IFII Blog Series: Applying a gender lens in measuring the impact of DFS on women’s empowerment
Read this post in Bahasa Indonesia.
For men and women, having equal access to digital financial services (DFS) does not guarantee the equal use and equal benefit of DFS. In the previous blog post in this series, we discussed how contextual and needs-based design are key to increasing the adoption and benefits of DFS for women. Moreover, to ensure that programs aimed at empowerment are having their intended effect, it is important to understand and apply a gender lens in measuring the program’s impact. However, measuring the impact of DFS on the complex and multi-faceted concept of women’s empowerment can be challenging.
As part of J-PAL Southeast Asia’s Inclusive Financial Innovation Initiative‘s (IFII) commitment to support Indonesian stakeholders in advancing DFS inclusion, IFII held a training on Evaluating Social Programs with a specific module on Applying a Gender Lens in Impact Measurement. The module aims to help DFS practitioners in Indonesia understand and apply the empowerment concept when measuring the impacts of financial inclusion programs with randomized evaluations. This blog summarizes learnings from the August 2021 training attended by 37 participants from seven organizations, including two government institutions.
Understanding empowerment and when should it be measured
“[Empowerment is] the process by which those who have been denied the ability to make strategic life choices acquire such ability” - Naila Kabeer
Different programs might impact empowerment in different ways. J-PAL’s practical guide recommends that stakeholders focus on three different aspects of women’s empowerment:
- Women’s access to resources that enhance their ability to make decisions
- Women’s agency, which means their ability to make decisions or participate in decision-making
- Meaningful improvements in women’s well-being as a result of increased access to resources and agencies
Moreover, it is important to take into account the social norms and cultural considerations that may affect the process of empowerment where the programs take place. For example, a re-analysis of evaluations in India, Ghana, and Sri Lanka found that women benefited more from access to grants and microcredit when they were the sole business owners in the household. This could be because norms that prioritize resources for men in some communities hinder women from gaining access to resources, even when these resources are disbursed in the woman’s name.
Additionally, even if a program is not designed for women, there might be variations in program impacts due to gender differences. In Kenya, for example, free ATM cards increased usage of joint and male-owned accounts with no impact for women-owned accounts. The study presents evidence that women, who typically have less household bargaining power than their husbands, may have used ATM-enabled accounts less because they were worried about others accessing their funds through the ATM. Applying a gender lens in impact evaluation may help policymakers to better understand the program’s impact for both men and women.
Aligning theory of change and indicators to measure women’s empowerment
When women’s empowerment is the primary or secondary objective of a program, measuring empowerment will be necessary to evaluate whether the program has delivered its intended benefits. During the training, IFII Co-Chair and J-PAL affiliate Simone Schaner encouraged participants to look at their program’s theory of change (TOC) through a gender lens to think about how the programs might create empowerment and how to determine the indicators to measure empowerment.
During a needs assessment, practitioners should think carefully about gender sensitivity in the program’s design, as women and men might have different needs. Social norms and other contextual factors can lead to different program output for men and women. Subsequently, factoring a gender lens into a TOC can help to map the program's short-, medium-, and long-term impacts on women’s empowerment, which is also helpful in determining indicators for measuring impact.
Challenges in measuring women’s empowerment
Even with the help of a TOC framework, determining the indicators and measuring empowerment can present some challenges. First, it might be difficult to observe and measure women’s ability to influence or make decisions. Second, the manifestations of empowerment differ depending on the context. Third, measuring women’s preferences is challenging in contexts where women have internalized society’s views or when women lack power and voice. Finally, while empowerment is a process and measuring only its partial outcomes may lead to an inaccurate picture, researchers typically need to find a way to focus on certain aspects of the process in order to craft streamlined, cogent impact evaluations.
J-PAL recommends adjusting the measurement method to the context, considering locally-tailored indicators of women’s empowerment, measuring fundamental outcomes related to well-being, and prioritizing the indicators related to the main objectives of the programs. For further recommendations, see J-PAL’s practical guide to measuring women’s empowerment.
Promoting women’s empowerment objectives in financial inclusion programs
In 2020, the Government of Indonesia (GoI) launched the National Women’s Financial Inclusion Strategy (SNKI-P) aimed at accelerating financial inclusion for women. Among others, SNKI-P’s mission is to encourage Indonesian policymakers and stakeholders to integrate women’s empowerment objectives into financial inclusion programs and to improve the use of gender-disaggregated data. GoI’s priorities to advance women’s empowerment are also reflected in the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection’s main strategies.
