Savings and Credit Forum

List of past Savings and Credit Forums: Programmes, presentations, and recordings.

Savings and Credit Forum 2024

«From risk to resilience: Harnessing financial services as a tool to build resilience in the face of shocks related to climate change»

This year’s Savings and Credit Forum focused on how financial services can contribute to building resilience in the face of shocks related to climate change. Enhancing resilience against the detrimental impacts of a warming climate necessitates access to financial tools such as insurance, savings, loans, and payment methods. These resources aid households and businesses in vulnerable areas to prepare for and expedite recovery from climate-related shocks and pressures, which are becoming increasingly frequent and severe.

We addressed the question of how to go from «pilot to scale» while paying special attention to the roles of innovation, system change and sustainability when scaling climate-responsive financial products.

Please find the recording of the 2024 edition below:

Savings and Credit Forum 2023

«Empowering people through digital financial services»

SDC’s Economy Network in partnership with CGAP and the Social Performance Task Force (SPTF) hosted the 2023 Savings & Credit Forum on «Empowering people through digital financial services». It focused on empowering poor people through responsible and sustainable Digital Financial Services. The Forum highlighted innovative opportunities, the challenges and emerging solutions for delivering digital financial services responsibly and addressed the ‹dos› and ‹don’ts›.

You can watch the entire Forum (2h:20) or jump to the highlights with these timecodes: Sophie Sirtaine - Financial Inclusion 2.0 (17:00), Panel 1 «The Digital Evolution of Financial Services and its Impact on Financial Inclusion» with Ignacio (36:30), reflections on Panel 1 with Vatsala (1:16), Panel 2 «Building Responsible Digital Finance Ecosystems» with Juan Carlos (1:25), reflections on Panel 2 by Vatsala (2:10)

Savings and Credit Forum 2022

«Hiding in plain sight: The business case of migrants' financial inclusion»

Globally, an estimated 281 million people live and work outside their countries of origin. Nearly half of them are women. For individual migrants, moving abroad for work can mean income volatility, uncertainty, and insecurity, both back home and abroad. The financial products that could help reduce these vulnerabilities—savings, credit, insurance, pension, etc.—are seldom easily accessible outside one’s home country. At the same time, many migrants are determined to send part of their incomes – remittances – back home.

In 2021, official global remittances to low- and middle-income countries reached $589 billion. Yet the potential of remittances to further sustainable development is limited by high fees, long transfer time, the use of informal channels and cash-based transfers. It is also a missed opportunity if remittances are not linked up with a range of financial services such as insurance and pension products that can significantly contribute to the financial resilience and social protection of migrants and their families.

What is the incentive for the private sector to ensure the financial inclusion of migrants? Is there a business case around products such as insurance and pension for migrants?
How to reach woman migrants and build meaningful partnerships to reach particularly vulnerable migrants?

Watch the recording of the 2022 edition:

Savings and Credit Forum 2021

«Sustainable health financing through inclusive health insurance»

Worldwide 100 million people are pushed into poverty every year because of health-related sudden costs. More than 570 million have to assume catastrophic out-of-pocket health spending. Therefore, the gradual expansion of health coverage and financial protection to poorer population segments is essential.

Thanks to the presentations of the three specialists (see presentations below) we shed some light on what public and private health insurance approaches can contribute to better social protection and learned more about programmes in Tanzania, Nepal, Gambia, Egypt and Jordan.

Key takeaways from the presentations and the discussion

• Inclusive Insurance for low-income people is a crucial part of Financial Inclusion since most people in developing and transition countries live without any formal means of protecting against risks, such as illness, disability, death, harvest failure and loss of livestock or personal effects.
• Financial education and the related «insurance literacy» plays an important role for the uptake of health insurance. Social marketing and communication can contribute to sensitization about the benefits of health insurance.
• Local provision of health services. Clients who move around in a country or are internally displaced still often lose their coverage.

