Design thinking and innovation

In Kenya, MSC helped HFC Bank to roll out a digital transformation strategy for its low- and middle-income customers. MSC conducted a research and used insights to make recommendations on HFC Bank’s digital roadmap. HFC launched its HF Whizz app in 2018, which facilitated transactions worth KES 686 million (USD 6.8 million) in two months since its launch.

MSC received a contract to work on a key component of a World bank-funded pro-poor tourism development project of the government in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. MSC identified and developed roadmaps for select creative industries in three regions of the state—Agra, Braj region, and the Buddhist Circuit. The rest of the project revolved around providing ecosystem services to these creative industries. The output of our work feeds into the next stage of implementation of a proposed USD-10-million program.

In Kenya, MSC has been an integral part of the M-PESA story. Our market research helped with the design of the final offering and shifted its focus from a payments system for MFIs to a remittance product. MSC’s efforts contributed to M-PESA’s success as the leading mobile money platform in the world, used regularly by 20 million customers in Kenya.

MSC collaborated with My Oral Village in this assignment to assess the literacy and numeracy capabilities of typical Indian users. The project uncovered how literacy and numeracy or their absence relate to the design of smartphone user interfaces. The project resulted in MoWO—mobile wallet for oral.

MSC conducts research on behavior, financing, and assesses development needs for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). We evaluate programs that aim to promote the MSME sector through landscaping studies and quantitative and qualitative methods based on market sizing and segmentation. MSC’s significant work on MSMEs spans a number of countries, including Bangladesh, India, Malawi, Uganda, and Rwanda, and Fiji.

MSC engaged in an initiative for the Strengthening Women’s Ability for Productive New Opportunities (SWAPNO) project. Our task was to nudge financial behavior among SWAPNO beneficiaries who receive payments through the mobile financial services channel. MSC’s intervention helped UNDP to identify and incorporate behavioral change indicators for its digital channel for distributing social security cash benefits.