Savings Groups are community-based financial service providers that deliver basic financial services to millions of members in underserved markets worldwide. Traditionally, the promotion of Savings Groups has been led by national and international NGOs and a large extension network of community-based trainers. In recent years, governments across Sub-Saharan Africa have incorporated Savings Groups into public policy and programming, recognizing the potential of the community-based microfinance model to contribute to national financial inclusion strategies and broader development agendas.
This state of practice report identifies and describes 74 government initiatives in the Savings Group sector across 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa – related to financial inclusion, social protection, women’s empowerment, and sector regulation and coordination.
The purpose of the report is to support the further development of public policy and programming related to Savings Groups in the region, and to serve as a resource for diverse sector stakeholders – including funders, non-governmental organizations, and financial service providers – to more effectively engage governments in the region around identified priorities and opportunities.
This paper provides an overview of how agents are an essential component of delivering customer value to excluded populations such as informal savers. Based on the experiences of financial ser…
A new case study report from Scale2Save looks at how the Covid-19 pandemic has changed bank customer behaviour in Africa. The study shows that customers have increased their borrowing from fr…
In this report, we explore how BRACED projects support the development and delivery of tailored-to-context financial services. We also assess to what extent these projects are integrated withi…