To help achieve GoI’s target of 90 percent financial inclusion by 2024, it is important for stakeholders to apply a gender lens in designing, implementing, and measuring the impact of financial inclusion programs. For example, financial literacy programs or digital payment system onboarding can be developed and targeted specifically for women. The government could also support a broader range of loans for women-owned businesses. Further, collecting gender-disaggregated data could help to uncover insights related to women-specific needs in financial inclusion programs. Lastly, measuring the impact of women’s empowerment programs can help stakeholders understand whether the program resulted in meaningful improvements in well-being and life outcomes.
IFII is committed to support the GoI’s missions through providing access to high-quality evidence and capacity-building assistance on applying a gender lens in program design and impact evaluation of financial inclusion programs. To learn more, please contact [email protected].
Read the third blog in the series (English).
Authored By
Financial services can give women more control over financial decisions, which can lead to empowerment and improved well-being. When designed properly, access to financial services may not only help women build resilience and take advantage of opportunities, but it can also help them set goals and make decisions.
Read this post in Bahasa Indonesia.
Financial services can give women more control over financial decisions, which can lead to empowerment and improved well-being. As women pursue well-being, they may identify financial needs and look for suitable financial products. When designed properly, access to financial services may not only help women build resilience and take advantage of opportunities, but it can also help them set goals and make decisions.
Improving the design and access to digital financial services is a key priority of the Inclusive Financial Innovation Initiative (IFII), established at J-PAL Southeast Asia to generate and promote evidence in the DFS sector. As part of IFII’s commitment to spark conversation about gender in financial inclusion, IFII is launching a blog series to explore questions about DFS inclusion for women. This first blog in the series summarizes learnings from the IFII Learning Collaborative Forum in Women’s Economic Empowerment and Financial Inclusion held on May 27, 2021 and attended by organizations working to advance financial inclusion for women.
Digital financial services (DFS) as a tool to increase women’s empowerment
The Learning Collaborative forum began by reviewing existing evidence on the link between women’s access to financial services and empowerment and the Indonesian financial services landscape.
Among other factors that may limit women’s financial services adoption, unequal gender roles may create time and mobility constraints, which ultimately can become barriers in accessing financial services. There is scope for DFS to ease some of these constraints. For example, at the household level, previous evidence suggests DFS may help women gain easier, more secure, and less costly access to financial services. DFS might also provide women with more privacy and control over their finances, which may improve women’s agency in exercising their preferences.
In Indonesia, there is no gender gap in formal account ownership: 61.6 percent of women and 61.7 percent of men have an account according to the 2020 SNKI Financial Inclusion Insights (FII) survey. However, based on our further analysis of the FII 2020 data, there is evidence that men are better positioned to adopt DFS.
While 56 percent of men are digitally ready—that is, they own a smartphone and can use it to download apps and surf the web—only 50 percent of women are equally ready. As DFS continues to expand in Indonesia, it is important to try and close this gap so that the rest of women can also benefit. Moreover, there are several aspects to consider when designing DFS that can enable women’s empowerment.
Contextual and needs-based design is key to increase adoption and benefits
During the forum we also reviewed evidence from several randomized evaluations, which suggests context can play an important role in determining how financial services impact women’s lives. A re-analysis of evaluations in India, Ghana, and Sri Lanka, found that women benefited more from access to grants and microcredit when they were the sole business owners in the household. In Uganda, digitizing microfinance loan disbursement to female borrowers helped increase business profits by 15 percent. The gains were larger for women who experienced pressure to share money with their spouse. However, in the Philippines, transitioning women’s microfinance groups to digital loan disbursement decreased household savings and increased reliance on informal loans. In this setting, there is some evidence of weakened cohesion among loan groups, suggesting that DFS could weaken social capital that is important for women’s economic activity.
Evidence from these studies suggest that careful design that pays attention to unique needs and social context are important elements to further advancing the benefits of DFS to women. When designing products, it is therefore essential to identify a target audience (e.g. female small business owners) and conduct a needs assessment to understand what design features are most important for that audience.
A woman’s source of income and financial priorities may influence the type of financial services needed
During the forum, participants were assigned to smaller groups, which discussed the needs, design solutions, and open questions that may be important to advancing the benefits of DFS to women. The discussions were based on three identified Indonesian women personas: female small business owners, unbanked housewives and female seasonal/informal workers.
