Finance
Low-income households need effective financial tools to help manage and grow their money. Yet many of the financial services they can access are costly, unsafe, or not well-suited to their needs. To support financial inclusion efforts around the world, the Financial Inclusion Program at IPA partners with service providers, governments, and researchers to design and rigorously test financial services and programs encouraging healthy financial behavior among the poor.
In addition to supporting policymakers in applying evidence from randomized evaluations to their work, sector chairs and staff write policy insights that synthesize general lessons emerging from the research and condense results from evaluations in policy publications and evaluation summaries.
File: Policy publication
الفائزون والخاسرون: فوائد ومخاطر الائتمان
لــم يكــن لتقديــم قــروض كبيــرة للشــركات أو المشــروعات الصغيــرة فــي مصــر أي تأثيــر علــى أربــاح المقتــرض العــادي، إلا أن رواد الأعمــال الذيــن توقعــوا مقدًًمــا أن يكونــوا مــن ذوي الأداء الأفضــل حققــوا عوائــد أعلــى بكثيــر مــن أقرانهــم.
Policy insight
Digital financial services to improve formalized access and inclusion
Digital financial services have dramatically improved access to formal accounts, especially for marginalized communities. Increased access to digital services has led to a reduction in remittance transaction costs, which has facilitated sharing of financial burdens and alleviated poverty.
Policy insight
Microcredit: Impacts and promising innovations
Findings on the impacts of microcredit continue to evolve. Early evidence from randomized evaluations in low- and middle-income countries showed that the classic microcredit model did not lead to transformative impacts on income or consumption for the average borrower across many contexts. However...
Evaluation
Information Campaigns to Increase Mobile Banking Adoption in Ghana
In Ghana, researchers worked with a bank that provides services to low-income customers with limited access to mainstream banking to evaluate the impact of sending pre-recorded informational voice calls and text messages on the adoption of mobile banking. Clients that received messages encouraging...
Evaluation
Encouraging Adoption of Rainwater Harvesting Tanks Through Collateralized Loans in Kenya
In partnership with Nyala Dairy Cooperative, researchers evaluated the impact of offering asset collateralized loans for rainwater harvesting tanks on both credit access for dairy farmers and profitability for the lender. Using the tanks as loan collateral led to higher take-up of loans by farmers...
Evaluation
Flexible Loan Contracts for Microentrepreneurs in Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, researchers partnered with BRAC to evaluate the impact of repayment flexibility in loan contracts for microentrepreneurs. Repayment flexibility benefited traditional microfinance borrowers primarily through the provision of insurance, enabling riskier investments at lower default...
