Digital platforms: Catalysts for growth and sustainability among Bangladesh’s microentrepreneurs: Part 1

Posted on by Saumya Dixit

Around 9 million microenterprises form the backbone of the informal economic sector in Bangladesh’s vibrant and rapidly growing economy. These small-scale businesses are vital to the country’s economic landscape and span diverse economic activities, such as agribusiness, food processing, retail trade, social selling, and transport and logistics. They constitute 56% of total employment and contribute 25% to the GDP.

The advent of digital platforms has ushered in new avenues for these entrepreneurs. Platforms, such as Truck Lagbe, Women and E-commerce (WE), Chaldal, Pandamart, and ShopUp, among others, provide tools and resources that can enhance their livelihoods. In this two-part blog series, we delve into digital platforms’ impact on Bangladesh’s largely informal microentrepreneur segment and highlight their role in improving profitability, access to financial services, and overall business growth and resilience.

Digital platforms provide easier access to new markets, customers, and essential business tools to empower Bangladeshi microentrepreneurs and enhance their profitability and resilience. Furthermore, digital tools can significantly improve microentrepreneurs’ efficiency, reduce operational costs, and facilitate access to broader markets, which helps increase income and overall business performance.

We engaged with 400 microentrepreneurs from retail trade, social selling, and transport and logistics sectors. These conversations uncovered the status of microenterprises that participate in digital platforms, the impact of exclusion from these platforms, and the support required to fill the gaps in the platforms to help microenterprises make their businesses more resilient. We met microentrepreneurs from urban centers, such as Dhaka, Khulna, and Chattogram, alongside rural areas, including Manikganj, Munshiganj, Pabna, and Sirajganj. We also connected with female microentrepreneurs to understand how digital platforms affect various types of microenterprises.

Financial benefits and increased profitability and sustainability

The study findings suggest microentrepreneurs who use digital platforms experience significant financial benefits compared to their non-platformed counterparts. On average, platformed microentrepreneurs see their incomes rise from USD 592 to USD 993, and their profits increase from USD 296 to USD 334. While platformed microentrepreneurs incur higher operating expenses, the substantial increase in revenue compensates for these expenses and leads to improved profitability and sustainability.

The study also showed notable gender and regional dissimilarities in earnings and expenditures. Male microentrepreneurs who use digital platforms tend to report higher expenses and earn higher profits than the unplatformed. Interestingly, the same trend was not seen for female microentrepreneurs, which indicates that being platformed does not correlate strongly with improved financial outcomes for women. Urban platformed microentrepreneurs exhibit higher expenditures and profits than their rural counterparts, which indicates that urban areas have higher business value.

Overall, digital platforms benefit users by improving business performance. More attention is needed to address barriers that hinder female micro entrepreneurs’ profitability. If digital platforms can help women overcome these obstacles, they can make these entrepreneurs’ business models more sustainable and inclusive, ultimately contributing to greater economic empowerment for all.

Access to formal financial services

Credit preferences among microentrepreneurs in Bangladesh vary based on their gender and platform usage. Women (56%) on digital platforms often prefer formal financial institutions like banks. In contrast, men (45%) explore a broader range of credit sources, which include informal sources, such as suppliers and mobile moneylenders. On the other hand, unplatformed women enterprises (68%) rely heavily on informal credit sources. In urban areas, platformed entrepreneurs (57%) prioritize formal banking, while their rural counterparts (69%) lean toward informal sources. Interestingly, unplatformed urban (61%) and rural entrepreneurs (47%) rely similarly on informal credit. Bridging these gaps can empower microentrepreneurs and foster inclusive economic growth.

Microentrepreneurs are more inclined to use cash

Microentrepreneurs exhibit diverse payment preferences influenced by their digital platform usage. Those who have reduced their use of digital platforms tend to rely on cash for business transactions. In contrast, microentrepreneurs who have increased their use of digital platforms or remained consistent in their platform usage generally prefer mobile money services, such as bKash or Rocket, for their payments.

