CGAP Funding Drives Mobile Expansion

November 16, 2010

CGAP announced today that it's gearing up for the next phase of a program that already has provided the impetus for more than a dozen mobile banking start-ups in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

CGAP's Technology Program, established to drive the expansion of financial services to the world's poorest, is one of numerous organizations benefitting from a recent pledge by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (See related story here.) CGAP's Technology Program is slated to receive $6 million, the second round of funding since the program's inception in 2006.

"The concept works. Now it's time to take it out of the lab and into the mainstream," Tilman Ehbreck, CGAP's CEO said in a statement.

The CGAP Technology Program uses select markets as technology test beds for technologies and services that focus on poor people who lack access to affordable financial services. Based experiences to date, the program aims to advise governments on ways of fostering oversight that ensures balanced growth, and encourages links between mobile banking and remittance services.

CGAP, like many in the field, expects a sea change in the way financial services get delivered. Last year alone, 120 e-money initiatives were launched, worldwide.

And all indications are that branchless banking scales significantly faster and cheaper that traditional microfinance institutions. But there is still a lot more to be done, CGAP explains. There's still a great need for innovative programs that promote savings, insurance and other opportunities to improve their families lives.

"If we are able to take the initial success seen in the limited markets so far and really bring it to the people, we need to go a lot further in demonstrating its successes, its sustainability, and its security for all those involved," Ehbreck said.

154 million people worldwide received micro-loans in 2007; Just 13,000 of these loans were made to Americans.

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