DEVELOPMENT 71
serving customers. This approach, literally
“doorstep banking,” is the opposite of one-size-
fits-all, and reflects the deep commitment to
customer service that is MetLife Foundation’s
philosophy.
Trickle Up, another MetLife Foundation grantee
in India, takes customer centricity seriously
as well. They work intensively with ultra-poor
households in Odisha and West Bengal, helping
those families identify the skills they possess
that might translate into an income-generating
activity. Then Trickle Up provides technical
skills training in that activity, provides intensive
one-on-one coaching, and facilitates access
to financial services. This integrated package
of services has shown promising results in
breaking the multi-generational cycle of poverty.
Mexico’s Pro Mujer is one of that country’s
best known names in women’s economic
empowerment. With MetLife Foundation’s
support, Pro Mujer is helping its clients make
the transition from group loans to more tailored,
individual loans that will position them for greater
economic success. True to their mission, Pro
Mujer is supplementing its financial services with
access to health care, business training, and a
social space where clients find support among a
network of peers and Pro Mujer staff.
Women’s World Banking, a global leader in
financial inclusion since the 1970s, is also using
support from MetLife Foundation to expand
women’s access to individual loans. WWB is
working in three large markets, Egypt, India,
and Mexico, to ensure delivery of better credit
products to more than 500,000 clients who
in turn will see their small businesses better
positioned for growth.
MetLife Foundation is proud to work with some
of the most respected organizations in financial
inclusion, leaders who share our commitment to
customer centricity. We are proud as well to be
identifying and nurturing promising innovations
in the field of behavioral economics, which holds
the potential to take customer centric service
to new levels by leveraging or mitigating the
motivations and constraints that drive people’s
financial behaviors. We are excited by the rapid
growth and evolution in the deployment of digital
financial services, the force multiplier that can
bring financial inclusion to truly universal scale.
Perhaps most of all, MetLife Foundation is
honored to be part of a global effort that is
succeeding. World Bank statistics indicate that
financial inclusion has expanded by 20 percent
in the past three years alone. That amazing
progress is evidence of what can happen when
a critical mass of players, from a vast cross-
section of nations and industries, works together
toward a common goal.
Our task now is to ensure that financial inclusion
does not become just a matter of numbers.
Financial services is a people business. Financial
inclusion will truly succeed only if customers
always remain at the center and the depth and
breadth of their financial needs are met. Q