ABSTRACT

More than one billion people still live below the poverty line – most of them in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Financial inclusion is a major issue, as more than three-quarters of the numbers of poor and disadvantaged women and men do not have access to financial products and services, such as bank accounts, affordable and suitable loans, and insurance.

The key objective of this book is to provide practical case studies of financial inclusion, rather than focus on academic debates such as the ideological basis of promoting microfinance. Using the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals as an overall framing of the issues, it shows how poor and disadvantaged women and men can be bankable if the right facilitation for maximizing opportunities and addressing constraints are in place. Case studies confirm that achieving inclusive and sustainable access to financial products and services goes beyond simply enabling poor and disadvantaged women and men to have access to credit, or the ability to open a bank account. Examples from Africa, Asia and Latin America demonstrate encouraging progress in making microcredit accessible to millions of poor people. The foremost challenge, however, has been to ensure that they have access to, and usage intensity of, suitable and affordable financial products and services that meet the needs of their livelihoods as well as risks and mitigation strategies. This requires understanding that poor and disadvantaged women and men do not exist in isolation from complex and interdependent functions in the financial system, which includes a number of actors, diversified services, constraints (not just symptoms) and capacities and incentives.

Overall, the book provides a rich source of examples of how building inclusive financial systems can empower the world's poor – by increasing income and employment opportunities, securing livelihoods and reducing poverty.

chapter 2|19 pages

From access to progress

Setting our sights on a worthier goal

chapter 3|17 pages

The Bangladesh experience on financial inclusion

A market systems review

chapter 4|17 pages

Financial inclusion

Understanding concept, barriers and measurement

chapter 6|19 pages

Extending access to the formal financial system

The banking correspondent business model

chapter 7|12 pages

Savings as forward payments

Innovations on mobile money platforms

chapter 8|18 pages

Mobile money and financial inclusion

The case of Susu operations in Ghana

chapter 9|19 pages

Towards a gender transformative approach to financial inclusion

Lessons from CARE’s village savings and loan associations in sub-Saharan Africa

chapter 10|19 pages

Gender-based barriers and opportunities to financial inclusion

New evidence from Ghana