IFC engaged MSC to execute a comprehensive customer segmentation study on the use of mobile financial services (MFS) by women in Bangladesh. The study covered 4,000 respondents and identified specific challenges that women face in their use of MFS, identified personas of MFS users, and provided in-depth insights on the need for more female DFS agents.
MSC developed a toolkit and collaterals for MFS providers to assist in on-boarding women MFS users and provided product concepts on the financial service needs of different women customer segments.
Bangladesh Bank has hosted both the report and the toolkit on its website under the regulations, policy, and licensing section for MFS, implicitly validating and advocating our work. The positive response from the central bank would also propagate the toolkit to onboard more women agents for the sector.
MSC works with governments to evaluate, design, and optimize public policy choices. Our work covers areas, such as food security, agriculture, health, energy, and financial inclusion.
A recent project explored pathways to better nutritional outcomes through food security in India. Despite measures taken by central and state governments, India’s population remains nutritionally compromised. MSC examined the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and analyzed gaps in the nutritional requirements of food-secure households.
Based on the research, MSC advised on alternative delivery mechanisms and recommended ways to achieve national nutritional goals at the household-level. Based on our inputs, the Government of India has been developing a strategy to achieve better nutritional outcomes through NFSA, influencing the spending of USD 25 billion annually, with an impact on 850 million people.
Another key project was the redesign of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), which is India’s flagship financial inclusion program that helped open more than 300 million bank accounts. The Department of Financial Services asked MSC to participate in all five committees and prepare the final report that guided the development of PMJDY 2.0.
MSC has played a key role in supporting the Ministry of Finance in India around Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY)—India’s national financial inclusion strategy. We helped the Indian government implement and then reshape the program. MSC conducted a series of quantitative and qualitative reviews of the performance of Bank Mitrs (bank agents), who were a crucial part of the roll-out of the program. We also examined users’ perceptions and experience of the services delivered by agents.
MSC’s recommendations significantly improved the services of over 600,000 Bank Mitrs with an impact on over 300 million PMJDY account holders.
India’s Ministry of Finance then asked MSC to coordinate the development of the second phase of PMJDY. We participated in all five committees as co-chairs. These were:
- Products and Business Correspondents (agents);
- Payments and Digital Infrastructure;
- Microcredit;
- Communications and Financial Education;
- FinTech for Financial Inclusion.
MSC prepared the reports for each of the committees and developed a summary report to guide the strategy and its implementation. Based on this, the Prime Minister of India announced PMJDY 2.0 in his 2018 Independence Day speech. The revised program would have a positive impact on over 800 million people.
Access to reliable water and improved sanitation services is a challenge to many peri-urban areas in Ghana, with considerable time required to collect water. Sinapi Aba Savings & Loans (SASL) Company offers a WASH loan to improve access to water and sanitation for its clients. MSC designed a comprehensive training-of-trainers manual and WASH SMEs learning diary to support an emerging sub-sector of WASH entrepreneurs.
Our consultants trained 50 branch staff and 60 WASH SMEs, SASL on-trained 2,000 WASH SMEs across the country and has been disbursing working capital loans to qualifying WASH SMEs.
MSC developed a strategy to roll out Water.org’s WaterCredit program and identified potential MFIs and WASH NGOs partners. We conducted a macro-level analysis of the Indonesian microfinance and water and sanitation sectors and identified specific geographies for the expansion of WaterCredit services. MSC executed primary research to make suitable recommendations. The research covered clients in the urban, peri-urban, and rural areas of Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, East Kalimantan, and West Sumatra.
Based on MSC’s recommendations, Water.org launched its WaterCredit program in Indonesia in 2014. The report assisted Water.org to target relevant geographies and financial institutions to kick-start the program. By the end of 2018, over 470,000 WaterCredit loans amounting to USD 18 million were disbursed in Indonesia.
Mobile money providers around the globe are compelled to rethink their distribution networks as the industry completes two decades of operations and competition increases. To study the space, GSMA contracted MSC to conduct a market assessment of mobile money providers. The assessment gathered information on mobile money providers that have been implementing innovative practices to improve traditional methods of agent distribution.
MSC focused particularly on those practices that improved efficiency, delivered better customer service, and reduced costs. We identified new and innovative initiatives and distribution models, which we classified into existing challenges in the agent distribution network. The research exercise assessed and documented the leading new agent distribution networks.
The MSC team gained insights on how mobile money providers use these new initiatives to “future-proof” the distribution of financial services through agents. We also explored the existing synergies between mobile money providers and the DFS+ players that seek to implement new strategies for the future.
The resulting report is now one of the more popular downloads on GSMA’s website.