Financial Inclusion in Nepal: YouthSave Fits the Bill

The topic of the week in Kathmandu is financial inclusion and as CGAP’s new Financial Access 2010 report shows, Nepal needs it. Trailing behind all South Asian countries except Afghanistan on the financial inclusion front, Nepal provides 4.19 bank branches for every 100,000 adults. However, Nepal remains vigilant and ready to jump on the financial inclusion train, starting with the opening of 216 commercial bank branches in the last fiscal year.

Still, the financial inclusion rhetoric does not and should not stop with banking the adult population.  With roughly 5 million Nepali’s between the ages of 12-18, and an estimated 39 percent of this population already engaged in the workforce, there is an evident market for savings. That is one of the many reasons why the YouthSave Consortium chose Nepal to test youth savings products. Recognizing the demand for savings in Nepal, the YouthSave Consortium is partnering with the Bank of Kathmandu (BoK) to support them with the design and development of products accessible to low-income Nepali youth between the ages of 12-18. BoK has already had success in stimulating account activity from young adults with an unusual add-on to its zero-balance account: 50 free hours of internet usage. These innovations combined with its new partnership with YouthSave, has positioned BoK to continue its exploration of marketable savings products to youth.

Besides the traditional “bricks and mortar” advancements in providing banking services to the vast number of financially excluded in Nepal, other innovations are taking shape as well. Of course I’m talking about mobile-banking, a topic that is nearly impossible to exclude from the financial inclusion discourse. With 7 million mobile phone users and only 3 million bank accounts open in Nepal, it was only a matter of time before Hello Paisa was created. Started by Finaccess, Hello Paisa provides a managed service to banks and financial institutions, with three mobile networking operators sharing this platform.

Soon, with these combined innovations in mobile banking and youth savings accounts, Nepal could be at the forefront of the financial inclusion drive in South Asia.