Few financial products and services are developed with the needs of the low-income woman customer in mind or account for the challenges that a low-income woman might face. Many financial products are not set up to sustain the continued interaction required to create the trust that the low-income woman needs to fully embrace formal financial services, while others even create impediments for women to access them. The key, as is often the case, understanding how women are currently saving, what they want from a savings account, and offering a service that improves on their existing options while ensuring that the solution is financially viable for the institution.
The Savings Mobilization approach developed, tried and tested by Women’s World Banking helps banks drive savings deposits by tackling the key barriers that prevent low-income women from saving at the bank. The Savings Mobilization Solution, an integrated behavioral design solution that addresses the deeper behavioral barriers that women face, is geared towards addressing barriers at various touch-points in women customers’ complete savings journey; and addresses their stated needs as well as latent needs.
The Savings Mobilization toolkit is designed to help deposit-taking institutions replicate and implement the Savings Mobilization Solution for low-income women customers. The toolkit follows Women’s World Banking’s women-centered design methodology and provides end to end support for the project team, from assessing your organization’s suitability for the solution, securing necessary internal approval and alignment, through to implementation of the Savings Mobilization solution in the field and monitoring performance. It is a holistic, self-guided blueprint with the means to help a financial institution capture the huge market opportunity that is capturing the low-income women segment through a fitting and relevant savings solution. The toolkit contains sequential sections following a replication methodology, along with practical worksheets and frameworks to first plan for the project and subsequently closely steer the process. It also provides tools to support implementation and eventual monitoring.
