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Dear RFILC members,
Our September’s insight issue will start by focusing on a new landscape report by Initiative for Smallholder Finance (ISF) “Protecting growing prosperity: Agricultural insurance in the developing world”. In the past ten years, the field of smallholder finance has grown in both size and complexity. As new players and products have entered the market around the world, there is an ever-present need to understand the many innovative business models and product classes that are developing to support smallholder farmers in their quest for economic advancement. This report highlights the current status and future development of agricultural insurance for smallholder farmers. Based on interviews with more than forty-five key agricultural insurance stakeholders, the research paints a picture of an industry that shows great potential but struggles to achieve the necessary scale and product-level refinements.
The second highlight is a report entitled “FinTech for Financial Inclusion: A Framework for Digital Financial Transformation” conducted by the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI). As the report states, the full potential of FinTech for financial inclusion could be expressed by adopting a strategic framework that regulates the underlying infrastructure, as well as promoting an enabling policy and regulatory environment to support digital financial transformation. Drawing from experiences in a range of emerging, developing, and developed countries, research suggests that the best approach is a staged and sequenced approach that can be easily broken down into four main pillars: (1)building digital identification and e-KYC systems, (2)establishment of digital payment infrastructure and open electronic payments systems, (3)the promotion of account opening and access with the electronic provision of government services, and (4)design of digital financial markets and systems. Digital Financial Transformation is a major journey for any economy, but one that experience increasingly suggests has tremendous potential to transform financial inclusion and support digital economic development.
Finally, the 3rd edition of the Back to Boulder: Strategic Response to Risk in Microfinance Markets program will take place in Washington, DC, on November 26-30, hosted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). This event brings together not only leaders from within and outside of the microfinance community, but also international experts in leadership and change management, to provide participants with practical tools, cases, and experiences in the areas of risk governance, digital financial services and enhanced competitiveness. Through 32 academic hours, participants will have the chance to learn from a faculty of 15 renowned experts.
With best regards,
The RFILC editorial team

- Financial Inclusion Week 2018
- Financial Inclusion and Digital Payment System In Jharkhand
- 9th Annual Responsible Finance Forum: Investing in Responsible Finance and Innovation for Africa’s Digital Economies
- 25th World Congress of Savings and Retail Banks
- Conference on Factoring as a tool for Financing SMEs and Factoring Training Workshop


- Navigating the Next Wave of Blended Finance for Financial Inclusion
- Using Satellite Data to Scale Smallholder Agricultural Insurance
- Understanding Gender Norms in Rural Burkina Faso: A Qualitative Assessment
- Microfinance Barometer 2018 – Microfinance and Profitabilities
- 2018 OECD Survey of Investments Regulation of Pension Funds
- CSAF State of the Sector 2018
- Pro-poor climate risk insurance: The role of community-based organisations
- Working with Smallholders: A Handbook for Firms Building Sustainable Supply Chains
- Somali: Rapid Growth in Mobile Money – Stability or Vulnerability?
- Realizing the Full Potential of Social Safety Nets in Africa
- Inflection Point: Unlocking growth in the era of farmer finance
- Protecting growing prosperity: Agricultural insurance in the developing world
- Emerging Opportunities for the Application of Blockchain in the Agri-food Industry
- FinTech for Financial Inclusion: A Framework for Digital Financial Transformation

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- IFC, Mastercard Foundation Present Key Tool to Expand Digital Financial Inclusion
- Close to 30,000 Rural Ni-Vanuatu to Be Migrated to Electronic Banking
- Brac and Osiris Group Launch Impact Fund for Bangladesh and Other Frontier Markets
- FINCA International Launches FINCA Ventures, an Impact Investing Initiative
- First Money Microfinance of Zimbabwe Offers iSave Debit Card in Partnership with Econet’s Steward Bank