This trend varies by location and gender. Rural microentrepreneurs tend to use cash, while their urban counterparts often favor mobile money. Gender also plays a role, as female microentrepreneurs typically prefer mobile money, whereas male microentrepreneurs lean toward cash. An important reason for the preference for mobile money among female microentrepreneurs is their involvement in social selling, where customers often make payments through mobile money.

Cash remains the dominant choice for transactions for microentrepreneurs who do not use digital platforms, regardless of gender or location. However, urban microentrepreneurs have a slightly higher preference for cash over their rural peers. Given these insights, stakeholders have a significant opportunity to enhance the adoption of digital payments among microentrepreneurs and aid their inclusion in a more formal economy.

In the next part of this two-part blog series, we will look at the factors that influence platform adoption for different sectors of microentrepreneurs, women-owned microentrepreneurs’ unique motivation to onboard digital platforms, the social and economic impact of digital platforms on microentrepreneurs, and ways to increase digital platform adoption for them. Read the next part here.

From gig work to financial empowerment: Embedded finance for women in the platform economy

Posted on by Saumya Dixit

Sari, a 32-year-old woman and a mother of two children in Jakarta, starts her day early. She handles household chores and prepares her children for school. By mid-morning, she logs into her ride-hailing platform, ready to start another work day. Like many women in Indonesia, Sari depends on the flexibility of gig work to support her family. Whether she picks up passengers or makes deliveries, her earnings are vital for the household.

Sari is one of many individuals who rely on platforms for their income. In 2022, digital platforms onboarded around 20 million MSMEs, feeding into Indonesia’s MSME Go Digital vision. Gojek and Grab, the two leading ride-hailing platforms, each supported around 2 million drivers. In Indonesia, when women make up 66% of the country’s 84 million informal workers, they play a vital role in driving small-scale enterprises and supporting their families through casual labor and self-employment.

A recent study by MSC, in collaboration with the Ministry of Women Empowerment and Child Protection (MoWECP), highlights that despite existing challenges, the platform economy has improved women’s access to digital financial services (DFS). The study reveals that around 52% of female informal workers started to use m-banking or digital payments specifically for work requirements. This is significantly higher than the national average of 15%. It highlights digital platforms’ potential to improve financial inclusion among women in the informal sector.

This blog looks into the suitability of embedded finance as an approach to improve women’s financial inclusion and recommends ways for stakeholders to design embedded finance for female informal workers.

The promising opportunities of embedded finance

Embedded finance can boost DFS adoption among female informal workers. It integrates financial services directly into the platforms these workers already use. It can provide productive financial products and generate leads for previously unbankable communities that lacked financial data footprints.

Embedded finance offers convenience as it does not require informal workers to access separate or new applications. Moreover, since the financial services and products are integrated into the platforms they access daily, these workers also have a sense of trust and familiarity that may increase their likelihood of adoption.

For example, Grab and Gojek offer various embedded finance products for their partners. Grab’s GrabModal Mantul provides eligible food and beverage MSME merchants in its ecosystem with loans specifically designed for their businesses. It offers loans up to IDR 30 million (USD 1,946) with lower interest rates and a quick disbursement process of one to two days.

Similarly, alternative financial services and products help address the gaps in the informal economy through tailored solutions that meet the unique needs and work nature of those who operate within this sector. For instance, Grab offers a driver financing product in collaboration with JULO, a FinTech lending company. This product provides online drivers with working capital to cover emergency expenses, such as vehicle breakdowns, wheel repairs, and other unexpected costs.

While some leading digital platforms offer embedded finance and continue to innovate to meet the unique needs of informal workers, many platforms have yet to offer it. As a result, the adoption of embedded finance remains limited, especially in terms of access to credit.

Our study shows that while banks remain the preferred source of formal credit (63%), friends and family (50%) and savings groups, such as credit unions and cooperatives, are popular choices among female informal workers who seek informal credit (41%).

