A few conversations focused on new products which help customers attain key developmental needs. In Washington DC, Habitat for Humanity’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter, MetLife Foundation, and Omidyar Network brought together over 80 leaders in financial inclusion to explore the role of finance in helping people secure housing. The event featured CEO’s from Chaitanya in India, Al Majmoua in Lebanon, and LOLC in Cambodia who all highlighted the business case for micro housing loan products. In India, Janautthan Samudayic Laghubita Bikash Bank Limited held a roundtable where 20 participants discussed the bank’s interest in developing a new alternative energy microfinance product.
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FIinancial Inclusion Week 2017 Roundup
In a twitter chat, J-PAL and IPA looked at a different type of transformation, including new terms for old credit products. J-PAL shared insights from India and Mali where flexibility in loan-repayments schedules based on harvest resulted in benefits for borrowers.
Two conversations focused on micropensions as an important but underrepresented product that should be used to increase security among rapidly aging populations in many developing countries. BluePrint Digital shared insights on how to design a successful micropension. On a webinar hosted by Enviu, representatives from India Micro Pension Services and People’s Trust Ghana shared the importance of customer engagement.
New Partnerships
The Financial Inclusion Week conversation highlighted the central and essential role that partnerships are playing in expanding financial inclusion. Organizations are looking beyond themselves and their own industries, reaching across competition-based divides to better reach and serve underserved customers.
experience, coordinating responses and referrals to customers who would previously have to share their stories to multiple organizations.
The Financial Inclusion Week Story Continued...
In some cases, governments and the financial services industry are joining together to implement action plans to advance financial inclusion. In Australia, Good Shepherd Microfinance held a webinar on the Financial Inclusion Action Plan, onto which 30 public and private sector organizations have signed. On the webinar, utility companies Yarra Valley Water and Energy Australia shared how they are partnering to improve the customer