Bridging The Digital Divide In The Fight Against Global Poverty

Digital banking is something most of us take for granted. Months can go by without the need to enter a bank branch. Making bill payments, depositing paycheques, transferring funds, and even arranging loans are all carried out online using seamless and secure digital banking apps. 

Access to digital financial services is also an essential part of normal business operations, facilitating accounts receivable and payable, lines of credit, payroll, market intelligence, supply chain management, enterprise resource management, etc.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for social distancing, this has become even more vital, accelerating the migration of many financial transactions to the digital space.

Access to digital financial services is equally vital to the success of microentrepreneurs near the bottom of the global economy, and particularly so during this pandemic. 

Opportunity International Canada fights poverty through financial inclusion. Increasingly, financial inclusion is closely aligned with digital inclusion.

And yet consider that 750 million people, disproportionately women, do not own a mobile phone, and 3.5 billion people can’t access the internet due to digital illiteracy, implying that almost 4.3 billion people are digitally excluded.

Our staff team recently enjoyed an informative and inspiring presentation from Rosa Wang, Opportunity International’s Global Director for Digital Financial Services (DFS).

For ten years, Rosa and her team have been working with our microfinance institution (MFI) Implementing Partners to bring the benefits of digital access to our microenterprise clients.  Rosa shared how technology-enabled solutions are vital to reaching and serving the poor. 

We work with local Partners who provide technical assistance to develop effective digital financial services, products, channels, and processes that can sustainably reach and serve the most marginalized groups.

And because women are much more likely to be digitally excluded than men, we also carry out in-depth research on the specific needs and hesitancies of women and provide specific training tools that directly address these technology barriers.

In a recent Pilot Project among members of a microentrepreneur Trust Group in Mozambique, the plan was to provide smartphones because of the data and app potential.  However, these women reside in rural areas with very limited access to electricity, making it difficult to provide the needed daily charge. In the end, a solution was found with simpler low-feature phones that provided the needed access and data capture, using phones that retained a charge that lasted almost two weeks.

Targeted applications include interactive voice response (IVR) and icon-driven menus to help overcome the challenges of illiteracy.  This was critical with the onset of the pandemic, as IVR systems educated millions about COVID-19 prevention. The system is also used to provide financial literacy and business training, as well as facilitate banking transactions.

The change in perspective of an illiterate and digitally excluded client, when she acquires the technology and learns how to use it to grow her business, is simply inspiring.  She gains confidence and is able to integrate more fully as a leader with her family and community. Digital inclusion has quite simply become part of the holistic journey of transformation that is the goal of Opportunity International.

And the Opportunity International DFS Team has seen some considerable gains over the past decade.

There are now 5.7 million clients with a digital account through 21 microfinance institution Partners. And 48,000 clients in Africa actively use cellphone banking and IVR, a 90% increase since January 2019.  In Asia, millions of accounts are opened biometrically, there are 528 female agents and 1.3 million clients who received digital literacy training.

Looking ahead to 2021, the Opportunity International team plans to expand DFS services to more countries and regions, including Latin America, expanding the number and diversity of Partners on the ground.  We also plan to scale the gender work through training the trainers to help bridge the digital inclusion gender gap.

Digital solutions to meet the needs of clients are more important in today’s world than ever. Our high-touch, high-tech digital solutions connect even the most rural communities to the financial tools and training they need to build their businesses and support their families.