What constitutes a viable business model for small scale savings?

Scale2Save Campaign

Micro savings, maximum impact.

Problems of high poverty rates and financial exclusion in sub-Saharan Africa, the correlation between them, and low formal savings rates, remain a major concern.

The market potential of various low-income segments to save is poorly understood by many formal financial service providers (FSPs). Customer and potential customer needs – and how much they can and/or wish to afford to pay to meet those needs – are inadequately reflected in FSP’s business models, customer interfaces and interactions. The resulting poor customer experience gives rise to very high incidences of dormancy and inactivity in account usage. This represents a significant drain on bank costs and undermines potentially sustainable business cases in delivering accessible financial services to these segments.

Why reading this new learning paper ?

This paper highlights 3 different business models for small scale savings including key revenues and costs drivers developed by Centenary Bank in Uganda, Lapo Microfinance Bank in Nigeria and Advans Microfinance Bank in Ivory Coast

Download the Learning Paper

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EU Taxonomy minimum safeguards: Criteria for the application of external checks should be further defined

ESBG submitted its final response to the Platform for Sustainable Finance (PSF) consultation on its draft report on minimum safeguards (MS) on 6 September. In its response, ESBG highlights that assessing whether a company complies with the due diligence processes should, other than relying on external checks as only possibility, be demonstrated by: i) proving that the applicable national legislation provides for sufficient guarantees concerning the specific topic; ii) self-declarations made by the client concerning the specific topic.

ESBG submitted its final response to the Platform for Sustainable Finance (PSF) consultation on its draft report on minimum safeguards (MS) on 6 September.

The report is intended to provide advice on the application of the minimum safeguards which bring a social and governance component to the EU Taxonomy. The report looks at human rights including workers’ rights and consumers´ rights, bribery/corruption, taxation and fair competition as core substantive topics for which compliance with minimum safeguards has to be defined. The draft report proposes a two-pronged approach for identifying non-compliance with MS, namely one related to adequate due diligence processes implemented in companies (internal checks) and the other related to the actual outcome of these processes or the company’s performance (external checks).

In its response, ESBG highlights that assessing whether a company complies with the due diligence processes should, other than relying on external checks as only possibility, be demonstrated by: i) proving that the applicable national legislation provides for sufficient guarantees concerning the specific topic; ii) self-declarations made by the client concerning the specific topic.

Moreover, ESBG emphasises that gravity thresholds for non-compliance should be defined, so that not every minor violation (e.g. of taxation or work laws) leads to the establishment of an external check.

Furthermore, when assessing compliance with MS, the report recommends that the focus should be on assessing the human rights due diligence processes of a company, rather than on controversy checks e.g. media coverage (currently employed by ESG ratings agencies), as it is considered that the latter is based on value judgement and is sometimes difficult to justify. ESBG believes that the administrative cost derived from direct analysis of due diligence processes would be too burdensome for institutions and emphasizes that they should rely on ESG ratings agencies in order to not impair financial activity.

Finally, ESBG calls for further clarifications on the level of application of MS in particular cases, e.g. an exposure to a company active in sectors that by definition do not fulfil the minimum safeguards to be taxonomy-eligible or -aligned, even if the specific transaction finances activities that fulfil all requirements.

As a next step, the Platform will analyse the feedback received and prepare the final report. ESBG will continue to monitor this very important topic, with the possibility to get involved at a later stage.

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2022 ESG Financing Summit

2022 ESG Financing Summit | ESG financing
A real momentum and uptake

About the event

We are proud to invite you to the WSBI ESG Finance Summit 2022.
Our aim is to bring together leading policy makers and executives from the financial sector to discuss the prevailing market and regulatory trends in sustainable finance.
As an association that brings together leading financial institutions from around the world, we are confident that the ESG Finance Summit 2022 will be an important platform for the financial industry to address ESG finance.

What to expect on 26th of September:

starts at 4:00 PM CET with supported languages: English & Spanish

Panel “Tools and practices for responsible finance. A Global Overview from the financial industry”

What to expect on 27th of September:
starts at 8:00 AM CET with supported languages: English, Chinese & Arabic

Panel 1 “Regulatory approaches to ESG finance”

The need to finance the global transition to sustainable development is constantly growing. Financial industry is required to gain a deeper understanding of the relevant context and regulatory requirements, for which they need to build their own expertise.
What determines the state of the market today and how should it be regulated?
What changes at the micro- and macroeconomic levels can the widespread use of sustainable finance lead to?

Panel 2 “Integration of ESG factors into the risk assessment system”

How are ESG principles integrated into the financial products? How do ESG factors integrate into the risk assessment system? What do analysts rely on in this process? Parameters and case study.

Panel 3 “Tools and practices for responsible finance. Overview from financial industry”

The speed and quality of the development of the responsible finance market depends not only on regulators, but also on the financial industry themselves, or rather, the degree of their clients’ interest in the relevant products and services. What do clients need to support sustainability initiatives?
What products are financial institutions ready to offer to their customers?
What are their differences and what do they depend on?

Which of the parties – the financial institutions or the client – should act as a motivator in the creation and offer of ESG products?

How and what products of responsible financing can support not only the “green” but also the social agenda?

