Micro savings,maximum impact.

Objective
1 million more people banked
$16
MILLION INVESTED
6
COUNTRIES IN AFRICA
12
INNOVATIVE PROJECTS
6
YEARS TIMEFRAME
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Young people in Africa
Research showing opportunities for financial service providers in Morocco, Nigeria and Senegal.
How does it work?
Scale2Save is all about micro savings, maximum impact.
A six-year partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and WSBI, Scale2Save is a programme to establish the viability of low–balance savings accounts and to understand the extent to which savings allow vulnerable people to boost their financial resilience and wellbeing.
Programme work is anchored by developing viable business models with a broad mix of financial service providers that create high-usage cases that widen financial inclusion. This occurs by improving the quality of savings, alternative distribution channels and the financial service offer in general. Scale2Save balances project work with research conducted and shared among partner banks and the wider sector.
Scale2Save empowers partner FSPs to become savings–driven, customer-centric institutions by adding value to all stakeholders along the service value chain. That means weaving programme aims into the fabric of partner bank strategies, encouraging needed culture change within their organisations while fostering a continuous learning environment for people working within them.


collaborate
Changing the banking model in Africa
WSBI and Mastercard Foundation collaborate to establish the viability of small-balance savings in six African countries.
Joined by financial service providers (FSPs), shared learning helps the programme test customer–centric solutions that address barriers faced by low-income, underserved and unbanked people via convenient and affordable access to formal savings in six countries across Africa.
Research with partner institutionsand customers inform project interventions.
Scale2Save is a learning programme
9 learning questions guide us throughout the entire process:
Supply Side
What constitutes a viable business model for small scale savings?
What is the value proposition and the right marketing mix (7Ps) for particular segments of financially disadvantaged people?
How does the institutional model affect the ability to offer low balance savings services to the financially excluded?
How and to what extent does institutional change improve the service offer in small scale savings?
What are the external factors that block or facilitate financial service providers’ outreach strategies?
Demand Side
How and to what extent do savings allow customer to increase financial resilience?
To what extent do different groups of young people comprise an untapped market, and how can financial service providers engage with these groups so that they can be better served?
What services do different groups of customers value, prioritize and need, and why do they need these services?
What are the external factors that block or facilitate customers from using financial services?
Supply Side
What constitutes a viable business model for small scale savings?
What is the value proposition and the right marketing mix (7Ps) for particular segments of financially disadvantaged people?
How does the institutional model affect the ability to offer low balance savings services to the financially excluded?
How and to what extent does institutional change improve the service offer in small scale savings?
What are the external factors that block or facilitate financial service providers’ outreach strategies?
Demand Side
How and to what extent do savings allow customer to increase financial resilience?
To what extent do different groups of young people comprise an untapped market, and how can financial service providers engage with these groups so that they can be better served?
What services do different groups of customers value, prioritize and need, and why do they need these services?
What are the external factors that block or facilitate customers from using financial services?
WSBI's journey in encouraging effective and inclusive savings
2000 - 2021
The journey
Early 2000
WSBI's research 'Perspectives' lay out global barriers to access to finance and explain how the savings and retail banking network help overcome them.
Main achievement:
1.3billion
accounts were offered globally through the WSBI network at the time.
2008 - Doubling Savings Accounts programme
A seven-year global partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to drive massive outreach in 10 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Main achievement:
2.2million
new and active savings account customers
4.5million
savers reached
Over30,000
village groups linked up through mobile technology
2,250
service points connected digitally
2015 - Coalition partner
WSBI becomes a coalition partner of the Worldbank Group’s Universal Financial Access Agenda (UFA 2020) committing to 400 million new transaction accounts through the WSBI network.
Main achievement:
1.733billion
WSBI achieves its UFA commitment in 2018 with 1.733 billion accounts.
2016 - Coalition partner
Scale2Save starts operating as a six-year partnership with the Mastercard Foundation in six countries in Africa to drive customer centric solutions for 1 million customers and becomes a partner in the Mastercard Foundation Savings Learning Lab led by Itad.
2018
Scale2Save launches its annual ‘State of the Savings and Retail Banking sector in Africa’ research series to look at the quality of savings and causes of account inactivity and dormancy.
2020
Scale2Save starts looking at better metrics for savings as part of the e-MfP led action group.
PROUD PARTNERS



In collaboration with Mastercard Foundation
The Mastercard Foundation seeks a world where everyone has the opportunity to learn and prosper. The Foundation’s work is guided by its mission to advance learning and promote financial inclusion for people living in poverty. One of the largest foundations in the world, it works almost exclusively in Africa. It was created in 2006 by Mastercard International and operates independently under the governance of its own Board of Directors. The Foundation is based in Toronto, Canada. For more information and to sign up for the Foundation’s newsletter, please visit mastercardfdn.org . Follow the Foundation at @MastercardFdn on Twitter.