These are some of the insights from our discussions:
In many cases, Indonesian housewives who are not involved in income-generating activities are responsible for managing their husband’s earnings for both daily and long-term needs such as children’s education, healthcare needs, and insurance against shocks. One way to increase access to and adoption of DFS is to design products for household financial management, while at the same time ensuring users understand why and how to use DFS to meet household financial goals.
Women involved in income-generating activities, such as entrepreneurs, tend to allocate a portion of their business income for household consumption. DFS that enables financial management for both household and business needs can facilitate this.
In the case of women who work as seasonal/informal workers, they usually have immediate financial needs for their families back home, since the majority of these women are migrants from rural areas. DFS can help them access and control their financial resources at any place and any time. Furthermore, transitioning from cash to digital wage payments will facilitate their use of DFS for savings and transactions.
Targeted digital financial education and products designed for women
Although there are different financial needs across women with different roles, low financial literacy and capacity, as well as low digital readiness, remain some of the most common constraints for rural, lower-income women in adopting DFS. This indicates the need for a full-range digital financial education, and for DFS to have features that can be easily understood by women facing these barriers.
Open questions remain on how to advance the use of DFS to empower unbanked rural women:
- How can service providers improve access to and knowledge of DFS for women?
- How can service providers design DFS that are customized for previously unbanked women or tailored to women’s needs?
- What kind of DFS features can allow women to increase their digital capabilities?
- How can we better utilize existing institutions in the community to help women adopt DFS?
- Can DFS shift gender norms within and outside the household?
- How can we help financial service providers measure the impact of their products on women’s empowerment?
IFII aims to ensure that DFS drives economic development while lifting up marginalized populations, including women and people living in poverty. The IFII Learning Collaborative Forum helps J-PAL and other relevant stakeholders in this sector to learn together from evidence, share policy lessons, discuss open questions and brainstorm ideas to advance women’s economic empowerment through financial inclusion. To get involved, reach out to [email protected]
Read the second blog in the series (English) (Bahasa Indonesia).
Pemberdayaan perempuan merupakan salah satu tujuan penting layanan keuangan digital inklusif. Seringkali kebutuhan keuangan perempuan belum dapat dipenuhi oleh produk-produk keuangan yang ada, sehingga kendali mereka terhadap berbagai keputusan keuangan menjadi terbatas. Oleh karena itu, layanan dan produk keuangan yang secara spesifik dirancang dengan mempertimbangkan kebutuhan perempuan dapat membantu mereka memanfaatkan berbagai peluang yang ada dan membangun ketahanan finansial.
Read this post in English.
Pemberdayaan perempuan merupakan salah satu tujuan penting layanan keuangan digital inklusif. Seringkali kebutuhan keuangan perempuan belum dapat dipenuhi oleh produk-produk keuangan yang ada, sehingga kendali mereka terhadap berbagai keputusan keuangan menjadi terbatas. Oleh karena itu, layanan dan produk keuangan yang secara spesifik dirancang dengan mempertimbangkan kebutuhan perempuan dapat membantu mereka memanfaatkan berbagai peluang yang ada dan membangun ketahanan finansial.
J-PAL SEA meluncurkan Inclusive Financial Innovation Initiative (IFII) untuk mendorong pelaksanaan evaluasi dampak terhadap program-program di sektor layanan keuangan digital. Hasil dari evaluasi dampak diharapkan dapat menjadi bukti ilmiah yang mendorong layanan keuangan digital yang lebih inklusif, termasuk layanan keuangan yang lebih memperhatikan aspek gender. Guna mencapai hal ini, IFII meluncurkan rangkaian blog yang menggali topik layanan keuangan digital yang inklusif terhadap kebutuhan perempuan. Blog pertama dalam seri ini merangkum pembelajaran dari Forum Learning Collaborative IFII dengan topik Pemberdayaan Ekonomi Perempuan dan Inklusi Keuangan. Forum ini diadakan pada 27 Mei 2021 lalu dan dihadiri oleh beragam organisasi yang terlibat dalam memajukan inklusi keuangan bagi perempuan.
Peran layanan keuangan digital (Digital Financial Service/DFS) sebagai sarana untuk mendukung pemberdayaan perempuan
Forum Learning Collaborative IFII meninjau beberapa bukti ilmiah yang ada mengenai hubungan antara akses layanan keuangan dengan pemberdayaan perempuan, serta membahas kondisi layanan keuangan di Indonesia.
