undertaken in collaboration with two international non-governmental organisations, CARE and Catholic Relief Services (CRS).

FSD Kenya invested substantially in supporting savings groups (SGs) based on the hypothesis that these kinds of informal services are more accessible to underserved markets.

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.

2016 marked the first year of FSD’s strategy for the period 2016 to 2021. The financial landscape in Kenya has evolved in ways far beyong the vision of FSD Kenya at our inception in 2005.

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

This report outlines the findings from a two-year study by FSD Kenya to understand the costs for banking services in Kenya. Two rounds of mystery shopping surveys were completed in October and November of 2015 and 2016
to build a database and measure the costs for basic bundles of transactions such as opening, running and closing bank accounts.

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.

Financial services associations (FSAs) are rural community-level member based semi-informal financial institutions, that are a hybrid of savings and credit cooperative organizations (SACCOs) and microfinance institutions (MFIs).

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 report gives an overview of FSD Kenya’s proposed programme of activities and major issues surrounding financial inclusion during 2016 and highlights of our initiatives.