Provides a formal analysis of the economic drivers for branchless banking solutions. It exposes the design trade-offs that occur at the each of the key layers of service: the retail network (transaction acquisition), payments network (transaction aggregation and routing) and account/service...

This paper contrasts the psychological and cultural richness of informal savings mechanisms with the simpler, more rigid and yet less intuitive format of digital savings products. Financial inclusion should not imply a rejection of informal financial practices but a synthesis of the informal and...

About a dozen developing countries have deposit insurance systems and several others are considering establishing them. These systems are typically created to prevent contagious bank runs, to provide a formal national mechanism for handling failing banks, and to protect small depositors from...

Confiscation of currency has sometimes occurred through the fine print of currency reforms. While only a small fraction of currency reforms worldwide have masked a confiscation, when they don't they are likely to follow a hyperinflationary bout. Thus, one way or another, currency reforms are...

In parts of Africa, only one in five people have access to traditional banking services. In Latin America only one in three do. Claire Alexandre, Ignacio Mas, and Daniel Radcliffe of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation say this need not be the case. The technology exists to make banking...