From Access to Inclusion: Educating Clients

"...using media and audiovisual campaigns is a powerful channel in reaching to un- and underbanked populations and providing low-income women with relevant financial education messages that will help them make full use of the financial products available to them."

This report addresses the use of two strategies - mass media campaigns and one-to-one outreach by financial institutions - to provide financial education to low-income women in order to promote increased usage of financial products. Research by Women's World Banking, which includes analysis of the ways women's financial lives are shaped by family responsibilities, cultural norms, and self-image, indicates that people with the most need for microfinance products, such as small business loans, savings accounts, and microinsurance, often fail to use the services not because of lack of access, but, rather, due to inexperience with the formal financial sector.

The paper begins by providing case studies of 3 different communication projects using the entertainment-education strategy in the form of televised soap operas for financial literacy.

First, in the Dominican Republic, Women's World Banking worked with Banco ADOPEM to develop and pilot an 18-episode soap opera that combined education and entertainment to encourage women to open a savings account and to save regularly. Broadcast on national and regional channels, the telenovela, Contracorriente, included several storylines on savings and money management as well as other social themes such as exploitation and gender identity. In parallel, Banco ADOPEM initiated a national campaign using TV, radio, and billboards to encourage women to save. Banco ADOPEM promoted the series and money management lessons throughout its branches and training centres and through events for clients and the general public, including a 2-week cast tour focusing on financial education. The project also included classroom training for clients that delved deeper into the financial messages of the series. The 7-session training was interactive and discussion-based, using a trainer's guide and clips from the series. ADOPEM NGO, a sister organisation, provided direct financial training to more than 460 clients. It also conducted a training-of-trainers with 18 NGOs.

The show reached an average of 110,000 weekly viewers. Watching the show 5 times or more had a positive impact on viewers' financial management as measured by: reducing personal or household expenditures; having a household budget or regularly putting money aside; and scoring higher on the household financial management index developed by the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). Those who identified with a character or theme in the show had an especially strong increase in financial management. Throughout the duration of the project, from September 2011 to September 2012, there was a 37% growth in active savings accounts, from 73,049 to 99,814. The average account balance also grew by 29%, from DOP 871 to 1,124 (or about US$ 21 to 28). Twenty-seven percent of the active account holders and 13% of the inactive account holders who participated in the training showed a 10% or more increase in their account balances in the 3 months following training. This was in comparison to the control groups in which only 3% of inactive clients and 8% of the active clients drove a comparable increase in the same period.

Second, Women's World Banking partnered with an existing social soap opera, Mucho Corazon, in Chiapas, Mexico, to develop and integrate financial education messages and storylines about the principles of savings in 7 episodes during a 10-week period. The goal was not to connect viewers with specific banking products or to guide them toward a bank branch but, rather, to promote financial literacy messages and useful money management strategies, especially among indigenous women. The show's financial plots showed recurring characters dealing with situations in a way that would be believable to viewers; one family brainstormed how to save bit-by-bit to reach their goal of buying a new irrigation pump. A companion talk show, Hablemos de Mucho Corazon, hosted by local financial "celebrities", accompanied the broadcast to discuss the financial topics from that episode. As part of qualitative research, women said that the drama motivated them to start their own small businesses and that financial independence is possible. Yet, the majority said they were unable to put money aside and didn't know how to set saving goals given constrained resources.

Third, Women's World Banking partnered with the producers of Makutano Junction (see Related Summaries, below), a weekly television drama set in a typical Kenyan village that portrays characters and storylines that are relatable to most low-income Kenyans. Having conducted extensive market research to identify the main psychological barriers to women's banking, Women's World Banking worked with the show's producers to develop a storyline that featured a fictitious bank branch whose manager launched a campaign to get more women to save - Nawiri Dada, meaning "Sisters Achieve" in Swahili. After each episode, viewers were encouraged to visit a partner bank or text message to get more information through a leaflet in the mail containing more information about that episode's topic and contact information for each of the partner banks. A TV commercial featuring both Makutano Junction cast members and partner banks sought to build awareness of the campaign, encourage viewers to watch the show, and link the campaign to partner banks. Print advertisements in The Nation, Kenya's highest-circulation newspaper, announced each new series. Partner banks received exclusive access to 2 Makutano Junction cast members for use in promotional materials and events. Customised flyers and posters were developed for each partner bank; field staff used these to talk to clients.