Three challenges: 

• Finding good partners (with proper scale but also agile, like-minded, innovative)
• Resources - Partners struggle with the costs upfront. Partners are sometimes slow due to multiple parallel projects.
• Level of flexibility to follow the approach and learn together. Limited ability of partnership to leverage technical assistance.

Three things that made it work:

• Create strong bonds with partners (e.g. full-time project management, involve senior management)
• Partner is a champion on the topic
• Social commitment and engage in the work on their own (being interested in commercial aspect is not enough)

Slides

Savings and Credit Forum 2018

«Women's financial inclusion - How to reach 1 billion women»

Having access to financial services matters for women’s economic empowerment. Internationally renowned experts in the field of financial inclusion will shed light on how women can be included to the formal financial sector. How can digitalized delivery of financial services make the difference for women? What roles play social norms when it comes to women’s financial inclusion?

Key takeaways from the presentations and the discussion

• Making finance work for women - Digital financial services for women

  • A landmark McKinsey Global Institute report finds that $12 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025 if the gender gap is narrowed.
  • Various studies and reports have proven that women are better clients: they repay better, save better, buy insurances and speak positively about their experience to their entourage.
  • Financial Inclusion contributes to Women’s Empowerment as women who engage in financial services experiment: 1) Relational change: Decision-making, bargaining power, participation and self-reliance; 2) Material change: Income, Resources, basic needs and earning capacity; 3) Cognitive change: Knowledge, skills and awareness; 4) Perceptual change: Self-esteem, self-confidence, vision of future, visibility and respect
  • Women face barriers to enter the financial market because of 1) low awareness; 2) lack of data due to little gender-disaggregated data and 3) weak regulatory environment.
  • Women need confidentiality and security when entering the formal financial market. Services and products should be tailored around those principles to build a trustful relationship. Digital finance is one of the tool to address women’s needs as it provides convenience, privacy, security and accessibility.

  • Presentation SC Forum 2018: Women’s financial inclusion: How to reach one billion women?

    PDF1.35 MB2 November 2018

• How to overcome the gender digital gap?

  • The gender gap in financial and social inclusion exists because of lack and / or weaknesses in: offer of products and services, processes and policies, financial education, infrastructure, social and cultural norms, and regulatory systems.
  • Digital financial services present a promising opportunity for women’s financial inclusion but have their set of challenges: low mobile phone ownership, low knowledge on technologies, lack of trust etc.
  • The way forward to narrow the gap is by lowering barriers to access for everyone and protecting the vulnerable; by encouraging use of financial services through policies, information, payments and education; and by targeting fintech services aimed at women.
  • Institutions must incorporate gender into their strategies, analyse engendered data, and then support women’s entrepreneurship, develop adapted products and increase women’s presence within their systems (e.g. female agent)
  • The regulator must work together with financial institutions to achieve greater and sustainable impact.

  • Presentation SC Forum 2018: Overcoming the Gender Digitalisation Gap

    PDF2.04 MB2 November 2018

• Social norms change for women's financial inclusion

  • Social norms are the shared expectations from society (not individual attitudes); they are constructed by a group; there are consequences if you don’t abide by them, the consequences are not so big if you don’t know people but when you do know people the consequences can be really bad for you. Social norms are really important to understand when it comes to financial inclusion of women.
  • Gendered norms translate into expectations on women’s and men’s role, and what is and isn’t acceptable for them to do. This has an impact on women's mobility, unpaid care burden (around three times more than men), concentrated in lower paying, risky jobs, with less control over their income.
  • It is recommended that financial inclusion projects follow two main guiding principles: 1) norm aware: Work within existing social norms to address market constraints for women and 2) norm transformative: explicitly work to change social norms through direct engagement of women and the broader community- to have a greater impact.
  • Business cases have proven that including the couple provides better results: women are empowered, husbands are proud, violence is reduced etc.
  • Based on social norms analysis, interventions are designed (e.g. Household dialogue alongside the implementation of a digital sub-wallet)

  • Presentation SC Forum 2018: Making Social Norms Change for Women's Financial Inclusion

    PDF1.04 MB2 November 2018