Youth Savings Patterns and Performance in Ghana

If provided an opportunity to save via formal financial services, do youth participate, save, and accumulate assets? This was a fundamental question in the YouthSave learning agenda. Created in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation, YouthSave investigated the potential of savings accounts as a tool for youth development and financial inclusion in developing countries by codesigning tailored, sustainable savings products with local financial institutions (FIs) and assessing their performance and development outcomes with local researchers. 

The project was an initiative of the YouthSave Consortium led by Save the Children (SC) in partnership with the Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University in St. Louis, the New America Foundation, and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). Research partners (RPs) in the field included Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana, Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA), and New ERA in Nepal. Participating FIs included Banco Caja Social (BCS) in Colombia, HFC Bank in Ghana, Kenya Post Office Savings Bank (Postbank) in Kenya, and Bank of Kathmandu Ltd. (BOK) in Nepal.

Findings from the four participating countries reflect data collected since product rollout through May 31, 2014 and are explored in the 2015 Savings Demand Assessment (SDA) research report Youth Savings Patterns and Performance in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, and Nepal (Johnson et al., 2015). This supplemental report on Ghana’s Enidaso account holders provides additional evidence on the youth response by incorporating data from HFC’s product rollout in May 2012 through November 2014. The report highlights changes in results since the previous data collection in May 2014.

Click here to read the full report.