2020 EUROPEAN MICROFINANCE AWARD
The 2020 European Microfinance Award 2020 “Encouraging Effective & Inclusive Savings" highlights the crucial role that savings can play for low-income and excluded populations, and how financial providers can encourage their effective and widespread use.
Muktinath Bikas Bank Ltd. - Nepal
WINNER
Muktinath Bikas Bank Ltd. (MBB) is a leading National Development Bank in Nepal with the social mission of financial inclusion of the community which serves poor households and low income women with a range of banking products.
To reach its targeted population, MBB designed an adapted solidarity group savings model with doorstep services, encouraging positive savings activity via a combination of mandatory and interest-earning voluntary savings, including dedicated pension and insurance savings products, alongside extensive financial education.
Muktinath Bikas Bank LTD. was awarded the prize of €100,000 on November19th in recognition for its incentivised solidarity-based group savings model.
Buusaa Gonafaa Microfinance S.C. - Ethiopia
Runner-up
Buusaa Gonofaa Microfinance S.C. (BG) is an Ethiopian Microfinance Institution (MFI) founded in 1999 with a particular focus on women, landless youth and smallholder farmers. BG provides credit, savings and agriculture value chain financing to improve their livehood. The MFI is licensed and supervised by the National Bank of Ethiopia.
BG was selected for its high-touch saving initiative called ‘Dejaf Iqub’, which offers a safe, easy and appealing way of saving through regular doorstep collection of goal-based small deposits. Dejaf Iqub targets informal microentrepreneurs operators with active cash flows who run businesses in densely populated market centres.
Buusaa Gonofaa, as runner-up, received €10,000 in recognition for its doorstep savings initiative.
RENACA-Bénin
RUNNER-UP
RENACA-Bénin (REseau NAtional des Caisses villageoises d'Epargne et de Crédit Autogérées du Bénin) is a union of cooperatives in Benin which mainly targets low income and vulnerable populations predominantly in rural areas.
RENACA’s savings initiative focuses on doorstep collection of local savings via a wide range of products (‘tontine’ doorstep models, term deposits and demand deposits), and promotion of savings through community savings and credit groups, supported by a mobile application and use of tablets for secure and trustworthy client transactions. These products are backed up by a wide range of financial education and other non-financial services.