Across the globe, a typical CICO agent goes through a range of experiences across various stages in their journey. MSC has developed the Agent Lifecycle (ALC) a framework to understand the challenges both male and female CICO agents face along their journey and propose targeted interventions to address them.

India has been at the forefront of digital innovations in financial services, helping millions participate in the financial economy through their mobile phones. However, this progress and innovation are meaningless for the millions of Indian women who remain excluded from basic banking in the first place. The strategies we have discussed in this blog directly impact women’s financial inclusion.

Individuals choose a channel for financial transactions based on several factors beyond just the economic cost involved. The DEBIT framework is a tool that identifies these factors and helps compute comparative scores for each channel. Comparing DEBIT scores helps us understand which channel someone chooses and why.

This blog highlights the key drivers of gender gaps in women’s access to digital financial services and their use. It shares how the adoption of DFS among women can catalyze the mitigation of this gender gap. It uses insights from a first-time DFS user’s journey to highlight how to understand and respond better to women’s exclusion.

The World Bank estimates that around a billion people across the globe lack a “legal identity.” The gender gap in terms of people’s access to official IDs is considerable in low-income countries, where one in two women lack any form of official ID. This limits financial, social, and political participation for women.

One in two women in low-income countries lack official identification documents, which limits their financial, social, and political participation. This report explores the design and lifecycle of ID systems from gender and behavioral lenses and proposes a framework to make them more gender-sensitive.

DFS can help increase the use of financial services, catalyze women’s economic empowerment and promote the development of the overall economy. However, the adoption of DFS amongst the LMI, especially women has been limited. Considering the increasing need for digital payments, especially in the wake of restricted mobility that COVID 19 imposes, MSC attempted to understand what it takes to nudge low- and moderate-income (LMI) population segments to adopt DFS.

Through multiple research studies, MSC has assessed the impact of COVID-19 on women and witnessed their survival strategies. This report looks at how women perceive financial services after the pandemic, and what we can do to reduce their vulnerabilities.