Bagi perempuan di pedesaan, ketidaksetaraan gender merupakan salah satu faktor yang dapat menimbulkan kendala waktu dan mobilitas, yang pada akhirnya dapat menjadi hambatan dalam mengakses layanan keuangan. Penggunaan layanan keuangan digital (DFS) dapat membantu meringankan hambatan-hambatan tersebut. Sebagai contoh, studi menunjukkan bahwa DFS dapat membantu perempuan memperoleh akses layanan keuangan yang lebih mudah, aman, dan murah. Selain itu, DFS juga dapat memberi perempuan lebih banyak privasi dan kendali atas aset keuangan mereka. Hal ini memungkinkan perempuan untuk memiliki kuasa (agensi) yang lebih besar dalam menentukan pilihan dan membuat keputusan.
Di Indonesia, tidak terdapat perbedaan yang signifikan antara perempuan dan laki-laki dalam hal kepemilikan rekening bank. Berdasarkan survei Financial Inclusion Insights (FII) SNKI 2020, sebanyak 61,6 persen perempuan dan 61,7 persen laki-laki telah memiliki rekening. Meskipun demikian, analisis data FII pada tahun 2020 menunjukkan bahwa laki-laki cenderung lebih siap untuk mengadopsi DFS dibandingkan perempuan.
Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa sebanyak 56 persen dari laki-laki memiliki kesiapan digital, dibandingkan dengan hanya 50 persen dari perempuan yang siap. Kesiapan digital ini diukur dari kepemilikan smartphone dan kemampuan menggunakannya untuk mengunduh aplikasi dan menelusuri internet. Seiring dengan perkembangan DFS di Indonesia, upaya untuk menutup kesenjangan ini perlu terus dilakukan agar manfaat DFS juga dapat dirasakan oleh perempuan. Di bawah ini, terdapat beberapa aspek yang perlu dipertimbangkan agar DFS dapat mendorong pemberdayaan perempuan.
Desain yang kontekstual dan berbasis kebutuhan adalah kunci untuk meningkatkan adopsi dan manfaat layanan keuangan bagi perempuan
Bukti dari sejumlah evaluasi acak menunjukkan bahwa dampak layanan keuangan terhadap kesejahteraan perempuan sangat bergantung pada konteks. Analisis lanjutan dari evaluasi di India, Ghana, dan Sri Lanka, menemukan bahwa manfaat dari akses kredit bagi perempuan lebih besar ketika mereka merupakan satu-satunya pemilik bisnis dalam keluarga. Di Uganda, digitalisasi fasilitas pinjaman mikro bagi perempuan berhasil meningkatkan keuntungan bisnis sebesar 15 persen, dan keuntungan lebih besar dirasakan oleh perempuan yang dituntut untuk membagi uang mereka dengan pasangannya. Di lain sisi, digitalisasi akses pinjaman mikro bagi kelompok perempuan di Filipina justru mengurangi tabungan rumah tangga dan meningkatkan ketergantungan pada pinjaman informal. Dalam kasus ini, digitalisasi juga memperlemah hubungan sosial antar peminjam, sehingga DFS dikhawatirkan dapat memperlemah modal sosial yang sebetulnya penting bagi kegiatan ekonomi perempuan.
Bukti dari beragam studi diatas menunjukkan bahwa desain layanan yang mengedepankan kebutuhan spesifik dan konteks sosial merupakan elemen penting dalam meningkatkan manfaat DFS bagi perempuan. Maka dari itu, sangat penting untuk memperhatikan siapa sasaran pengguna DFS (misalnya, pemilik usaha mikro perempuan) dan kebutuhan spesifik mereka, guna memahami fitur seperti apa yang akan dibutuhkan.
Sumber pendapatan dan prioritas keuangan seorang perempuan dapat mempengaruhi jenis layanan keuangan yang dibutuhkan
Selain meninjau berbagai bukti, para peserta forum Learning Collaborative juga berdiskusi mengenai kebutuhan, solusi desain, dan pertanyaan kebijakan yang berguna untuk meningkatkan manfaat DFS bagi perempuan. Diskusi dilakukan berdasarkan tiga persona perempuan Indonesia: pengusaha UMKM, perempuan rumah tangga yang tidak memiliki rekening bank, dan pekerja musiman/informal.
Berikut adalah rangkuman pembelajaran dari hasil diskusi:
Pada umumnya, perempuan yang tidak terlibat dalam kegiatan pencarian nafkah bertanggung jawab untuk mengelola penghasilan suaminya, baik untuk kebutuhan sehari-hari maupun jangka panjang seperti pendidikan anak, kesehatan, dan asuransi terhadap bencana. Dengan demikian, salah satu cara untuk meningkatkan akses dan adopsi DFS adalah dengan merancang produk yang dapat membantu pengelolaan keuangan rumah tangga. Selain itu, perlu dipastikan juga bahwa perempuan memahami cara penggunaan dan manfaat dari DFS agar dapat mencapai tujuan keuangan rumah tangga.
Perempuan yang terlibat dalam kegiatan pencarian nafkah, seperti pengusaha UMKM, cenderung mengalokasikan sebagian dari pendapatan usahanya untuk konsumsi rumah tangga. Kebutuhan ini dapat difasilitasi oleh DFS dengan merancang produk yang dapat mengelola keuangan rumah tangga sekaligus keuangan usaha.
Sedangkan, perempuan pekerja musiman/informal biasanya memiliki kebutuhan finansial yang mendesak untuk keluarganya di kampung halaman, dikarenakan mayoritas dari mereka berasal dari daerah pedesaan. Dalam konteks ini, DFS dapat membantu mereka untuk mengakses dan mengelola keuangan di manapun dan kapanpun. Di samping itu, pengalihan pembayaran upah melalui DFS akan dapat mendorong mereka untuk menabung dan bertransaksi melalui DFS.
Edukasi dan desain produk keuangan digital yang menyasar perempuan
Meskipun perempuan memiliki kebutuhan keuangan yang beragam, rendahnya literasi keuangan, kemampuan, dan kesiapan digital masih menghambat perempuan untuk mengadopsi DFS, terutama bagi mereka yang tinggal di pedesaan dan berpenghasilan rendah. Hal ini menunjukkan perlunya edukasi keuangan digital dan fitur DFS yang menyasar kelompok perempuan tersebut.
Selain itu, ada beberapa pertanyaan yang perlu dikaji lebih lanjut agar DFS dapat mendorong pemberdayaan perempuan, antara lain:
- Bagaimana penyedia layanan dapat meningkatkan akses DFS bagi perempuan dan pengetahuan tentang DFS diantara perempuan?
- Bagaimana penyedia layanan dapat menyesuaikan rancangan DFS untuk perempuan yang sebelumnya tidak memiliki rekening, dan menyesuaikan rancangan DFS dengan kebutuhan perempuan pada umumnya?
- Fitur DFS seperti apa yang dapat membantu perempuan meningkatkan kemampuan digital mereka?
- Bagaimana kita dapat memanfaatkan institusi yang ada di masyarakat dengan lebih baik untuk membantu perempuan mengadopsi DFS?
- Dapatkah DFS mengubah norma gender di dalam dan di luar rumah tangga?
- Bagaimana kita dapat membantu penyedia layanan keuangan mengukur dampak produk mereka terhadap pemberdayaan perempuan?
IFII bertujuan untuk memastikan layanan keuangan digital dapat mendorong pembangunan ekonomi sekaligus memberdayakan komunitas-komunitas marjinal, termasuk perempuan dan masyarakat berpendapatan rendah. Forum Learning Collaborative IFII membantu J-PAL dan pemangku kepentingan lainnya untuk belajar bersama dari bukti ilmiah, berbagi saran untuk kebijakan, mendiskusikan pertanyaan terbuka, serta bertukar pikiran dalam tujuan memajukan pemberdayaan ekonomi perempuan melalui inklusi keuangan. Untuk terlibat dalam forum Learning Collaborative IFII selanjutnya, hubungi [email protected].
Read the second blog in the series (English) (Bahasa Indonesia).
The digital financial services (DFS) sector is among the fastest-growing: the number of financial technology (“fintech”) companies in Indonesia more than doubled from 130 in 2017 to more than 320 in 2019. In addition to this rapid growth in the private sector, the Indonesian government is increasingly moving towards digital delivery of social assistance programs in the public sector. J-PAL Southeast Asia, based at the Faculty of Business and Management at the University of Indonesia, is launching the Inclusive Financial Innovation Initiative to answer important policy questions now at the forefront of the region’s economic growth.
Indonesia’s digital economy has quadrupled since 2015—reaching an approximate value of USD$40 billion in 2019. Much of this growth is driven by the country’s e-commerce sector, which recorded 88 percent growth from $1.7 billion in 2015 to $21 billion in 2019.
