The Microfinance Centre regional microfinance resource center and network

This case study reviews digital applications and experimentation in digital transformation by European microfinance institutions. Using a digital transformation framework developed by the Microfinance Centre, the case explores the application of technology to core business processes and analyzes the use of various applications such as social media, virtual collaboration, mobile tools, data analytics and artificial intelligence. In addition to presenting ...

The European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP) has launched the Financial Inclusion Compass 2018 – its new paper on emerging short, medium and long-term trends in the financial inclusion sector, based on a survey of e-MFP members and key industry stakeholders. The Compass was conceived to be a way to leverage e-MFP’s multi-stakeholder membership and position in the inclusive finance community, while ...

Contrary to the popular narrative, financial institutions view fintechs as partners in innovation, not threats to their core business. By offering better, less expensive, and more innovative products, financial institutions can assert their continued relevance as customer-facing institutions with help from fintech partnerships. Publisher: The Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion (CFI) Authors: Sonja E. Kelly, Allyse McGrath, Dennis Ferenzy Year: 2017 Download “How ...

Many households and small businesses in emerging markets have no or very limited access to formal financial services. Even in developed countries, they only have access to a limited menu of cost-effective products from financial institutions for addressing their financial needs. Over two billion unbanked adults in the world, representing 38 percent of all adults globally, lack access to basic ...

The paper “Are Microfinance Borrowers in Lebanon Over-Indebted?” presents the results of the research study  that aimed to provide empirical evidence that would confirm or refute indications of cross- and over-indebtedness in Lebanon, to analyze the causes of potential cross- or over-indebtedness, and to formulate recommendations on how  to  address  these. The study was commissioned by  the SANAD Fund for ...

The paper “Measuring Financial Inclusion in the EU: Financial Inclusion Score Approach” presents a radical new approach to measuring financial inclusion in the EU: a financial inclusion score that treats financial inclusion as the efficiency with which a financial system transforms the conditions of access (infrastructure, regulations, etc) into the actual use of financial services. Why is this so important? Because ...

Financial Inclusion of Individuals in Poland, 2014 Full text in Polish, executive summary in English Results of the desk review presentation in Polish, in English The executive summary presents the main results of the research on financial inclusion of individuals in Poland thus providing insight into the level of usage of various financial products and services as well as into the conditions of ...

Measuring Financial Inclusion in the EU: the New “Financial Inclusion Score”, 2014 This paper proposes a synthetic measure of financial inclusion. A new “Financial Inclusion Score” (or FIS) uses endogenous weights for inputs and outputs, using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. Using these FIS scores, this paper discusses the financial inclusion ranking of 27 EU countries, and suggests how ...

The briefing paper “Measuring Financial Inclusion in Turkey” summarizes the current state of financial inclusion in Turkey in terms of financial services usage and the level of access to financial services for individuals and SMEs. Turkey is the 16th largest economy in the world in terms of GDP, a member of G20, OECD and a candidate for European Union membership. Its ...

Measuring Access to Finance: Developing Evidence-Based Access Policies Access to Finance Scorecard (AFS) framework captures diverse aspects of access and usage issues into one comprehensive tool that lends itself to measurement and interpretation that can inform policy making and regulation of financial services. The ‘balanced’ aspect of AFS lies in the fact that it takes into account not only the ...