2015: A year of innovation in Tanzania
The year 2015 marked several key developments: rapidly expanding growth and scope in mobile money services in East Africa; new commitments to addressing financial inclusion, women’s empowerment and poverty alleviation from nations all over the world in the 2015 Global Goals for Sustainable Development; and an increasing interest among formal financial institutions in providing financial services to the under-served, specifically to rural savings groups.
Tanzania in particular is a nation of interest, as recent developments in innovative mobile money technology are creating new opportunities to overcome challenges in financial inclusion. A global leader in digital financial services, Tanzania has become a hub for money transfers and low-interest loan provision through mobile money. Having recently surpassed its neighbour Kenya in total mobile money transactions, Tanzania’s mobile money industry is among the most competitive and innovative in the world. Inter-operational money transfers amongst telecom providers, interest e-payments on mobile wallet balances to customers, credit product rollouts and cross-border remittance capabilities are some examples of innovative products and services emerging from Tanzania’s ICT sector. With telecom giants Airtel, Vodacom and Tigo all contributing to the dynamic shifts in the e-money landscape, opportunities are emerging for major financial service providers to reach new market segments, forge new partnerships and launch new products in pursuit of sustainable financial inclusion.
2016: A year of opportunity
And yet, while innovation abounds, millions remain excluded. CARE’s experience demonstrates that village savings and loan associations (VSLAs) can provide an ideal entry point for financial service providers wishing to reach under-served markets. And we are working with leading banks at all ends of the spectrum in Tanzania – from national giant National Microfinance Bank to community stalwart Mwanga Community Bank – to do just that.
These partnerships are clear win-win-win propositions. Banks or mobile network operators get new high-quality customers and potentially lower their cost of acquiring capital, VSLAs get access to the formal financial services they want, and CARE is able to help groups and their members move up the ladder out of poverty.
Our current efforts aim to enable more than 10,000 VSLAs nationwide to gain access for formal finance. But a key question remains: just how big is the pool of potential ‘savings group’ customers beyond those CARE has helped to form?
In preparation for a recent (October 2015) National Savings Forum in Tanzania, CARE tried to answer that exact question.
Estimating the market size of the unbanked in Tanzania
Using data from the World Bank’s FINDEX database, we estimated that about 17.1 million (61%) of the roughly 28 million Tanzanians aged 15 and over, remain financially excluded. Of these excluded Tanzanians, four key under-served and highly excluded segments emerge: young adults age 15-24 (13.4 million, 68%), rural adults (13.1 million, 67%), adult women (9.2 million, 65%), and low-income and poor adults (8.6 million, 75%).
Further analysis shows that from 2011 to 2014, the proportion of each of these populations saving at formal financial institutions actually declined – with the exception of the poorest 40% of Tanzanians, among whom the proportion saving at formal financial institutions remained at the already low level of 4% over the four-year period.
Yet over the same period, the number of Tanzanians who reported saving in any form increased from 10.3 million to nearly 17 million. Of these, a growing proportion – a total of 3.7 million Tanzanians in 2014 – were saving through mechanisms similar to CARE’s VSLAs.
This figure is important because it represents the total potential market for savings groups in Tanzania. While CARE and others have helped over one million Tanzanians to form and manage their own savings groups, this represents just 27% of the total potential market.
For argument’s sake, let’s assume these individuals are in groups similar in composition and savings potential to those supported by large NGOs operating in the country. Public data from SAVIX on NGO-facilitated Savings Groups in Tanzania reveals that the typical group has 23 members and just under US$48 per member in annual savings. Based the national estimate of savings group members, this would therefore equate to nearly 160,000 savings groups collectively holding more than US$174 million in savings and nearly US$250 million in combined savings and assets. That’s a market opportunity that’s worth paying attention to.
Even if such estimates are off by some degree, they still reveal that a growing proportion of the millions of unbanked Tanzanians are turning to informal mechanisms, notably savings groups, to save their money. For banks, mobile network operators and others hoping to achieve Tanzania’s aggressive (and admirable) financial inclusion targets, these groups should be a top priority market segment in the coming year.