Designing embedded finance for female informal workers

A gender-intentional approach can increase the adoption of DFS among female informal workers through embedded finance. Women face unique challenges, such as sociocultural norms and institutional barriers. Therefore, the design of “platform-enabled financial services” must prioritize gender-specific outcomes.

Our previous experience and research indicate that women’s agency, control, and privacy are fundamental aspects of gendered financial behavior. The design of gender-sensitive financial services must consider these elements as these highlight the distinct behavioral differences between women and men.

Let us take Sari’s case. She has been an app-based driver for four years and is familiar with the ride-hailing platform’s many embedded payment options, such as digital wallets and bank transfers. After years of working in the sector, she wishes to upgrade her vehicle but needs credit. For the platform to onboard Sari to other products beyond payment, such as loans, it should offer a unique way to increase access and usage of the embedded credit products.

The following is a list of recommendations that use MSC’s Financial Services Space Framework to provide ways to develop trigger points for Sari to improve her financial behavior and acceptance of platform-enabled financial services. Platforms and policymakers can use these recommendations to design gender-intentional and targeted financial services and solutions.

Volume and frequency: Sari should have a more regular and larger cash flow after she is integrated into the platform. These enhanced inflows are likely to encourage her to use various financial services and products regularly. As Sari becomes fluent in the use of payment products, she has a regular financial data footprint that can be used to build her credit score. This score provides data-driven information for a platform to determine her eligibility for loans and other financial products.

Convenience: Despite her familiarity with the platform, Sari must experience “felt convenience” when she uses the new product. These can include clear and transparent information on loan options, interest rates, payback schedules, and procedures to make her feel safe and comfortable with onboarding. A seamless product design and interface can also help her use the application without confusion or misunderstanding. Our research also captures the fact that the ease of use and accessibility of financial products are vital. Female platform workers frequently struggle to use various features and buttons in the apps due to continuous upgrades and development.

Influence and motivation: Social factors play a significant role in influencing Sari’s choice to explore DFS on the platform. When more coworkers in the Women Drivers Association use the loan product, Sari gets motivated and influenced to try the new loan product on the platform. Furthermore, support from her husband also encourages her to make more independent financial decisions. Social influence and encouragement can drive adoption and confidence in financial decision-making.

Building inclusivity in embedded finance

Sari’s story shows that embedded finance platforms present an opportunity to enhance women’s digital financial inclusion. However, much work and intentionality are required to make this opportunity truly inclusive.

For instance, algorithmic bias in digital financial services can significantly affect women in several ways, particularly in credit scoring and lending decisions. The requirement of asset ownership to access credit can disadvantage women as cultural and legal barriers make it less likely for women to own assets. Therefore, financial products should be “inclusive by design,” specifically for women, considering their unique needs.

Financial platforms must create inclusive access using gender-sensitive credit metrics, such as alternative income data and more flexible collateral requirements. Additionally, digital platforms can provide targeted financial literacy programs in accessible language to help women navigate these financial systems.

Finally, partnerships with women-centric organizations can bridge the gap between financial service providers and women. Community leaders and influencers can advocate for the use of products, which can help shift social norms and increase the acceptance of digital financial services within the community.

Ultimately, women’s empowerment through embedded finance goes beyond women’s digital financial inclusion. It also drives broader social and economic transformation across Indonesia’s informal sector.

Women entrepreneurs’ credit access much less than desired

Posted on by Saumya Dixit

MicroSave Consulting (MSC), with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, hosted a bankers’ roundtable titled ‘Bridging the Gap: Regulation and Practices for Better Credit Access to Women Entrepreneurs’ at a Dhaka city hotel on Sunday. The event featured a fireside chat moderated by Snigdha Ali (On the left), Bangladesh Country Lead for Financial Services for the Poor at the foundation. From second left, Sohail RK Hussain, president and managing director of Bank Asia PLC; and Syed Abdul Momen, deputy managing director and head of SME at BRAC Bank PLC; and Syed Mahbubur Rahman, managing director and CEO of Mutual Trust Bank PLC, attended and spoke at the event.

Despite many initiatives, speakers at a roundtable observed that women entrepreneurs’ access to credit from formal channels like banks remains much lower than the desired level.

According to them, lack of adequate information, common notion of process complexities, poor cooperation from lenders and unavailability of collateral are some of the reasons behind this.

The roundtable titled ‘Bridging the gap: Regulation and practices for better credit access to women entrepreneurs’ was held at a city hotel on Sunday.

With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, an international organisation MicroSave Consulting (MSC) hosted the event participated by leaders from regulatory bodies, the banking sector, policymaking circles, and academia.

The event also marked the culmination of MSC’s Women Business Diaries (WBD) project. This initiative seeks to address the unique financial needs of women entrepreneurs through gender-intentional product design and action research.

The roundtable featured dynamic discussions on policy, innovation, and the role of financial institutions in enhancing women’s access to credit.

Moderated by Abhishek Anand, MSC partner, a panel discussion focused on “Leveraging policy for financial product innovation to accelerate access to financial services for women.”

Panelists included Nawshad Mustafa, director, SMESPD, Bangladesh Bank; Farzana Khan, general manager, SME Foundation; Dr. Chowdhury Saima Ferdous, professor, Department of International Business, University of Dhaka; and Md. Shafquat Hossain, deputy managing Director & Head of Retail Banking, Mutual Trust Bank PLC.

The event also featured a fireside chat moderated by Snigdha Ali, Bangladesh Country Lead for Financial Services for the Poor at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The participants of the session were Syed Mahbubur Rahman, managing director and CEO of Mutual Trust Bank PLC; Sohail RK Hussain, president and managing director of Bank Asia PLC; and Syed Abdul Momen, deputy managing director and head of SME at BRAC Bank PLC.

Sohail RK Hussain emphasised the bankers providing a comfortable feel when women entrepreneurs approach them.

Having more women as bankers and agents on the ground has made a significant difference in reaching female customers, he said.

“It is not just about offering financial products but creating a welcoming and supportive environment that encourages women to engage with formal financial institutions,” he said.

Syed Mahbubur Rahman said collaboration between banks, FinTechs, and development organisations is key to enhancing financial access for women.

“By combining our resources and expertise, we can create innovative solutions that meet the specific needs of women entrepreneurs and ensure they have the tools to succeed,” he said.

A key highlight of the event was the dissemination of findings from MSC’s Women Business Diaries (WBD) project, which monitored the financial and non-financial lives of women entrepreneurs over a 21-month period.

The presentation was shared by Ayushi Misra, project manager at MSC. According to it, only eight per cent of surveyed women entrepreneurs take loans from banks whereas 55 per cent borrow from microfinance institutions (MFI).

The event concluded with a call to stakeholders to continue their efforts to make financial services more inclusive and accessible.

MSC is a consulting firm that has advanced financial, social, and economic inclusion across more than 50 countries including Bangladesh for more than 25 years.

This was also published in The Financial Express, The Business Standards, and The Daily Star on 21st October 2024 

Insights to innovations: Designing financial services for women entrepreneurs

Posted on by Saumya Dixit

Though there has been growth in credit access for women-owned MSMEs in Bangladesh, it remains insufficient in meeting the increasing demand from women entrepreneurs. As of Q4 2023, women own 36.9% of bank accounts and contribute 33.9% of the total deposits in the banking sector. However, when it comes to credit, the disparity is clear. Women own only 17.9% of total loan accounts and hold just 6.5% of the total asset value in banks, despite contributing around 20% to Bangladesh’s GDP.

The number of loans issued to women-owned enterprises rose from 147,102 in 2022 (13% of total CSME loans) to 236,172 in 2023, accounting for 17.9% of the total loans to CSMEs. However, even with this increase in the number of loans, women-owned businesses only held 17.9% of the total loan accounts by number, and their share in the outstanding credit portfolio remains low at just 6.45% by value.

