The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Rural
Poverty has awarded five companies more than US$10.6 million to bolster their
innovative work to alleviate poverty by increasing access to financial services
for poor people in rural Africa.
The companies introduced imaginative
thinking in their approach to scaling up financial inclusion – the increase in
access to services such as mobile banking, savings accounts, insurance and credit
– for the benefit of nearly eight million people in remote parts of Africa.
The Fund for Rural Prosperity also
announced the opening of its 2016 Scaling Competition, a search for other
companies that are working to broaden and deepen financial inclusion at scale in
rural Africa.
The five firms that will receive the money under
the 2015 Fund for Rural Prosperity Scaling Competition are: APA Insurance
Limited, Finserve Africa Ltd./Equitel, M-KOPA LLC, Musoni Kenya Limited and Olam
Uganda Limited.
“There were many impressive companies that
entered this competition with proposals to scale up their work and make a real
difference in the financial lives of people living in poverty,” said Ann Miles,
Director of Financial Inclusion &Youth Livelihoods at The MasterCard
Foundation. “These five, however, displayed an innovative approach backed by a
solid business proposal and a commitment to excellence that convinced us to
support their efforts.”
As a result of the five awards announced in
Accra, Ghana, nearly eight million people in rural areas of Kenya, Tanzania and
Uganda will have access to formal financial services by 2020. Financial
inclusion has been shown to improve peoples’ lives through greater access to
health, education and employment opportunities.
Nick Hughes, Chief Product Officer and
Co-Founder, M-KOPA, said that
“M-KOPA Labs is delighted to be partnering with The MasterCard Foundation to
explore new ways to deliver credit services to rural customers and farmers in
Tanzania, many of whom live beyond the grid and without access to financial
services. The project with The MasterCard Foundation
will be aimed at helping more low income Tanzanians to access clean
energy, agricultural inputs and financial services.”
Fund for
Rural Prosperity 2016 Scaling Competition
The
2016 competition will be open from April 14th to June 10th, 2016. Applications
will be accepted from anywhere in the world but must be implemented in one or
more of eight countries of focus in Africa – Cรดte d’Ivoire, Ghana,
Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
“Last
year, we were very impressed by the quality and originality of applications received
for the Fund for Rural Prosperity’s first Scaling Competition,” said Ann Miles.
“This year, we expect to see proposals from companies active in financial services,
including those working in fintech, insurance and along the agro-industry value
chain. The goal remains the same – to enable larger numbers of people to be
part of the formal financial sector in their countries.”
The
majority of rural households in Africa remain financially excluded. As well, over
70 percent of families in Sub-Saharan Africa derive a large portion of their
income from agricultural activities. Financial service providers meet several
challenges in reaching this population.
High
costs of doing business, lack of staff know-how and inflexible business
structures impede efforts to expand appropriate financial products and services
that would enable rural poor people and smallholder farmers to become
financially included.
The
MasterCard Foundation aims to support projects that have the potential to make
a positive difference.
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