How has this move from cash to digital affected beneficiaries of Bangladesh's primary education stipend? We conducted a field survey using both a quantitative questionnaire and qualitative assessments, with separate modules for school headmasters and mothers with children enrolled in the program. The objective of the survey was to understand the perception and experience of the disbursement of PESP through mobile financial services.
Financial Inclusion
Achieving broad access to digital financial services is a necessary condition for an equitable digital G2P payments program and can open wider opportunities to beneficiaries.
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Digitalization: A Safe Path to a More Inclusive Recovery in Indonesia?
There are two key longstanding structural constraints to inclusive growth in Indonesia—low financial inclusion and limited access to finance—resulting in a large financing gap. Indonesia’s digitalization— growing rapidly in the e-commerce and financial services sector, the latter facilitated by fintech—is helping close this gap. The COVID-19 pandemic will likely serve to further accelerate this digital transformation: adoption of e-commerce and digital payments has increased amidst lockdowns and social distancing. Digitalization...
Beneficiary Experience of Digital Government-to-Person (G2P) Payments in Bangladesh, Colombia, and the Philippines
About 17 percent of the world’s population has received at least one COVID-19-related cash transfer payment since the onset of the pandemic. Many of these transfers have been conducted digitally to efficiently and safely provide economic relief to affected households. Amongst low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) that offered cash transfers, 58 disbursed funds directly to a fully functioning bank account, an account only for benefit withdrawal, or a digital non-bank...
From Digital G2P Payments to Greater Financial Inclusion—Latest Findings from the Philippines
This blog post from IPA summarizes the findings from a survey of SAP 2 transfer beneficiaries in the Philippines. Due to a number of issues under SAP 1, including overcrowding, SAP 2 benefits were distributed digitally through accounts rather than in cash. The survey found that the average recipient was satisfied, despite waiting for about an hour and being charged roughly $1 to cash out. Only 16%, however, were aware...
Toward More Accessible and Inclusive Social Assistance Delivery: A Geospatial Analysis in the Philippines
The Philippines’ experience in implementing the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) in response to the COVID -19 pandemic highlights the pressing need for financial inclusion, especially among the poor. Not only ownership of bank or mobile money accounts but also accessibility to financial services is essential for financial inclusion. This study assesses the challenges and opportunities in financial inclusion, especially among the poor in remote communities. It finds, among other things,...
Behavioral Science for Inclusive and Impactful Digital Payments
This brief guidance note primarily focuses on social assistance G2P payments and includes some selected tips for policymakers and practitioners to consider when designing and implementing digital social assistance programs that aim to increase financial inclusion and economic empowerment among marginalized groups. The tips are derived from previous work done by ideas42 and its partners on using insights from behavioral science to increase financial inclusion and optimize social assistance programs.
Government to Person Transfers: An On-Ramp to Financial Inclusion?
This report seeks to answer the question: Can G2P payments provide an on-ramp to financial inclusion? It does so by focusing on the confluence of three different movements to improve the economic well-being of low-income individuals and households in developing countries: financial inclusion; digital financial services; and government-to-person payments (G2P payments). Its findings suggest that currently there is little indication that G2P payments do result in increased financial inclusion through...