The digital financial services (DFS) sector is among the fastest-growing: the number of financial technology (“fintech”) companies in Indonesia more than doubled from 130 in 2017 to more than 320 in 2019. In addition to this rapid growth in the private sector, the Indonesian government is increasingly moving towards digital delivery of social assistance programs in the public sector.
J-PAL Southeast Asia, based at the Faculty of Business and Management at the University of Indonesia, is launching the Inclusive Financial Innovation Initiative to answer important policy questions now at the forefront of the region’s economic growth. With the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the three-year initiative aims to ensure that digital financial services can drive economic development while lifting up women, low-income groups, and marginalized communities.
While growth in e-commerce and DFS represents a promising opportunity to advance financial inclusion, use of DFS is currently concentrated among young, urban, and higher-income populations. As digital technologies continue to improve and costs of service provision decline, there is a growing opportunity to expand the reach of DFS and leverage it as a tool for broad-based financial inclusion.
The Inclusive Financial Innovation Initiative will build on existing global evidence to understand how DFS can be used to accelerate financial inclusion and broad-based economic development within Indonesia and beyond.
The Initiative will include three intersecting workstreams to provide actionable evidence to members of Indonesia’s DFS ecosystem, including policymakers, practitioners, and non-profit organizations:
- Policy research and analysis: Under the Initiative, J-PAL staff and researchers will review the existing global evidence base to offer evidence-based policy recommendations for how to leverage DFS to improve government anti-poverty programs and benefit marginalized groups, and to identify knowledge gaps where new research is needed to answer important questions.
- Creation of a Learning Collaborative: To encourage collaboration, the Initiative will facilitate a learning and communication platform where relevant stakeholders in the financial inclusion and digital finance sector can connect, share knowledge and best practices, and formulate strategies to answer priority research and policy questions.
- Research collaboration: The Initiative will develop innovative pilot studies and randomized evaluations to answer policy-relevant questions. It will build partnerships to ensure that the evidence produced by these studies can directly contribute to policy decisions.
Why focus on financial inclusion?
Financial products and services are designed to help individuals build resilience to unexpected events and take advantage of opportunities, and are often viewed as key tools for improving families’ welfare and economic mobility.
Existing evidence suggests that improving access to savings accounts can have positive effects on household welfare, and that digital financial tools like mobile money may offer users significant benefits. For example, studies in Chile and Kenya have found that access to basic bank accounts allowed households to better manage fluctuations in income, increase business investment, and increase private expenditure levels. Meanwhile, offering mobile phone-based savings accounts to parents in Kenya whose children were about to enter high school increased enrollment by 5 to 6 percentage points.
Digital financial services can also be a tool for boosting women’s economic engagement and empowerment.
For example, a study in India found that linking earnings from a government workfare program to women’s bank accounts (rather than household-level accounts), coupled with a basic account training, led to increased female employment both within the workfare program and the private sector, especially for those women whose husbands expressed the most opposition to women working.
In Niger, disbursing cash transfers via mobile money improved diet diversity during the 2009-2010 food crisis relative to cash-in-hand transfers. Women who received mobile transfers were more likely to travel to weekly markets, be involved in selling household grains, and spend more on children’s clothing than those in the other groups.
Why focus on Indonesia?
Indonesia’s DFS providers are developing tech-based innovations to increase financial inclusion among households that are currently underbanked or unbanked altogether. For example, micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME) now have access to digital payment services designed to boost transactions, improve bookkeeping, and build better credit scores.
Women’s savings collectives, called arisan, also have opportunities to go digital through MAPAN arisan. Digitized arisan groups can collectively purchase goods online without disrupting their household cash flow.
Finally, online peer-to-peer lending such as Amartha and TaniFund offer access to credit for farmers, fishermen, and micro-merchants who have been largely ignored by formal banking institutions. While these and other innovations are promising, we know little about their real causal impacts on the lives of the poor.
To push the frontier further, we need more evidence on what types of DFS work within the context of Indonesia’s regulatory and business environment, infrastructure, and demographics; why they work; and how they can be deployed to maximize impact.
Working alongside a diverse set of collaborators, the Inclusive Financial Innovation Initiative aims to contribute to an inclusive, impact-driven digital finance ecosystem in Indonesia.
For more information, contact Aliyyah Rusdinar.