The ‘Decoding the Financial Health of women-owned microbusinesses in India’ initiative was launched to address the unique vulnerabilities of women-led microenterprises, especially in the aftermath of economic shocks such as the pandemic. MSC, in collaboration with Sa-Dhan, conducted a pioneering study on the financial health of women-owned microbusinesses (wMBs) in India.

The project involved extensive research, including secondary analysis, expert consultations, and primary data collection, to develop a comprehensive financial health framework for wMBs. The framework defines key dimensions, parameters, and indicators that assess and improve financial health outcomes for women entrepreneurs.

MSC led the study’s design and execution to ensure a robust and evidence-based approach to financial health assessment for wMBs. The team conducted Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) with supply-side stakeholders, held brainstorming workshops with industry experts, and engaged Enterprise Support Organizations (ESOs) and government bodies to refine the framework. The study resulted in a structured methodology for measuring financial health, providing actionable insights for key ecosystem players.

The study delivered a first-of-its-kind financial health framework and checklist, offering practical financial and non-financial tools for stakeholders—including funders, financial institutions, ESOs, and policymakers—to assess and enhance the financial well-being of women-owned micro businesses. It also contributed to the broader financial health discourse in India by bridging research gaps and strengthening the understanding of how ecosystem actors perceive and influence wMB financial health.

 J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.  commissioned this project.

MSC partnered with SEWA Bharat to research women entrepreneurs’ credit journey and experiences. The report ‘Women and Credit: Access to Credit for Micro and Small Female Entrepreneurs in India’ follows the micro and small women entrepreneurs’ credit journey and explores demand and supply-side factors. It shares insights on credit requirements, experiences, challenges, and key credit success determinants for individual and collective women-led enterprises. It also shares the supply-side experiences of bankers and other organizations and some good practices that supply-side stakeholders implement to mitigate and distribute credit risk.

Drawing on global evidence, expert interviews, and practitioner insights, the study provided a nuanced understanding of the structural, institutional, and social barriers that limit women’s access to formal finance. It shed light on the design and delivery gaps in existing credit products, the underutilization of gender-disaggregated data, and the potential for inclusive innovation in lending. The findings have informed product and policy recommendations to help financial service providers, regulators, and support organizations better serve women borrowers. The study has contributed to the sector by framing access to credit as not just a financial issue, but a matter of equity and economic empowerment.

Ultimately, it provides key recommendations to enhance access to credit for women entrepreneurs.

CICO agents are vital to the growth of digital financial services in India. Yet, they continue to face significant challenges, which include unreliable operations, limited product diversity, weak grievance redress mechanisms, and low representation of women. These issues limit customer satisfaction, reduce agent viability, and constrain financial inclusion at scale.

MSC collaborated with Airtel Payments Bank, FINO Payments Bank, Indian Bank, Bank of India, and Pay1 to design and scale solutions across three strategic pillars. The first focused on expanding the range of products and services, both existing and new, that agents could offer, with a special emphasis on reaching women and rural low-income households. The second improved liquidity management for agents, while the third enhanced grievance resolution practices to strengthen customer experience at service points.

The project applied in-depth behavioral research to develop non-CICO use cases tailored to different customer segments, such as women, gig workers, and contractual factory workers. MSC facilitated workshops to prioritize solutions, support prototype development, pilot test innovations, and develop go-to-market strategies. In parallel, frameworks were deployed to strengthen agent liquidity, streamline grievance handling, and institutionalize service quality improvements.

The engagement has enabled over 100,000 agents, 20% of them women, to offer non-CICO services, and connected more than 2 million new low- and middle-income customers. At least three new non-CICO use cases have been integrated into CICO operations, a credit screening tool has been developed to help lending partners meet the working capital needs of over 100,000 agents, and an efficient grievance resolution mechanism now serves 15,000 BC agents nationwide.

The Gates Foundation commissioned this project.

Kenya’s leadership in digital financial inclusion has been driven by mobile money and CICO agents. However, to sustain this growth commercially viable, user-centric, and high-quality services are required. While early progress in interoperability among mobile money operators is encouraging, gaps remain in network optimization, stakeholder alignment, and customer experience. Kenya needs a shared agent network model that supports multiple institutions, strengthens agent-level economics, and adapts to the evolving needs of underserved users to achieve deeper inclusion.

MSC worked with FSD Kenya to assess different approaches to building sustainable business models, governance frameworks, and market-entry strategies for an interoperable agent network. This involved analyzing value propositions for both customers and agents, ensuring that the model could maximize agent profitability, provide simple and well-supported services, diversify income sources, enhance service accessibility, ensure fair and transparent pricing, and deliver consistently high service quality.

The engagement led to capacity building and workshops to strengthen governance, business models, technology, and operational policies, alongside the development of a practical implementation plan for the interoperable network. The resulting design offers an integrated and sustainable model with the potential to expand reach, improve user experiences, and enhance the resilience of Kenya’s financial ecosystem.

FSD Kenya commissioned this project.

Ethiopia’s Somali region is facing its worst drought in four decades. The calamity has left an estimated 55% of its population in urgent need of food and water. While digital financial services present a critical channel to deliver humanitarian cash and voucher assistance, the early stage of Ethiopia’s DFS ecosystem and the limited capacity of agent networks have hindered uptake.

MSC worked with the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) to strengthen agent networks for humanitarian payment delivery. The project combined research, curriculum design, and training with action planning, pilot testing, and continuous advisory support. This included the development of tailored training toolkits, onboarding of financial service providers for agent network management, capacity building for last-mile service delivery, and on-site support for strategy execution.

The initiative enabled DFS partners to expand their reach and improve the efficiency of humanitarian interventions in the Somali region. By March 2024, MSC had developed three-year strategies and operational plans, delivered eight targeted training sessions to selected providers, trained and reactivated 500 agents, and sustained the activity of 300 agents.

 

The Pathways to Enhancing Financial Inclusion in India (PEFI) initiative tested and scaled solutions to strengthen cash-in-cash-out (CICO) agent networks in India. While CICO agents are critical to the extension of reliable financial services to underserved communities, yet many face lifecycle challenges that hinder their performance and threaten their sustainability. This initiative intended to empower agents, enhance resilience, reduce attrition, and improve agility in day-to-day operations to ultimately ensure better financial access for low-income and rural customers.

MSC led the design and implementation of behaviorally informed pilots that addressed critical lifecycle inflection points for agents. The team provided coaching and mentoring support through the Indian Institute of Banking and Finance (IIBF) module, strengthened agent communication with rural women customers to encourage savings, evaluated new pricing models to lower merchant costs and increase transaction yields, enhanced product and service offerings to boost agent revenues, and improved agent channel performance for leading banks. MSC also developed credit underwriting models and assessment tools to help financial institutions evaluate the creditworthiness of their agents to further support network stability and growth.

These interventions delivered measurable improvements in onboarding, retention, and trust within agent networks. The pilots served as proof of concept for behaviorally informed strategies to produce positive results that supported their scale-up under the Scaling Agent Viability and Sustainability project. By enabling agents to operate more effectively and sustainably, the initiative has contributed to the expansion of reliable, inclusive financial services in underserved areas.

The Gates Foundation commissioned this project, in collaboration with partners such as the State Bank of India (SBI), NITI Aayog, India Post Payments Bank (IPPB), Fino Payments Bank, Jharkhand Rajya Gramin Bank (JRGB), Eko India Financial Services, Spice Money, Arth Digital, and the Centre for Development Orientation and Training (CDOT).