Archive for: Banks
by Hannah Siedek : Friday, March 9, 2007
The CGAP Technology Program plans to partner with Credibanco Visa to find ways to increase access to financial services. The proposed project would focus on three banks, which would roll out a network of banking agents.
“No, I don’t want a bank account. How do I know they’re not stealing my money? And it costs too much in any case,” says Juan, a cab driver in Bogota. In Colombia, as few as one in three people have access to financial services. Reasons for this include taxation on withdrawals, stringent account-opening requirements, and high costs to open and maintain a bank account. This is not uncommon in Latin America. According to figures from the International Monetary Fund, in Sao Paulo fewer than 40% of households have access to financial services. In Mexico City, that number drops to just one in four. The Inter-American Development Bank says that only 14.4 percent of the low-income population in Latin America has access to a savings account, and only 6.4 percent of them have obtained a loan.
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by Hannah Siedek : Tuesday, February 13, 2007
This paper explores the extent to which formal, regulated financial institutions such as banks have been able to partner with correspondents, commercial entities whose primary objective and business is other than the provision of financial services. The paper illustrates the case of Brazil, where banks have recently developed extensive networks of such correspondents. It shows that such arrangements result in lower costs and shared risks for participating financial institutions, making these arrangements an attractive vehicle for outreach to the underserved especially for certain financial services such as payments and transactions. Correspondent banking required a supporting enabling environment to emerge, and poses some regulatory challenges and some increase in risk. The example from Brazil may be replicable elsewhere if appropriate regulatory adjustments are undertaken.
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by Jim Rosenberg : Sunday, October 29, 2006
Focus Note No. 38, October 2006
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This Focus Note examines the experience of five pioneering countries–Brazil, India, South Africa, the Philippines, and Kenya–where agent-assisted branchless banking that targets poor customers is already a reality. It introduces the main issues involved in regulating branchless banking, particularly regarding the use of retail agents.
by Jim Rosenberg : Saturday, April 29, 2006
by Gautam Ivatury : Saturday, April 15, 2006
by Gautam Ivatury : Sunday, January 29, 2006
Some of the innovations commercial banks need to service poor clients may be found in information and communications technologies (ICTs).This Focus Note addresses the following questions: Can banking technologies, applied innovatively in developing countries, make microfinance profitable for formal financial institutions? Will they reduce costs to such an extent that banks could profitably serve even those whom MFIs have mostly excluded to date, such as very poor and remote rural customers? Will these customers be comfortable using technology?
by Gautam Ivatury : Wednesday, September 29, 2004
(adapted from Elizabeth Littlefield and Richard Rosenberg, “Microfinance and the Poor: Breaking Down the Walls between Microfinance and Formal Finance,” Finance & Development 41, no. 2 (June 2004): 38-40)
There is a dawning understanding that developing countries’ financial systems need to be more accessible to poor people and that there are practical ways to make this happen. All kinds of financial institutions–regulators, mainstream rating agencies, commercial and state banks, insurance companies, and credit bureaus–are starting to play a part in developing sound, inclusive financial systems that serve the majority of poor countries citizens.
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