Jonathan Morduch, Director
Christina Barrineau, Managing Director
Web Site: www.financialaccess.org
Phone: (212) 998-7536
The Financial Access Initiative (FAI) is a consortium of researchers at NYU, Yale, Harvard and IPA focused on finding answers to how financial sectors can better meet the needs of poor households.
It is based at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, and was launched with an initial 5 year $5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is directed by Professors and primary researchers Jonathan Morduch (New York University), Sendhil Mullainathan (Harvard University), Dean Karlan (Yale University), and led by Managing Director Christina Barrineau.
What is Financial Access?
Financial access refers to the ability of all people to use reliable and
convenient financial instruments to manage their finances and grow their
wealth.
Why is Financial Access Important?
Studies show that there is a strong negative correlation between the degree of
access to finance in a country and the level of poverty – in fact the World
Bank goes as far as to say that access to finance is not simply correlated to
poverty levels but is actually a driver of poverty eradication. Anecdotally, we
can see that without good financial services, those with very little lack the
best means to invest what they have productively or to cope with the major
shocks that inevitably accompany and exacerbate poverty.
What do we know about Financial Access?
Over the past quarter century substantial strides have been made to increase
the access of poor households to quality financial services. Increasingly, we
see financial institutions offering innovative and profitable products that
reach ever poorer and more challenging segments of populations. And yet still,
scores of people – in some countries 80 to 90 percent of their populations –
are excluded for mainstream services.
What is needed to open Access?
To expand financial access process and product innovations, regulatory reforms,
and expanded financial intermediation are all required. While key
decision-makers are eager to move forward, holes in their knowledge slow their
steps.
How can Research help?
The Financial Access Initiative conducts substantive research on what works and
what doesn’t work to open access – and uses this research to inform the policy
decisions necessary to rapidly scale up financial access for the under-served
poor. Most of the research involves collecting data about the conditions and
opportunities of poor households.
FAI will work with decision-makers to identify critical knowledge gaps and then
undertake substantive research to fill these gaps. In many cases, this requires
re-visiting academic debates with new data and putting evidence into
conversation with new ideas from economics, psychology, and sociology. Opening
up questions and placing knowledge in the right hands are critical steps in
enabling more of the poor to exit poverty.
So What Does the Financial Access Initiative Actually Do?
The Initiative has three main activities, each aimed at increasing
policy-relevant knowledge on expanding access to finance:
