YouthSave News Flash: Bank of Kathmandu Launches Youth Savings Account for Low-Income Youth
Image taken during Bank of Kathmandu's press meet.
By Rodrigo Sermeno, New America Foundation
The YouthSave Consortium is pleased to announce that on April 25th, the Bank of Kathmandu (BoK) launched its “BoK Chetanshil Yuwa Bachat Yojana (CYBY)” (meaning ‘Conscientious Youth Savings Plan’) – a savings account tailored for low-income youth aged 10 to 22. The product, which was earlier piloted through its branches in Attariya, Surkhet, Bhaktapur and Gongabu, will now be available at all of its 43 branches across Nepal.
Blog: Working with Schools to Improve Youth Financial Capability: Tips from the Field
Children participating in an activity during a financial capability workshop at a school in Colombia.
By Rani Deshpande, Save the Children
When considering how to reach kids with financial capability programming, schools – an aggregation point for hundreds, sometimes thousands of young people – seem like an obvious place to start. However, as YouthSave’s programs in Colombia and Nepal have learned, determining how to successfully work with schools to deliver financial capability programming requires almost as much thought and iteration as designing the intervention itself.
New Podcast: The ‘Youth Voice’ in Youth Savings
By Payal Pathak, New America Foundation
Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya, 50% of which is comprised of youth. In 2011 YouthSave’s financial institution partner, Kenya Post Office Savings began piloting its YouthSave account, SMATA, across a number of its branches, including one in Kenyatta Market just outside of Kibera. In this podcast, we highlight the youth voice, hearing directly from four exceptional young people living in Kibera, on their savings goals, challenges, and plans for the future. The interviews of youth clients in this podcast provide a snapshot of what saving and having a savings account means to many.
Blog: Putting Clients at the Center of the Product Development Process
Picture taken by Jaya Burathoki during YouthSave's financial education workshop in Nepal
By Tanaya Kilara, CGAP
When Proctor and Gamble (P&G) launched a concentrated, non-foaming detergent for low-income people in Mexico, they expected their product to be a big hit because it saved customers valuable money and storage space. Contrary to all expectations, the product flopped! When P&G invested time to listen to clients, they learned that having the foam created by the detergent mixing with water was essential to the customers’ confidence that their clothes were getting clean.
