Business Case
Blog Post: A simple solution for complex needs: How BoK used pilot findings to focus on what really matters
Image courtesy of Save the Children
By Rani Deshpande, Save the Children
Measure twice, cut once
YouthSave’s bank partners began creating their youth savings accounts in 2010, with extensive market research that obtained firsthand information about the savings habits, needs, and preferences of young people. But using these data to design the savings accounts was not enough; the resulting product prototypes still had to be “road-tested” in order to confirm that we had correctly a) interpreted the market research, b) translated it into product designs that met youths’ needs, and c) put in place the right marketing, back-office and sales systems, policies, and delivery channels. In three countries – Ghana, Kenya and Nepal – YouthSave’s bank partners did this through time-bound pilots in a limited number of branches. These pilots yielded valuable lessons that ensured the products’ success when they finally rolled out network-wide in 2012.
Blog Post: New CGAP Report: the Big Questions of Youth Savings
By Tanaya Kilara, CGAP
With over 1.2 billion young people in the world today, the business case for youth savings seems obvious. As I mentioned in my last blog, it is in fact one of the most talked-about topics in the youth financial services space. When CGAP joined the work of the YouthSave consortium to help develop savings products for low-income youth, we focused on studying the business rationale for targeting the youth segment with savings services. But as we began to explore this topic, we realized that the starting point was understanding the lives of youth and that the ‘case’ for youth savings could be a business one, but could also be one for policymakers interested in using savings as a high-impact policy instrument for youth development.
Podcast: Rani Deshpande and Ruth Dueck-Mbeba share their Insights on Youth and Their Money
By Nicole Tosh, New America Foundation
At the recent YouthSave event, Youth and Their Money, Rani Deshpande, Director of YouthSave at Save the Children, and Ruth Dueck-Mbeba, Program Manager at MasterCard Foundation sat down with New America Program Associate, Vishnu Sridharan, to discuss the business case for youth savings, the priorities of the MasterCard Foundation in microsavings and youth savings, and how youth manage their money.
Blog Post: Next Steps in Youth Savings: Policies, Products & Profitability
By Eric Tyler, New America Foundation
