FinTech Partnerships Playbook

This post highlights the FinTech Partnerships Playbook: How donors can pursue private sector engagement to strengthen digital finance ecosystems; a 2019 publication authored by Paul Nelson and made possible by USAID; with special acknowledgments to the Digital Finance team. The Playbook is organized by five objectives that donors can aim to accomplish and avenues for engaging the public and private sectors to achieve each objective. The full Playbook is available to read or download online on the USAID website. 

Objectives:

1. Learn customer needs - identify key pain points and apply insights to design better financial services
2. Improve enabling environment - inform policy-making and strengthen market support functions for financial inclusion and tech-driven innovation
3. Jumpstart market entry - facilitate access to capital or mitigate risk for tech-enabled financial service providers
4. Facilitate ease of adoption - overcome barriers to adoption of FinTech and formal financial services
5. Extend to "last mile" - reach new or underserved communities and businesses
    

This playbook is meant to equip USAID staff and implementing partners to develop and pursue effective private sector engagement (PSE) in the context of digital finance/FinTech and financial inclusion. The playbook is intended to be a tool for brainstorming during program design and PSE as USAID Missions develop programming related to inclusive digital economies.      

The playbook has:  

• Illustrative market-level objectives and intervention strategies (e.g., improve the enabling environment, jumpstart market entry);

• Illustrative examples of PSE in this context; and

• Concise, standalone information on market stakeholders in digital finance ecosystems as well as key questions to ask to identify common market gaps.

The playbook is a complement to a previous tool released by the Digital Finance team: the FinTech Partnerships Checklist: Identifying and Strengthening the Right Digital Finance Partner. The checklist has a two-page set of questions that can help you understand what areas of support a prospective partner (such as a technology vendor or financial services provider) may need to be a positive force in the marketplace.