Co-organizers

WSBI-ESBG

Driven by the three “R’s”​.With roots in 1924, WSBI-ESBG members enjoy a long history of socially responsible banking around the world. Although organizational structures vary from country to country, they each share certain values in their business models, embedded within the three “R”s.

The Union of Arab Banks

The UAB is financially, administratively, and an organizationally autonomous entity and serves as a comprehensive organization representing the Arab banking and financial community. giving key support to Arab Banks, financial institutions, economic organizations, and banking institutions with mutual support and connections to the Arab world. Member of ECOSOC United Nations – New York, accredited at the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), supporting Member of United Nations Environmental Program-Finance initiatives (UNEP-FI) – Geneva

The Union of Arab Banks Website

Asian Financial Cooperation Association

AFCA shall be a regional non-government and non-profit international organization registered with China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, mainly composed of financial institutions, associations of the financial industry, government related agencies, and relevant professional service agencies as well as individuals in financial field from Asian countries and regions on a voluntary basis.

Asian Financial Cooperation Association WEBSITE

Reducing the scope of the EBA NPLs data templates

On 5 September 2022, ESBG responded to the EBA consultation on the draft non-performing loans (NPL) transaction data templates, which seek to improve the functioning of secondary markets for NPLs.

The number of data fields in the proposed templates (especially those marked as “mandatory”) is significantly higher than what has historically been proven necessary to close voluntary NPL deals from a market standards perspective and it should therefore be reduced. Such a high number of data fields would in fact bring a significant costs increase for sellers and may jeopardise the development of NPL secondary markets.

In addition to the fact that most of the required information is too detailed and not relevant for the purposes of loan valuations, the data is also not always available within the banking system. This could lead to a counter-productive effect where sellers could renounce to sales they could execute due to constraining mandatory fields.

Another main impediment for this template to be useful is the issue of data consistency. The template would mainly be populated with management data and internal methodologies that can use different calculations and logics leading to incomparable information among portfolios.

Furthermore, it makes no sense to have common templates for single names or reduced portfolios of single names and massive portfolios of NPLs. Exposures to one single debtor or to a reduced number of corporates or SMEs have historically needed a different set of information, as their potential purchasers perform a deeper financial and legal analysis of the exposures rather than a statistical analysis, which is more adequate for massive portfolios.

Overall, the remaining fields compared to the original templates from 2017 still contain significantly more information than market standards require. For a well-functioning secondary market it is currently possible to sell NPLs by providing mainly 20 data fields.

Against this background, we request that the EBA further streamlines the templates, aiming at simpler, more balanced and effective design in order to achieve a broader application and increase transparency in the NPL market, without having a detrimental impact on EU NPL deals.

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Singapore Fintech Festival 2022

Singapore welcomes you to the 7th edition of the Singapore FinTech Festival

SFF will bring together the global FinTech community to engage, connect, and collaborate on issues relating to the development of financial services, public policy, and technology. As the world’s largest FinTech festival, last year’s edition brought together over 60,000 participants from 160 countries.
SFF is organized by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Elevandi, and Constellar and in collaboration with The Association of Banks in Singapore.

Why attend SFF

1. Learn from 300+ expert teachers in formats ranging from plenary addresses to intimate, curated summits.
2. Network with participants from 7500+ organisations through our dedicated meeting lounges and event app, the official industry party, and 50+ side events across the week.
3. Meet with 300+ exhibitors spanning from web3 technologies to sustainable finance solutions and from growth stage startups to leading FinTech companies.
4. Contribute to the advancement of the industry by interacting with policymakers and regulators spanning 50+ jurisdictions.

SFF 2022 Theme

Building Resilient Business Models amid Volatility and Change

With the global economy experiencing a surge in inflation and facing risks of a significant slowdown in growth, many FinTech firms are striving to stay resilient and viable. Key stakeholders comprising government leaders, regulators, financial services leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and technology leaders will take stock of the drivers of change and examine three key questions at SFF 2022:

Viable: How are organizations building and redefining business models that can be more resilient to volatile market conditions?

Responsible: How are organizations balancing corporate responsibility and profitability in order to achieve greater stakeholder satisfaction and engagement?

Inclusive: How are organizations designing inclusive business models that cater to the needs of the unbanked and underbanked?


Persona Segmentation Toolkit

Scale2Save Campaign

Micro savings, maximum impact.

Data is an essential tool for creating customer-centric financial products and services that are sustainable for financial service providers and truly work for low-income customers.

To drive inclusive finance in Nigeria, EFInA and WSBI’s Scale2Save programme are launching the Persona Segmentation Toolkit which allows bankers to use the EFInA financial access data, demographic, and socio economic household data in a simple, practical way.
The toolkit is an online interactive data portal to support market development and data-driven product development

The advantages of the toolkit :

  • Determine the size of business development opportunities specifically for under-served market segments, such as smallholder farmers, informal traders, and young people.
  • Offering insights into customer characteristics, such as livelihoods, income, and financial portfolios
  • Support strategic business development discussions and segmented product innovation process.

 

Access Toolkit

A guidebook and video will help financial sector professionals, consultants and researchers to navigate the portal

Watch the VideoBrowse the guidebook

Scale2Save