By Alejandra Montes and Dasha Kosmynina, Save the Children

At the second annual Child and Youth Finance International(CYFI) Summit awards ceremony last week in Istanbul, Colombia received an award for Global Money Week 2013, a week long set of activities in which “children and youth from across the world learn about saving, banking, giving back to the community and sparking their entrepreneurial spirit,” organized by the CYFI movement.  According to CYFI, 80 countries, 185 institutions, and 1 million children officially participated in over 1000 organized activities throughout Global Money Week, which ran from March 15 to 21, 2013.

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. 

Originally posted on the Center for Financial Inclusion Blog.

By Julia Arnold, New America Foundation