The MasterCard Foundation Symposium Concluded

The MasterCard Foundation works with visionary organizations to provide greater access to education, skills training as well as financial services for people living in poverty, primarily in Africa. As one of the largest and independent foundations, the work of MasterCard Foundation is guided by its mission to advance learning and promote financial inclusion in order to alleviate poverty.

This year’s MasterCard Foundation Symposium was held in Cape Town South Africa where global financial service practitioners as well as industrial experts gathered to advance practical ways to increase financial inclusion for the poor. This is an annual event hosted by The MasterCard Foundation in partnership with the Boulder Institute of Microfinance.

During the two day symposium, the MasterCard Foundation awarded its first ‘Clients at the Centre’ Prize to BIMA. The prize was of 150,000 US Dollars. The award recognized the company’s innovative work in providing mobile-delivered micro-finance as well as health services to 20 million customers in 14 emerging markets.

The MasterCard Foundation believes that putting poor clients at the center of the design process greatly increases the effectiveness of financial products and services and helps to bring people into the formal banking system hence improving their livelihoods.

“The benefits of access to finance for individuals, having the ability to save, borrow and transfer money, and also to insure themselves, are well understood,” said Ann Miles, the Director of Programs, Financial Inclusion & Youth Livelihoods at The MasterCard Foundation.

“We’ve seen significant progress recently but the world can only achieve universal financial inclusion if financial service providers truly understand the unique context and needs of poor people. BIMA is doing just that and stands as a model of what can be done,” she said.

During the symposium in Cape Town too, The MasterCard Foundation announced a five-year plan of 9.6 million US Dollars in partnership with FinMark Trust and Cenfri of South Africa to launch as well as support a data facility designed to help financial service providers better understand the financial services needs of their clients. The three organizations believe that more people living in poverty will have access to secure, affordable as well as convenient financial services.

“Banks and other financial service providers today, more than ever, need to be responsive to clients in order to differentiate themselves and remain relevant,” Ann Miles, the Director of Programs, Financial Inclusion & Youth Livelihoods at the MasterCard Foundation said.

The data facility, named “insight2impact” (i2i), aims to demonstrate how financial service providers can draw customer insights from current data sets and effectively use them in product design and business decisions that offer clients services that meet their needs. It will also help to house, develop and disseminate new approaches for measuring financial access and use.

At the same time the Young Africa Works Summit opened doors for youth who are involved in the agricultural sector, be it research, farming, processing, marketing and other occupations along the food value chain. Leticia’s story of starting rabbit farming at the age of 14 has the potential to influence policy and partnerships that can ensure that youth under the age of 18 have access to land and loans for investment in agriculture.

During the business discussions, CEO James Mwangi of Equity Bank demonstrated Equity Bank’s business case by outlining his organization’s path from a building society facing liquidation to a bank serving millions of low-income clients. “There was no other way to change the organization than to go ask customers why they had abandoned their accounts”, he said. It was also decided, during the vent that microfinance institutions will be the future of financial inclusion.

The symposium on financial inclusion was to ensure that all households as well as businesses regardless of their income, have access to and can effectively without any hindrance use the financial services that are key to improving lives. According to statistics, the world’s considered poor live and work in the informal sector. They have little income but they have the capacity to save, borrow as well as manage their daily expenses.