Who are the Clients of Savings Banks? A Poverty Assessment of the Clients Reached by Savings Banks in India, Mexico, Tanzania, and Thailand

Publication Date: Jan 2008
Published by: World Savings Banks Institute (WSBI)
Document Type: Paper

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This document presents a study that uses CGAP’s Poverty Assessment Tool (PAT) to measure outreach by saving banks in India, Mexico, Tanzania and Thailand.

This study uses CGAP’s Poverty Assessment Tool (PAT) to examine the poverty levels of clients reached by savings banks worldwide.

The study chose four savings banks across four countries (India, Mexico, Tanzania and Thailand) that represented all major strands of the membership of WSBI to assess:

• Exactly how many poor customers the savings banks reach;
• Whether their poor customers use the services on offer any differently than do better off customers.

CGAP’s Poverty Assessment Tool (PAT) was applied across savings banks.

The main findings were:

• Size matters: As large providers of financial services, savings banks have a larger outreach among the poorest households than most other pro-poor institutions;
• Significant depth of outreach: Savings banks have significant outreach among the poorest households in their countries, especially in rural areas and among women;
• Active product use: The poorest clients actively use their savings accounts;
• Direct distribution and right incentives are crucial: While product design and physical accessibility are important for financial institutions, direct distribution combined with the right set of incentives seems to be the crucial factor behind pro-poor outreach.

Conclusions from the study include:

• The CGAP PAT methodology allows a savings bank to better understand the balance between the breadth and depth of its outreach;
• Some element of direct control of the customer interface and incentives for staff are necessary to actively reach the poorest segments of society.

To access the brief, please click here.