Financial Inclusion and Savings Promotion in Eastern Ghana 2013-2014: Baseline and Endline Surveys (Ghana)

Abstract

Even though individuals throughout Africa employ numerous informal savings mechanisms, only a quarter of individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa have bank accounts, and these savers only keep a small proportion of their savings in these accounts. Yet banks could provide more secure and private storage of funds, and offer positive interest rates. The World Bank and North Volta Rural Bank jointly designed this study with the objective of testing the impact of new banking products and services designed to attract more (and lower income) customers, and to attract a higher percentage of individuals’ savings. The new services tested as part of this study included a savings deposit collection service in which collectors visit customers regularly at home or work to collect savings deposits, and a separate service in which customers were given lockboxes. These were tested alone, and in combination. This study was designed to ensure the operational viability of the deposit collection and lockbox services for NVRB, and to make a preliminary assessment of the impacts of these services on customers and NVRB before further scaling-up these services within NVRB.

192 individuals completed the baseline survey, and 174 of these individuals completed the endline survey. The study sample is comprised of both banked and unbanked individuals, and is half male and half female.