Now reading: What you need to know about mobile survey panels

Data and Analytics


The smarter use of data plays a role in all aspects of economic inclusion. Innovative and cost-effective ways to collect, store and analyse data can improve strategic decision-making and enable more client-centric and inclusive product design.

Increasing access and lowering the cost of up-to-date, high-quality traditional and alternative data and can unlock a range of insights to solve challenges.

  • Geospatial data can provide insights on a particular area, such as  financial access points.
  • Analysis of existing transaction data allows tailored financial solutions and new insights on people’s financial behaviour.
  • Machine learning can better assess creditworthiness for clients with no official credit history, and shared client data can open the door to additional services that improve client value.

These developments can enable financial service providers, policymakers and impact investors to optimise the impact of their work through the use of data.

Our work connects decision-makers with the data they need by building on, and showcasing, the existing knowledge base of financial inclusion data and collaborating with a wide range of partners.

Data and Analytics

What you need to know about mobile survey panels

In my time as a demand-side researcher, I’ve often been labelled as a highly technical researcher. This identification of me as technical comes largely from my ease and comfort in working with data and the many kinds of software that you can use to understand it, but it also comes

Data and Analytics

The joy of mobile survey design

I designed a mobile survey today and really enjoyed it. You might be thinking: of course it is satisfying, it is easy. But that really isn’t the case. Mobile surveys, and in this case SMS mobile surveys, require a different approach, and when you’re trained in a more traditional, face-to-face

Data and Analytics

Developing valid and reliable survey scales

The purpose of this note is to describe a process that can be used to design valid and reliable financial inclusion measuring instruments. It is often the case that important measurement dimensions are excluded from financial inclusion surveys. This could be due to an oversight on the part of the research team, lack of

Data and Analytics

The Data Analytics and Digital Financial Services Handbook

The IFC handbook explains the potential that data and analytics present for financial inclusion and for FSP operations. This is the third handbook on digital financial services (DFS) produced and published by the Partnership for Financial Inclusion, a joint initiative of IFC and The MasterCard Foundation to expand microfinance and advance DFS in SubSaharan Africa.

Avoiding the copy-paste approach to mobile money operations
Data and Analytics

Avoiding the copy-paste approach to mobile money operations

Barney de Jongh, of Digital Frontiers Institute, talks to us about leveraging the value of agents and data and driving meaningful usage of mobile money products. When a new entrant is scoping the market, where does the best intelligence usually come from and which data sources or types of data are

Data and Analytics

Data Portal

The Data Portal, first launched under the insight2impact programme, is now hosted by FinMark Trust. Compare indicators across countries and periods. Start by gaining a broad overview of the financial market through National Surveys, (which are nationally representative surveys of adults in a particular country) demonstrate how people source their income

Data and Analytics

Financial sector innovation can thrive in the absence of data

insight2impact (i2i) is exploring how data can be used by financial service providers to create client value and enhance firm value simultaneously We posed some data-related questions to Marc van der Zon, Head of Central Analytics at Hollard Insurance Company. This topic will be further explored during the invitation-only roundtable discussion

payment platform
Data and Analytics

In Africa, data often lives on paper

insight2impact (i2i) is exploring how data can be used by financial service providers to create client value and enhance firm value simultaneously. We interviewed Morné van der Westhuizen and Alex Shabala to understand the role of data in decision-making at Zoona, an African mobile payments operator. This topic will be further explored during the invitation-only

Data and Analytics

Data can provide confidence to approach underserved markets

Ekow Duker, Managing Director of Ixio Analytics, shares his views on the way in which financial service providers approach and use data. Ekow was the moderator of the insight2impact roundtable discussion, which we hosted as part of the Chief Data & Analytics Officer Africa event in July 2017. During the insight2impact roundtable