At insight2impact (i2i) we aspire to see financial service providers (FSPs) incorporate data-driven decision-making that ideally enables them to extend financial services to the under- or unserved. 

But what does that really mean; how can an FSP use data to drive financial inclusion? 

To help answer this question, i2i will be offering technical assistance to the Vanguard Group in Ghana. This presents an opportunity to work with an indigenous financial services group that has both insurance and banking divisions, and a particular focus on SMEs. 

Provided with appropriate assistance, the small traders that make up the bulk of Vanguard’s client base, have the potential to transform communities. The leadership of the Vanguard Group is keen to unlock some of this potential and, by adopting a data-driven approach, they intend to extend the group’s offering in the market by cross-selling across banking and insurance.

To do this effectively, Vanguard needs a more holistic view of its customers, specifically what their financial needs and preferences are. 

Employing data science and advanced analytics tools, we will work with the Vanguard Group to better tailor their products to targeted existing customers and new, underserved, customers. This technical assistance project, which is scheduled to run from late August 2017 to end March 2018, will be facilitated by Ixio Analytics.

This is the third technical assistance project undertaken by i2i. We have completed two of these technical assistance projects – one in Kenya with KCB and the other in Uganda with Airtel – both of which explored interesting use cases for leveraging data to extend financial services to under-reached groups of people. The findings of those two projects will be published shortly. 

If you represent a financial services company, which is operating in sub-Saharan Africa and strongly interested in extending services to currently underserved markets, and you are keen to find out more about i2i’s technical assistance offering, please email Nkosi Ncube on nkosi@i2ifacility.org.