This post is part of our Closing the Gap: Financial Inclusion blog series, which shares the views of selected experts and practitioners on different financial inclusion topics.

WSBI works with savings banks in the developing world to increase the number of savings accounts for the poor. The ten participating banks are KPOSB Kenya, LPB Lesotho, PBU Uganda, SAPB South Africa, Al Barid Bank Morocco, Sistema Fedécredito El Salvador, Sonapost Burkina Faso, TPB Tanzania, Bank BTN Indonesia, and VPSC Vietnam. We recently surveyed the progress of eight of these ten banks and the results are promising.

We've found that the poor are not so different in their needs than the mass market of which they constitute the largest part. The mass retail banking model to which most WSBI members aspire provides services that encapsulate the needs of poorer markets. In short, universal is pro-poor, but this will only be accepted when savings banks demonstrate increased use of their products and services by the poor. Affordability is, of course, key, and it can be achieved even when customers are poor rural householders, but only by shifting the transaction mix from cash to electronic.

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