In August 2018, LAPO Microfinance Bank partnered with the World Savings Bank Institute (WSBI) to develop and implement a change management programme to underpin its launch of the savings product, My Pikin & I (MPI). The five-year programme scale2save (S2S) programme, managed by the WSBI, promotes financial inclusion. Its aim is to aid financial institutions to target those who are financially excluded, and to encourage the unbanked to open accounts and build a savings record giving them access to transaction banking and other financial services such as credit or insurance. When this succeeds, it helps increase self-esteem, self-confidence and entrepreneurship.

LAPO Microfinance Bank, a Scale2Save partner, is a Nigerian lender with over 7,000 staff and more than 500 branches throughout Nigeria, serving over five million clients. In 2018, as part of its collaboration with the Scale2Save programme, it introduced a savings product backed by health insurance and scholarship grants for those maintaining sustained balances.

This was a major mission extension for LAPO; when LAPO lends money as a microfinance institution, a customer arrives at the branch with empty pockets and walks out with cash, leaving the risks at LAPO. but in a savings rationale, the situation is reversed: the customer arrives at the institution with cash aand walks out with empty pockets, assuming the risk that his/her funds will be safeguarded.

To succeed as a deposit-taker requires that the customer has much more faith in a financial institution, to trust it with her or his hard-earned savings. To assume this new role, the institution’s customer advisors must gain understanding of the customer, deploy empathy, and work harder to build the trust of the customer in the institution. Communication must be clear, transparent and consistent.