MicroSave

Established in Africa in 1998, MicroSave emerged as one of the world’s training, technical resource and technical assistance centre. MicroSave’s studies are allegedly referenced to in much of the leading literature on microfinance.

Overview
Over the last decade, MicroSave has focused in providing marker-led solutions for the delivery of financial services to the poor. MicroSave was a founding member of the Product Development Taskforce, which was established by CGAP to promote a coherent and high-quality approach to the development of toolkits and training around this growth area in microfinance.
MicroSave’s puts emphasis on the interplay between its study, Action Research Partner (ARP) and toolkit development programmes, which supports to identify practice-based issues, conduct market and ARP practice-based studies for providing financial solutions for the poor, disseminate practice-based practical training toolkits and information
MicroSave follows an approach of a market-led and client-responsive approach to deliver financial services among microfinance institutions (MFIs). The four-pronged approached followed by MicroSave are:
# Research Activities: Primary field-level research regarding the financial service needs and preferences of the poor,
# Action Research Programmes: working intensively on the ground with a selected group of microfinance institutions (MFIs),
# Toolkit and curriculum development for ARPs and Consulting Clients
# Training and extensive information dissemination.
MicroSave aims at strengthening the capacity of financial service providers through offering strategic advice, the dissemination of information, the development of toolkits and practice-focused training. MicroSave works with financial service providers and those that provide them with technical and financial services to support their work.
MicroSave advocates a market-led approach, keeping a client-centric perspective in the context of competitive environments. It promotes financial solutions that respond to customer or institutional problems through sharing lessons and facilitating innovations for those at the bottom of the pyramid.

Areas of activity
MicroSave has experience in providing financial service advice to microfinance institutions, Banks, Post banks and microfinance programmes. MicroSave does this through a wide range of services that include:
• Market research to develop popular and profitable products

• Strategic marketing to bring senior management focus to organisation’s corporate branding strategy, product marketing strategy and business channel and customer service strategy
• Process mapping to design procedures that are efficient and secure and appropriate for customers
• Pilot testing and rollout to develop winning financial services that are highly valued by customers
• Staff incentive schemes that reward staff performance in a fair and transparent manner, encourage growth, while retaining quality in loan portfolios. Review and optimise existing schemes.
• Customer service to develop service levels which win customers, through understanding drivers of service levels within an institution, developing and communicating a customer service strategy and monitoring levels of customer service
• Loan portfolio audit to review and revive loan portfolios
• Product and institutional risk analysis to manage operational risk which is at the heart of the Basel II requirements, to identify risks and risk owners, and develop risk manuals
• Product costing and pricing to ensure profitable products and Individual lending to develop and refine cash-flow based individual lending products and services
• Corporate branding to ensure brand relevance in a rapidly changing environment and to win customers
• Human resource management to optimise HR strategies, to retain and attract the right staff
• Business channel development and electronic banking, to build strong business cases and attractive customer value propositions
• Training of Trainers: Teach staff how to train effectively, to deliver internal training that brings results
Training:
Develop tailored training courses for staff that address institution’s specific concerns, building on MicroSave’s extensive existing database of training materials
Action Research Programme
MicroSave works with Action Research Partner financial institutions to assist them to deliver market-led financial services to the low-income market. This approach encompasses analysis of clients’ demand and views; corporate brand and identity development and communication; product development, testing and rollout; product costing, pricing and marketing; staff incentives; customer service and delivery systems.
MicroSaves role is to ensure that its Action Research Partners have an adequate understanding of the issues involved in moving from product design to full scale implementation, including operations and other supply side issues.

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