In the six countries featured in the MAP Global Insights series, informal financial services persist despite an explicit push both globally and within the countries to migrate consumers towards formal financial services. Whilst it is increasingly acknowledged that informal services often offer benefits that formal services do not (such as accepting collateral like gold or jewellery or providing more flexible terms), the persistence of informality is still commonly attributed to people having little to no alternative.

Homefield advantage – learning from the popularity of local financial services providers (Note 3) reports that the widespread use of informal financial services has less to do with the fact that they are informal than with the value that clients derive from the local nature of such services.