Eighty-three percent of viewers said they had received financial information from TV in the last 3 months; and 63 percent of viewers, compared with 40% of those who hadn't seen Makutano Junction, said that TV provided the most useful information on the topic. Impact study results revealed that viewers were more likely than non-viewers to know basic account information that had been presented on the show. Furthermore, among viewers of the show, approximately 138,000 low-income women opened accounts during the campaign. There was no change in account ownership among non-viewers. Makutano Junction was a leading driver for women who opened an account as a result of the Nawiri Dada campaign: 38% cited it as primary reason, while 62% said it was the secondary reason. Focus group participants consistently remembered the core lessons portrayed on the show, including the concepts that everyone is eligible to open a bank account, banks are the safest place to keep money, banks encourage one to save, and opening an account is free. Non-viewers were almost twice as likely as viewers to have withdrawn from a savings account 3 or 4 times in the last 3 months (38% vs. 20%); this corresponds to storylines that discussed the value of using a bank account to save toward a goal.

Noting that classroom education as a stand-alone activity does not usually impact long-term behaviour, the paper next showcases details of Women's World Banking's use of training in conjunction with existing client interactions such as branch visits, group meetings, or doorstep and agent banking. India's SEWA Bank wanted to explore a way to integrate financial education more directly into the business by linking it to financial targets and daily routine. Having conducted focus groups and in-depth interviews, Women's World Banking developed and piloted a process involving the provision of short, frequent financial education messages when clients are open to receiving them, rather than trying to fit classroom training into their busy lives. It centred on SEWA's doorstep banking services run by saathis: trusted women from the community who act as credit and savings collection officers and are a source for clients' account details. The pilot, which began in 2011, focused on an initial group of 2 financial education trainers, 10 saathis, and 300 customers. The trainer offered short, small-group financial education sessions to customers in their neighborhoods, during which clients created savings goals and plans. In the field, the saathis' new mobile devices, which had a visual follow-up calendar and a customer identification system were used to show financial education videos to customers during home visits and to graphically illustrate how customers' accounts were growing.

At the end of the pilot, 47% of customers who went through the training increased their savings by 10% or more, vs. 15% of customers in the control group. Of those whose accounts had been deactivated, 71% who went through the training began saving again with SEWA Bank, compared with 7% in the control group.

Key lessons from these engagements include:

• Financial education campaigns should be holistic endeavours that target each point along the customer's experience - awareness, consideration, trial, repeat/continued use. Financial institutions should view every interaction between a client and a bank as an opportunity to reinforce basic messages; classroom training should be combined with integration of key messages during agent and branch visits and through marketing materials.
• Financial education has to be accessible, practical, and relevant - e.g., by connecting saving to clients' goals and offered a simple plan to achieve them.
• Messages must be reinforced - e.g., through simple visuals introduced in training that are repeated on a passbook.
• Frequent episodes aired at a convenient time are necessary to build an audience and reinforce messages. Entrants to the TV market to provide education should partner with established media programmes to leverage their reach and expertise and share development and production costs.
• It is important to select moments when the client is most open to receiving information. On the mass level, portray key messages through relateable storylines and characters in popular TV or radio shows, and for individual interactions, a visual ATM guide can serve as a "cheat sheet".
• Women relate to and remember storylines that are most relevant to them. For instance, unbanked women were motivated by scenes of the fictitious branch manager in Makutano Junction visiting the market women and taking time to explain how a bank account works, one-on-one.
• Partners should be involved before any stories are developed to ensure alignment across partners and agreement on key messages.
• The financial messages and specific call to action (e.g., open a savings account) should be explicit and relevant in both a media series and its affiliated marketing and communication campaign efforts; everyone who views/hears a mass media message should be able to take action to learn more and access a product. Re-broadcast TV/radio shows and repackage relevant clips for use in branches, financial education classes, social media, and events.
• Up-to-date customer demand research is important for financial education, and rigorous evaluation throughout the process can help identify components that are working and provide opportunities to make adjustments for future initiatives.
• Organisational change may be required to make results measurable. Monitoring the progress of integrating financial education in a way that aligns with the realities of an organisation's existing processes and constraints can be crucial. New processes of this scope may require a dedicated staff person to manage implementation. Transparency for staff is also key; everyone must have access to targets and progress against targets.