Whether it is digital payments, resilience for MSMEs or financial integrity, much of our work is underpinned by the desire to create more inclusive financial systems and services. Cenfri has successfully implemented several multi-year financial inclusion programmes:
Making Access to Financial Services Possible or MAP (in partnership with UNCDF and FinMark Trust)
insight2impact or i2i (in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Mastercard Foundation)
Risk, Remittances and Integrity or RRI (with FSD Africa)
Remittance Access Initiative (with IFAD’s Financing Facility for Remittances)
Our view is that while financial inclusion targets (such as the percentage of adults with a bank account) are valid, they don’t tell you much when tracked in isolation. It is important to understand whether people use their financial services, and if so, whether this enables them to meet their needs. We have developed six financial inclusion measurement frameworks that outline this expanded understanding of financial inclusion.
SADC faces high levels of exclusion in insurance. It is therefore appropriate for SADC supervisors to pursue inclusive insurance markets based on international guidance. Since the vast majority of SADC populations are excluded from insurance, it also holds that retail markets are extremely small. Microinsurance can, therefore, form a foundation for
Distribution is one of the key challenges in extending microinsurance to the low-income market. Traditionally, insurance distribution is either via brokers or agents or, in the low-income space, on a compulsory sales basis on the back of credit. More recently, commercial insurers have started to employ other, alternative distribution channels
Hospital cash plans (HCPs) have emerged as an affordable risk cover for many low-income South Africans without access to medical aid. HCPs pay out a cash amount directly to the client on hospitalisation, rather than by providing comprehensive care cover. The increasing popularity of HCPs in South Africa have become
A number of financial products and services are offered by or through retailers in South Africa. This spans the broad financial services spectrum including transactional, savings, insurance and credit products. This 2014 study sought to understand retailers’ motivation for providing these financial services more fully. It studied FMCG retailers, cash-based
Hospital cash plans (HCPs) have the potential to provide financial protection against health risks to low-income individuals that are unable to afford medical scheme membership, but still incur significant costs or co-payments at a public facility. This 2013 report is a follow-up to our review of the South African market
Between 2003 and 2011, the provision of bank accounts in South Africa grew from 30% to 46%. Technology and branchless solutions play key roles in improving access to financial services. Physical bank branches are, however, often critical to persistent high-value take-up and use of financial products as it plays an
This 2012 study analysed the demand, supply and regulatory framework for retail payment services in Zambia, how they can play a transformative financial inclusion role, and the market and regulatory challenges to be overcome for that potential to be realised. The report is part of a series of studies that
Implications for policymakers and regulators Funeral insurance is the most prevalent form of insurance in South Africa with just less than 90% of all risk cover being attributed to this form of insurance, more than a quarter of which is informal. This 2012 paper presents the nature of informality in
This case study on microinsurance innovation in Colombia forms part of a series of case studies on alternative, innovative microinsurance distribution models prepared for the International Labour Organization’s Microinsurance Innovation Facility. The case study covers three channels, namely the partnership between Codensa, an electricity utility company, and the insurance company Mapfre;
New Frontiers in Microinsurance Distribution The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Microinsurance Innovation Facility (MIF) commissioned Cenfri to compare innovative distribution models from India, South Africa, Colombia and Brazil. The study was based on several case studies conducted and commissioned by Cenfri. The aim was to create a typology for innovative
