Youth Savings Services: Are They Worth It? (Event Resources)

Financial inclusion is increasingly seen as a key strategy for developing countries. Given the large and growing size of the youth population, financial services for youth hold the promise of increasing financial inclusion. However, many financial service providers are hesitant to offer services to young people.

Young people can be a challenging cohort to serve—they have constantly evolving financial needs; they often lack financial literacy; and many are geographically isolated. These challenges make it difficult for financial services providers to develop business models to effectively and efficiently serve young people.

This webinar shared the results of an analysis of the costs and revenues incurred by four youth-serving organizations: Banco ADOPEM (Dominican Republic), Cooperativa de Ahorro y Credito Cooprogreso (Ecuador), Cooperativa de Ahorro y Credito San-José (Ecuador) and Nyèsigiso (Mali).

Questions addressed included:

• Are youth services sustainable in the long term?
• How can organizations optimize costs while maintaining quality of services and achieving program objectives?
• What are the primary profitability levers for youth financial services?

During this webinar, Freedom from Hunger shared the results of a recent publication on the experience of Cooprogreso, San José and Nyèsigiso in youth savings and financial education offering and “Advancing Financial Inclusion of Youth,” a free, online interactive module designed to help organizations develop a youth services strategy. Women's World Banking shared “Banking on Youth,” its free, online guide for financial institutions interested in developing or refining their own youth savings programs, as well as preliminary insights from its upcoming publication, which is based on the experience of Banco ADOPEM, on the key steps toward building the business case for youth savings.