How can financial services, such as credit, deposit accounts, financial transfers, and insurance be provided to people in need? This challenging and complex issue has been a topic of interest for the international aid community for decades. Drawing on renowned experts in microfinance and financial inclusion, this Research Agenda sheds much-needed light on this multifaceted challenge and points the way ahead for future research.

As microfinance is increasingly being absorbed into broader debates on financial inclusion and sustainable development, there is a growing number of professionals operating in international relations and development who are often confronted with sweeping statements about the alleged benefits and risks of microfinance. This book provides a concise introduction to microfinance – the key issues, debates, research agenda and public policy relevance. Illustrated by real-life examples, the book’s sections also highlight key publications and data sources and identify gaps for future research. The book will be an invaluable resource both for development economists and for scholars in neighbouring disciplines who need to get up to speed quickly on the current debates and research in microfinance.

Over recent years millions of people who had been excluded from formal financial services have gained access to financial accounts. While this is a step forward, low use and inactivity keeps account dormancy rates persistently high. In light of this, the financial inclusion community is renewing its efforts to understand the role financial services play in the lives of poor people and how financial services can improve their well-being. We are asking the questions: Financial inclusion for what? What should we invest in? What are the promising welfare-enhancing solutions? Which ones should we experiment with? How do we achieve the nuance required to guide financial inclusion policy decisions that enable financial services to add value to poor people's lives? This book proposes a learning agenda based on extensive consultation with donors, researchers, and practitioners who support financial inclusion.

The book is a contemporary compilation of important research in the area of microfinance and financial inclusion. It explores a plurality of views and experiences from different parts of the world while linking a variety of international research backgrounds. Accordingly the book will fill a gap in providing a carefully curated cross-sectorial selection of topics relevant to the development finance research community primarily but also industry practitioners who are interested in keeping abreast of developing research. Benefits in this regard also include being able to provide a platform to less established researchers offering them a voice in published form.

Microcredit programmes, long considered efficient development tools, now face unprecedented crises in a number of countries. Is this the end of microcredit or rather an essential step in its expansion? Should we stop microcredit altogether or rethink the way it is implemented? Drawing on extensive empirical research conducted in various parts of the world - from Morocco to Senegal to India - this important volume examines the whole chain of microcredit to provide the answers to these questions. In doing so, the authors highlight the diversity of crises, both in intensity and in nature, while also shedding light on a diversity of causes, be it microcredit organizations unprepared for massive growth, saturated local economies or greedy investors and shareholders attracted by profits. Crucially, the authors demonstrate that microcredit is not a monolithic project, and the crises should also be analysed in the light of national histories and policies. An original and necessary intervention in what has become one of the most contentious topics within the development world.

This book explores the role and effect of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) with different dimensions. It is being supported with strong empirical evidence into various parameters of MFIs directed towards inclusive finance and the transformation journey of livelihoods of its beneficiaries. It also incorporates empirical evidence with the perception of both beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries. Starting its journey toward the path of comprehending how MFIs make their footprint among the excluded population in the selected areas, it incorporates the different outcomes of MFI lending like credit utilisation patterns, income generation, and employability. As financial stability helps to break out the vicious cycle of poverty, this book emphasises the self-dependent element for the beneficiaries and their households. It addresses the important issue of the female counterparts in society. It shows how the MFIs work actively to generate female empowerment from multiple dimensions among the selected communities. It addresses key issues to consider for inclusive policy formulation, especially for backward communities in the backward areas and gives a realistic scenario of the MFI activities, their interactions with the respondents, the various outcomes, and areas for further developments, etc. This book is beneficial for academicians, researchers, and policymakers.

In 2011 the World Bank—with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—launched the Global Findex database, the world's most comprehensive data set on how adults save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. Drawing on survey data collected in collaboration with Gallup, Inc., the Global Findex database covers more than 140 economies around the world. The initial survey round was followed by a second one in 2014 and by a third in 2017. Compiled using nationally representative surveys of more than 150,000 adults age 15 and above in over 140 economies, The Global Findex Database 2017: Measuring Financial Inclusion and the Fintech Revolution includes updated indicators on access to and use of formal and informal financial services. It has additional data on the use of financial technology (or fintech), including the use of mobile phones and the Internet to conduct financial transactions. The data reveal opportunities to expand access to financial services among people who do not have an account—the unbanked—as well as to promote greater use of digital financial services among those who do have an account. The Global Findex database has become a mainstay of global efforts to promote financial inclusion. In addition to being widely cited by scholars and development practitioners, Global Findex data are used to track progress toward the World Bank goal of Universal Financial Access by 2020 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The database, the full text of the report, and the underlying country-level data for all figures—along with the questionnaire, the survey methodology, and other relevant materials—are available at www.worldbank.org/globalfindex.