Region: South Asia

MSC and the Center for Global Development (CGD) assessed Bangladesh’s Primary Education Stipends Program (PESP), a gender-centric cash transfer program to improve primary school attendance rates. Over the years, benefit delivery of PESP evolved from cash disbursement to digital stipend transfers. Key evidence from our assessment shows women prefer digital transfers to cash-in-hand. Our blog shares evidence from the study using the “Design, Direct, and Digitize” (D3) framework to make a case for women beneficiaries as better contenders for G2P programs. Our blog looks beyond the impact of PESP on program outcomes—and highlights the socioeconomic implications of mobile money on women and the role PESP plays in gender equity and inclusion.

This blog is the last of a three-part blog series. The blog highlights payment solutions that can lead to higher adoption and usage of digital payments in India by 2025 and drive financial inclusion by taking digital payments to the last mile.

This blog is the second in a three-part blog series. The blog highlights use cases where digitizing even a conservative 10% of the current cash-based transactions presents service providers with a supplemental opportunity worth more than INR 45 billion (~USD 608 million).

Postal banks have existed and played a key role for different customer segments in several countries. In this blog, the second of this series, we highlight the best practices postal banks across different countries have adopted and implemented to serve their customers under the 2T2P approach.

Digital payments in India have grown phenomenally in the past decade. This report highlights how digital payments in the country grew and charts the path ahead. We look at the journey of digital payments in India, major events and entities that contributed to it, and products that revolutionized the digital payments space. We also identify barriers to the digital payments sector and analyze the future of digital financial inclusion through payments for the low- and moderate-income segments in India.

This blog is part 1 of a two-part series. The blog highlights the immense potential of postal banks to spearhead financial inclusion. It covers parameters that financial institutions, including postal banks, should address to serve low- and moderate-income customers effectively. We look closely at the challenges postal banks face across the globe and how they manage them. We highlight approaches and practices that can guide postal banks in their journey of innovation and mission to improve the lives of the unserved—especially in emerging and transitioning economies.