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expensive outreach to new customers and data management and use. They also highlighted the hurdles inherent in combining back-end systems.
The Mifos Initiative hosted a webinar on their open innovation and banking platform. During the webinar, Fiinlab of Gentera and RuPie shared that they used Mifos’ software to accelerate the rollout of innovative digital financial services. In fact, Fiinlab of Gentera has been able to use the platform to shorten the time-frame to roll out some features from a year to a week. Mifos also creates open APIs which enable easier partnership.
In Buenos Aires, Above and Beyond demonstrated the use cases for FINCONECTA Live!, an open API platform which has facilitated partnerships for Bancosol, Bandelta, ProMujer, Banco Gauyaquil, Banco Popular, Banco Regional, Sogesol, and Fundeser. This open API platform allows for easier data sharing and integration with fintech partners.
During Financial Inclusion Week, some organizations held financial capability trainings for customers. ESAF Small Finance Bank held financial capability trainings with students at 20 different locations in Kerala, India throughout the Week. In Ghana, The Foundation for Financial Inclusion hosted a financial literacy quiz competition for students and held trainings for entrepreneurs.
You can see more from the week’s conversations on the event pages or watch webinar recordings at this dedicated playlist on Youtube.
New Potential
It was clear in many Financial Inclusion Week conversations that financial capability is crucial to secure the new potential introduced by innovation. Awaaz.De, a fintech startup in India, held an event in which they explored the importance of financial capability interventions. At the event, the CRISIL Foundation shared an example of an intervention in which loan officers build out the scenario of what having a loan would like day-to-day for a customer. This practice was implemented in a number of branches and it led to customers taking out smaller values that were more manageable.
Beyond government efforts, many industry players are partnering at the institution-level. The Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion focused specifically on partnerships between fintechs and financial institutions on a webinar featuring DemystData, Juvo, and MasterCard. During the webinar, the institutions shared how partnerships are driving their work, addressing key financial inclusion challenges such as