Develop a savings product for commercial sex workers under the Avahan project, India

• Oct 24, 2018
• 1 min

MSC worked on a project to generate insights about the specific financial needs, attitudes, perceptions, and behavior of commercial sex workers in India for the Avahan project. We employed sensitive and thorough qualitative research using our Market Insights for Innovation and Design (MI4ID) tools and designed savings products accordingly. Significantly, this project considered India’s 3 million CSWs as a customer segment for financial product development and used the insights to inform the product design.

MSC engaged with the Avahan project in India to generate insights about the specific financial needs, attitudes, perceptions, and behavior of commercial sex workers in the country. Avahan started in 2003 supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It aims to reduce the spread of HIV in India by working with high-risk groups, which include female, male, and transgender commercial sex workers (CSW).

MSC generated insights about the specific financial needs, attitudes, perceptions, and behavior of CSWs. We employed sensitive and thorough qualitative research through our Market Insights for Innovation and Design (MI4ID) tools and designed savings products for NGOs under Avahan. The insights fed into informing product design.

This project was unique as it considered India’s 3 million CSWs as a customer segment for financial product development.