MICROFINANCE PAPER WRAP-UP: "Savings and Retail Banking in Africa: Unpacking the Customer Through Demand Side Data," published by World Retail Savings and Banking Institute, MasterCard Foundation

This report offers three case studies on how financial services providers (FSPs) may expand and improve their usage of data to devise client-centric services and minimise account dormancy. The first case study is on the Zambia National Commercial Bank (Zanaco). Zanaco’s product design process consists of three stages: client needs assessment, developing solutions to address these needs and implementing the solution. To optimise its use of internal information, qualitative research and third-party data for the first stage – client needs assessment – Zanaco maintains a dedicated market analysis department. This allows the FSP to identify trends in customer needs and alternatives from competitors as well as to decide when to retire obsolete products. For example, Zanaco recently began offering Women’s Banking, which includes personalised general and life insurance solutions along with non-financial services like business linkages and opportunities for networking.

BRAC Uganda, an affiliate of the network that evolved from the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC), has a data team that analyses credit performance, product uptake and user experience. The team also studies national data from FinScope surveys to identify characteristics of potential clients, devise strategies for reaching out to them and design products based on their needs.

The final case study is on Awash Bank of Ethiopia. Staff of the bank gathered input from members of the Ethiopian diaspora regarding the financial barriers they were facing. Based on this awareness, the bank tailored a line of financial products to target these concerns. For example, until recently, Ethiopians temporarily residing abroad were unable to qualify for mortgage loans. When the government of Ethiopia eventually opened up banking for the diaspora, Awash already had a wealth of data on customer needs in this segment and could move quickly to provide highly personalised services for this group.

This is a summary of a paper published by the World Retail and Savings Banking Institute and the Mastercard Foundation, May 2022, 24 pages, available at https://www.findevgateway.org/paper/2022/05/state-savings-and-retail-banking-africa.

By Saulius Simonas Ramanauskas, Research Associate

Additional Resources

WSBI homepage
https://www.wsbi-esbg.org

Mastercard Foundation homepage
https://mastercardfdn.org

Zanaco 2021 annual report
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tk2om5Ln_kgfgEWF5PCOTpDNw3RZ_y8f/view

More MicroCapital paper wrap-ups
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