Financial Inclusion & Microfinance

International expertise for banks, microfinance and social enterprise finance institutions as well as 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 and social enterprise finance industry and working with all types of financial service providers that offer affordable financial services to meet the varied needs of micro- and social enterprises as well as social enterprise support organizations such as incubators and accelerators.

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 & Social Entrepreneurship thematic area include (as above):

Institutional Strengthening

We assist financial service providers in offering full-fledged (digital) financial services and non-financial services to their microfinance and social enterprise finance clients, such as loans, deposits, insurance services and/or mobile payments, advisory, mentoring, coaching and training.

Downscaling

We help banking institutions to downscale and establish microfinance and/or social enterprise finance business units, to support them in servicing social enterprises, micro-enterprises and low-income clients with a large array of tailor-made financial and non-financial products.

Upscaling

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

Innovation

We design and implement innovative microfinance and social finance products, instruments and delivery channels, as well as provide business development services for micro- and social 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.