Financial Inclusion & Microfinance

International expertise for banks, microfinance institutions and digital financial service providers

We see the strengthening of the financial sector as a key factor in promoting economic prosperity in developing economies. In addition, we believe that financial and social inclusion can bring stability to emerging markets, as well as to some regions of the European continent.

We believe in supporting the development of the microfinance industry and working with all types of financial service providers that offer affordable financial services to meet the varied needs of micro-enterprises and economically disadvantaged groups.

Our experience has shown that capacity building and disseminating best practice are the two primary levers that can help financial service providers innovate, adapt, and scale financial services to add real value to their customers.

Our core areas of expertise within the Financial Inclusion & Microfinance thematic area include:

Institutional Strengthening

We assist financial service providers in offering full-fledged (digital) financial services to their microfinance clients, such as loans, deposits, insurance services and/or mobile payments.

Downscaling

We help banking institutions to downscale and establish microfinance business units, to support them in servicing microenterprises and low-income clients with a large array of tailor-made financial products.

Upscaling

We foster institutional transformation to help microfinance organizations navigate through the various levels in their organizational upscaling, including digital transformation.

Innovation

We design and implement innovative microfinance products and delivery channels, as well as provide business development services for micro-enterprises. We support the improvement of product development processes, product costing techniques and credit scoring.

Training services

The provision of training courses across a large range of topics is another crucial part of our services. Classroom and digital workshops, as well as on-the-job training and coaching sessions are the most important training methods we use.

We also offer the following microfinance topics within our Development Finance Academies:

The Frankfurt School Development Finance e-Campus has become a very successful e-learning tool for professionals interested in financial inclusion and microfinance.