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Showing results for "savings"

Blog

Deepening financial inclusion through cash transfers: The case of PKH in Indonesia

In 2017, the Government of Indonesia (GoI) began digitizing social benefit transfers to improve delivery efficiency and achieve sustainable financial inclusion. Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH), a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, was the first major social assistance payment program (G2P) digitized by the government. It provides incentives for the following: Pregnant and lactating mothers, infants, […]

Blog

Resolving challenges for digital credit with segment-specific vulnerabilities

In Kenya, the demand for digital credit as a substitute for both informal and formal financial services is strong. Yet the question remains—is the reach of digital credit wide enough to help all Kenyans who need instant credit? This blog discusses the current context and gaps relating to specific customer segments, and the associated behavioral traits and challenges. It also highlights key recommendations made to providers based on the insights and lessons from Kenya.

Publication

Bangladeshi MFIs need to reinvent themselves for women: Why digitizing MFI operations is a good idea

We explore the importance of digitization for MFIs and the impact of microfinance in empowering women in Bangladesh through our concept of “Financial Services Space”.

Blog

Staying ahead of the technical assistance curve: Six lessons from FinTech start-ups in India

About a year back in August 2018, MSC collaborated with the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship to start the journey of Financial Inclusion Lab. The Lab currently receives support from the J.P. Morgan, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and the Omidyar Network. The Lab supports start-ups that develop innovative, technology-enabled solutions in the areas of financial technology, livelihoods, and skilling for the benefit of low- and middle-income (LMI) communities. MSC provided technical assistance (TA) to these start-ups. This blog focuses on the lessons learned from this TA program where we highlight six key insights that could be helpful both to investors, consultants, and other organizations which plan TA programs for similar start-ups.

Blog

Youth in agriculture: how to engage and retain youth in agricultural activities

This blog focuses on how we can engage and retain youth in agricultural activities. Its also walks us through how MSC helps its clients to tailor its services through vocational training, technological innovation and skills & entrepreneurship development to create opportunities for youth.

Publication

SHGs should balance or break

In the words of NABARD, “internal savings mobilized by its members is the core of the SHG”. Banks size their loans to SHGs as a multiple of the savings accumulated. Strangely though, it is not routine for banks to verify SHG balance sheets before lending. Few SHGs try to balance their books, and even fewer have provisions for audits.
In the SHG-bank linkage model, the size of bank loans is determined by the size of the SHG corpus, more than by any other single factor. As a result, SHGs face very strong systemic incentives to neglect errors that overstate their collective savings or understate losses.