Financial Inclusion Lab Bangladesh

• Dec 28, 2023
• 1 min

MSC, a2i, and UNCDF run the Financial Inclusion Lab Bangladesh, which intends to enhance the FinTech ecosystem in Bangladesh. The Lab aligns the startups and incumbents to innovate for the underserved communities through pro-poor solutions.

MSC, in partnership with the Agency to Innovate (a2i) and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), set up the Financial Inclusion Lab Bangladesh (FinLab BD). The Lab’s overarching goal is to support FinTechs, startups, and the overall ecosystem to innovate pro-poor solutions for Bangladesh.

The Lab’s first cohort released two key problem statements for a call to application—women’s financial inclusion and access to credit for cottage, micro, small, and medium enterprises (CMSMEs). The Lab selected eight unique FinTech startups and incumbents from 123 applicants through a rigorous, multi step selection process. The selected startups and incumbents went through boot camps, diagnostics, and mentoring sessions before their pitch. The winners of the first cohort won grant awards to develop and scale their solutions. The Bangladesh Bank’s Regulatory FinTech Facilitation Office (RFFO) remained a core part of the cohort selection at every juncture.

MSC has been helping the cohort winners shape their ideas through product design support, market analysis, market testing, scaling, go-to-market (GTM) strategies, pilot testing, and customer marketing. The Lab would support at least 100,000 LMIs through the first cohort.

MetLife Foundation commissioned the project with support from a2i.