Blog Series

"10 Things" You Should Know About....

CGAP is focusing on some core concepts in the blog series, where we highlight key sources and facts that everyone interested in financial inclusion should know.

'Gamification' and Financial Services for the Poor

By improving user experience, engagement, and loyalty, "gamified" financial services apps may have a role in increasing usage by low-income customers. Many companies are using games to teach financial concepts and habits that are difficult to convey…

2015 Financial Inclusion Insights Survey in Rwanda and Ghana

To get a better understanding of mobile money usage in Rwanda and Ghana, CGAP funded the 2015 Financial Inclusion Insights Survey in these two countries. Executed by InterMedia, this nationally-representative survey of adults measures how many…

2015: The Year of Indian Financial Inclusion

Several important regulatory moves in India during 2014 set the country up to make significant headway toward battling financial exclusion in 2015. Read more about where financial inclusion in India is headed and how digital channels may help the…

Addressing the Gaps in Data about Smallholder Households

Leading up to the launch of CGAP’s national surveys of smallholders in Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda, we asked a range of experts in financial inclusion and agriculture how household data plays a role in their work with smallholders. In this blog…

Aggregators: How They Work and Why They Matter

In the digital finance ecosystem, aggregators function as the glue that helps entities like businesses, governments and donors easily connect with a variety of payment platforms--like mobile money services or banks—and the customers who pay via…

Applied Product Innovation in Branchless Banking

This series looks into the efforts of various providers to launch product labs that demonstrate new ways of understanding clients, testing ideas and designing breakthrough products.

Big Data for Financial Inclusion

Big data has a variety of applications to help make financial services more accessible to the unbanked. This blog series explores the big questions surrounding big data's implications and applications as well as demonstrate ways in which it is…

Building Empowered Customers

CGAP is currently working with partners to research and further develop the concept of customer empowerment. Our hypothesis is that a more dynamic customer-provider relationship that is based on trust and builds customer confidence will contribute…

CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program

This blog series shares insights and reflections from individuals working to find pathways out of extreme poverty for the poorest as part of the CGAP-Ford Foundation Graduation Program.

CGAP: 20 Years of Financial Inclusion Progress

2015 marks CGAP's 20th anniversary. Much has changed since the organization was founded in 1995. This blog series documents these changes from a variety of institutional and regional perspectives.

Corporate Governance and MFIs

This series will feature microfinance managers, investors, and advisors about the current state of practice, obstacles, and promising new work in the field.

Diaries: A Tool for Understanding Smallholder Families

Earlier this year, we took a deeper look at smallholder families to get a broad range of perspectives on the challenges of understanding smallholder demand for financial services. As CGAP launches its year-long smallholder financial diaries study,…

Digital Credit: Borrower Experiences and Emerging Risks

The advent of digital credit has extended access to instant, automated, remote credit to millions of borrowers. But who is accessing these loans? How are borrowers using the money? And to what extent are we seeing risks emerge such as late…

Digital Finance in WAEMU

In recent years, WAEMU has experienced significant private sector activity to develop digital finance solutions showing exciting promises for financial inclusion in the region. Yet, deployments and adoption is uneven across the eight countries and…

Digitizing Agricultural Value Chains

In reality, agriculture value chains - the range of steps and related actors necessary for an agriculture product to move from the farm to the final customers - are often quite complex. Digitizing the processes around payments could make these value…

Disruptive Innovations

There is a wide range of ideas and innovations in the financial inclusion space that are changing the way customers are beginning to access financial services. Technological advances, refreshed approaches to regulations, and leveraging the "wisdom…