For a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities in women’s financial inclusion in Bangladesh, please refer to the full report.

Unlocking face authentication playbook

Posted on by Saumya Dixit

Aadhaar, India’s unique identification system, has become essential for identity verification and service delivery, significantly impacting the lives of over 1.4 billion people since its inception in 2009. It is crucial in social welfare, financial inclusion, and digital governance. Aadhaar’s biometric authentication, including fingerprint, iris, and face recognition, ensures uniqueness, reduces fraud, and improves service delivery.

Initially, Aadhaar used fingerprint authentication, which proved cost-effective and widely accessible. However, environmental factors, age, and manual labor sometimes affected its reliability, leading to the introduction of iris authentication. Iris scans provided high accuracy and were particularly useful for individuals with hard-to-capture fingerprints, though they required specialized handling.

In 2018, the UIDAI introduced face authentication, which enhanced inclusivity, particularly for the elderly and disabled. With an accuracy rate of 84%, face authentication quickly gained popularity due to its contactless nature and ease of use via smartphones. Today, it supports over 55 million transactions monthly and is used for KYC processes, improving the customer experience across sectors, including banking, government services, and travel.

This playbook is a reference guide that will help introduce audiences to face authentication as a modality and provide an overview of its adoption along with prevalent use cases.

Five Recommendations to Address Insurance Mis-selling: Rural customers in India face information asymmetry, high premiums and poor returns

Posted on by Deepesh Singh

Kishan, a farmer from northern India, met with an insurance agent and purchased an endowment plan – a type of life insurance policy that pays the full sum assured to beneficiaries if the insured dies during the policy term, or provides the sum assured upon maturity if the policyholder survives the term. The insurance agent talked up the potential returns and assured Kishan that the premium payments would be manageable within his budget. Kishan trusted the agent and signed the insurance form without fully understanding the implications of the premium payments. Over time, he struggled to meet the premiums. After three years, he finally surrendered the policy, hoping to salvage some value. To his dismay, he discovered that he could not recover even half of what he had paid in premiums.

Kishan’s case highlights systemic issues of information asymmetry and mis-selling in insurance, where sellers misrepresent crucial details, leaving vulnerable individuals financially exploited.

Widespread mis-selling of insurance plans

Insurance-related mis-selling is rampant in India and, we suspect, in many other developing countries as well. As per the Council for Insurance Ombudsmen’s Annual Report 2022-23, mis-selling-related grievances for life insurance accounted for 58% of the total entertainable complaints of the year. Further, in 2022-23, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) received around 124,000 complaints against life insurance providers, with 20% related to unfair business practices.

Source: IRDA Annual Report 2022-23

Sales agents often employ pressure tactics and push life insurance plans that offer poor returns and inadequate insurance coverage despite high premiums. They tend to make this push without a thorough understanding of the customer’s needs. To make matters worse, opaque policy terms and complex fine print from insurers, along with misrepresentation or omission of critical information by insurance agents, create confusion and potential pitfalls for customers.

Agent incentives don’t match customer needs

Higher commissions lure some agents into such tactics. Commission levels are set by insurance companies, within the IRDAI regulatory framework, as a percentage of the premium paid by policyholders. Therefore, agents often try to sell endowment policies with higher premium rates in order to get the higher commissions. Additionally, agents receive significantly higher commissions from the first-year premium compared to subsequent years. To maximize their earnings, some agents encourage policyholders to prematurely surrender existing policies and sign up for new ones, thus earning another first-year commission. This practice, known as churning, burdens customers with surrender costs they are often unaware of.

Under current IRDAI regulations, a policyholder who surrenders a policy early receives a surrender value much lower than the total premiums paid. For example, if a policyholder surrenders in the second year, she receives only 30% of the premiums paid up to that year, bearing a surrender cost of 70%.

