MSC has associated with Equity Bank on multiple engagements over the years. We initially collaborated to form a research cell to re-engineer Equity to be a market-led institution. MSC continued the collaboration as Equity Building Society transformed into Equity Bank. MSC subsequently collaborated with Equity on the research cell over multiple engagements. Today, Equity serves over 12 million customers.

HDFC broadened and deepened its large and growing portfolio of rural and agri-business loans in partnership with MSC. We supported the bank through a range of interventions, including designing marketing collaterals to communicate key messages tailored to the target segments. HDFC Bank introduced several products for the rural segments.

MSC’s expertise in working with low-income people helped us conduct multiple customer segmentation and market-sizing projects. Our recent work in this area spans Bangladesh, India, Qatar, and Cambodia. In Bangladesh, MSC highlighted a market of 12.5 million additional users by 2020. MSC’s research in India highlighted a USD-155-billion annual deposit potential among 600 million people from the low- and middle-income (LMI) segment. In Qatar, MSC’s research has helped segment 2.69 million people to develop a financial inclusion strategy. Our market segmentation research in Cambodia helped improve our client’s product offering for around 700,000 clients.

MSC studies the financial behavior of people in multiple countries and contexts. A key project in this area has been the MetaMon Research undertaken in India and Bangladesh. The design firm IDEO.org collaborated with MSC to use our expertise in human-centric research, country context, and behavioral design. The research led to the development of eight design principles for financial institutions for designing inclusive digital savings products.

The UNCDF MicroLead Expansion program engaged MSC to create a toolkit for service providers in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda. The toolkit helped link savings groups with financial institutions. It continues to help expand financial inclusion through capacity-building of banks, MFIs, and FinTechs that work with informal groups, especially in rural areas of the target countries.

MSC helped CASHPOR Micro Credit (CMC) induce financial behavior change among its clients. MSC developed a financial education program for rural women, which helped them to choose financial products better. MSC’s efforts led to an 89% increase in the number of savings deposits and 233% increase in account opening at pilot branches.