2. For example, national-level FinMark Trust’s FinScope surveys, www.finmark.org.za, and Global Findex databases, http://data.worldbank .org/data-catalog/financial_inclusion. 3. For example, see Financial Access Initiative (FAI), http://financialaccess.org; Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-Pal), http:// www.povertyactionlab.org/about-j-pal; and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), http:// poverty-action.org. 4. Microfinance as defined by CGAP in CGAP Occasional Paper 15, “The New Moneylenders: Are the Poor Being Exploited by High Microcredit Interest Rates?” (Rosenberg et al. 2009), “usually refers to the provision of financial services to poor and low-income clients who have little or no access to conventional banks. The term is often used in a more specific sense, referring to institutions that use new techniques developed over the past 30 years to deliver microcredit—tiny loans—to informal microentrepreneurs. The range of services can include not only microcredit but also savings, insurance, and money transfers.” 5. The ACCION Center for Financial Inclusion defines financial inclusion as “Full financial inclusion is a state in which all people who can use them have access to a full suite of quality financial services, provided at affordable prices in a convenient manner, and with dignity for the clients. Financial services are delivered by a range of providers, most of them private, and reach everyone who can use them, including disabled, poor and rural populations” (www .centerforfinancialinclusion.org). 6. See http://www.economist.com/node/ 11376809 for information on the Compartamos Banco IPO. 7. Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and Europe Central Asia (ECA). 8. Defined as “a bank, credit union, cooperative, post office, or microfinance institution” (Demirgüç-Kunt and Klapper 2012). 9. In chapter 2 of the Microfinance Handbook (Ledgerwood 1998, p. 49) Tom Dichter wrote, “Doing impact analysis well (and therefore 10
credibly) can be difficult and expensive. Addressing this dilemma, there is a school of thinking that advocates certain ‘proxies’ for impact. Otero and Rhyne have summarized recent microfinance history by saying that there has been an important shift from focusing on the individual firm or client of financial services to focusing on the institutions providing services. This financial systems approach ‘necessarily relaxes its attention to “impact” in terms of measurable enterprise growth and focuses instead on measures of increased access to financial services’ (Otero and Rhyne 1994).” 10. Account at a formal financial institution denotes the percentage of respondents with an account (self or together with someone else) at a bank, credit union, another financial institution (for example, cooperative or microfinance institution), or the post office (if applicable) including respondents who reported having a debit card (Demirgüç-Kunt and Klapper 2012). 11. www.shgportal.com. 12. E-mail exchange with Gerhard Coetzee, April 4, 2012, and Bankable Frontiers Associates (2009).
References Alexandre, Claire. 2010. “Policymakers Create Room for Experimentation with Banking beyond Branches.” Global Savings Forum, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA, November. Bankable Frontier Associates. 2009. “The Mzansi Bank Account Initiative in South Africa, Final Report.” Commissioned by FinMark Trust. Somerville, MA, March. Bauchet, Jonathan, Cristobal Marshall, Laura Starita, Jeanette Thomas, and Anna Yalouris. 2011. “Latest Findings from Randomized Evaluations of Microfinance.” Access to Finance Forum, Reports by CGAP and Its Partners No. 2. CGAP, Washington, DC, December. BMZ, CGAP, and IFC. 2011. “Advancing Responsible Finance for Greater Development The New Microfinance Handbook