Unethical practices like churning, concealing surrender costs and pushing high-premium, low-return plans, stem from agents’ incentives tied to the high first-year commissions. The gain for the agents contrasts with the loss to the policyholders, who are at a disadvantage due to lack of transparency around surrender values and costs.

Diminishing consumer trust in insurance agents

Individuals like Kishan buy insurance expecting financial protection. Rural customers tend to trust sales agents and rely on them as the primary channel for purchasing insurance. However, this reliance can be concerning when combined with a low level of awareness of consumer risks in insurance. Most low-income customers are unable to discern unfair sales and marketing tactics used by agents, exacerbating their vulnerability. Without clear information about costs, premiums and surrender policies, these clients face increased financial risks, diminishing their trust in insurance and driving negative word-of-mouth publicity for the entire insurance industry.

“It is better to invest money in a fixed deposit than to purchase insurance,” said Kishan, when he cited his experience of low returns and poor customer support from a private insurance company.

Call to action

Regulators and providers must enhance customer protection in the insurance industry. Transparent practices, ethical sales tactics and responsive customer support are essential to build trust, protect customers and sustain the insurance industry’s growth. Here are some strategies that can be implemented:

1) Enhance monitoring and auditing: Customers are overreliant on agents when they purchase insurance, so regulators and providers should ensure regular audits and compliance checks to ensure adherence to regulatory standards. Although the IRDAI has established a code of conduct for insurance agents and intermediaries, its compliance should be monitored. Insurers should be mandated to monitor sales patterns, analyze complaints and detect mis-selling. The regulator will need to take corrective action against insurers found violating norms.

2) Standardize policy information: Policy documents are complex, lengthy and filled with jargon, making them difficult for people to understand. This leads to widespread information asymmetry. Insurance companies should share key information on premiums, surrender values, exclusions, claim rates, customer support and more in standardized, user-friendly templates. These should accomodate language preferences, communication modes and intuitive design for clarity and accessibility.

The infographic below illustrates a comprehensive insurance policy document’s key features alongside a standardized insurance policy summary template. This template is designed to simplify and clarify the key components of an insurance product. It includes section headers per the Insurance Distribution Directive’s recommendation and color-coded icons for easy navigation.

Source: Lloyd’s “Easy to understand insurance policies: Guidance”

3) Balance customer interests: Most Indian life insurance companies opposed a 2023 draft proposal which would have set a limit on policy surrender charges. The IRDAI’s recent decision to scrap this proposal benefits the insurance companies but not the customers. High surrender charges can be perceived as a tactic to lock in policyholders, eroding public trust in the insurance industry. Therefore, the regulator must allow some flexibility to balance the interests of both insurers and policyholders.

4) Promote customer support and grievance resolution channels: Although the IRDAI has developed an integrated grievance management system (IGMS) to handle and resolve complaints efficiently, customer awareness of this system remains limited. Customers rely on their agents to register grievances, thus depending on the very people who may have mis-sold policies in the first place. This process delays resolution. Therefore, the IRDAI should widely promote IGMS and push insurers to speed up claim resolution and response times.

5) Enhance customer understanding of insurance through gamification: Gamification can simplify complex subjects, and makes learning about insurance policies, policy types, benefits and conditions engaging by integrating quizzes, story-based adventures, role-playing and virtual simulations. This approach helps customer retain information better, ultimately empowering them to make informed decisions while enjoying the process.

Insurance providers can incorporate gamification into their mobile apps, enabling customers with smartphones to learn independently. For low-income customers without smartphones, internet access or technical proficiency, insurance agents can guide them through gamified modules and offline resources during in-person consultations.  Additionally, SMS can be used to deliver quizzes, tips and educational content.

Protecting insurance customers is increasingly important as risks and complaints are rising. These steps will lead to better financial outcomes, reduced distress, and a more responsive, competitive insurance industry. We can empower consumers to make educated decisions with robust regulatory standards and transparency.

The blog was first published on the FinDev Gateway website on 23rd August 2024.