Our Expertise in Microfinance

WWB designs financial products and services that fulfill women’s needs while demonstrating the sustainability and social impact of serving women, “proving the business case.” By providing innovative approaches that we can replicate and scale we can generate impact and prove that investing in women directly can be profitable. By investing in women, we produce a multiplier effect on the well-being of their households and communities.

WWB creates innovative financial products including credit, savings and insurance and works with partners to bring these products to scale. We do this through understanding the financial needs of women and then creating products to fit those needs. By designing tailored products and using marketing and delivery techniques not currently used in microfinance, we seek to give women not only access to financial services, but also control over their assets. WWB also provides institution-strengthening services to support microfinance institutions, including leadership development, gender diversity initiatives, and financial training and support.

Credit for Women

Microfinance has improved the lives of millions of poor people throughout the developing world, first through credit and now increasingly through a full suite of financial services including savings, insurance and other financial products such as pension funds. However, for women living in rural areas, there still exists a gap in access to even the most basic financial services.

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Savings

For the past 30 years microfinance has been a credit focused industry and few organizations were allowed by regulation to offer savings products. However, as more MFIs are becoming regulated institutions, there is an opportunity to help customers build financial stability in their lives by offering savings accounts. WWB research shows that the poor save, generally in small amounts, an estimated 10 to 15 percent of their monthly income. The need for formal savings options is crucial: without them the poor are forced to keep cash at home or in informal savings groups which are risky and money can be lost.

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Social Communications

Can a soap opera change the way people think about money? A new social communications approach shows tremendous promise in changing perceptions of women’s status. In the fall of 2011 WWB launched its newest initiative to encourage women of the Dominican Republic to become better money managers, to build savings and to create a more secure future for themselves and their families. The groundbreaking socially-minded soap opera, “Contracorriente,” produced by and in partnership with Puntos de Encuentro, explores the ways in which media can positively influence financial behavior.

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Youth Savings

Research suggests that by serving a girl at the vulnerable crossroads of adolescence, development programs can have the greatest impact not only on that girl, but can empower her to be a catalyst for change in her family and community. Girls face systemic disadvantages in health, education, nutrition and the burden of household tasks. Many poor girls are forced to marry at very young ages and are subject to sexual violence and physical exploitation.

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Microinsurance

Much of the world’s poor—a majority of whom are women—remain without access to basic financial services including loans, savings accounts, and insurance products. We know from our experience working with microfinance institutions across the globe that healthcare exerts the most financial pressure on poor families given that they have little ability to absorb risk, and that medical emergencies can place a huge burden on households already struggling to stay afloat.

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Integrated Services