1 October 2011

After a year of starting up projects under WSBI’s Doubling Savings Accounts Programme, funded by the

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the ten participating banks and WSBI have confirmed that increasing

financial access to the poor is easier said than done. Unbanked populations are remote and scattered,

which makes it extremely difficult for banks to provide easy access to their services. To meet the programme’s

goal, participating banks must consider partners such as mobile money operators and savings

groups; offer simple and affordable products and services; train bank staff to become the pro-poor

marketers of first resort, despite training’s surprisingly high cost; and become more assertive in the face

of inappropriate regulation. Thus banks must take a much more proactive approach, as it is no longer

a question of what keeps the poor from accessing banks but rather what keeps banks from providing

access for the poor.

 

To find out more, click on this following link:http://www.wsbi.org/uploadedFiles/Double_savings_accounts_(WSBI_only)/Introduction/First%20lessons%20learned%20screen.pdf