Drivers of Financial Services Innovation

Savings at the Frontier (SatF) was set up as an experimental program with the objective of finding sustainable business models in partnership with financial services providers (FSPs) to serve informal savings mechanisms (ISMs) and their users with innovative financial services. The users of ISMs –such as chilimba, tontines, stokvels, susu – form a diverse market segment across the socioeconomic spectrum and with diverse livelihoods. Yet the majority of ISM users, whether they are a group of nurses at a hospital in a town or smallholder farmers looking to make a collective investment, already use a mix of informal and digital or mobile financial services. The diverse needs and preferences of this market segment must be met by FSPs with innovations beyond established value offers, such as branch-based savings accounts or conventional mobile money services.

This note presents the innovation drivers and competencies that project teams identified as key to developing innovative financial services that meet customer needs.