Leading and Managing Change to Reach Low-Income Savers in Nigeria: A Case Study of LAPO MFB

In August 2018, LAPO Microfinance Bank partnered with the World Savings Bank Institute (WSBI) to develop and implement a change management program to underpin its launch of My Pikin & I (MPI),a savings product backed by health insurance and scholarship grants for those maintaining sustained balances. For microcredit banks, however, adding a micro savings product can be quite a challenge. Though there are technical challenges, the biggest obstacles are often cultural, because working with would-be savers requires a different mentality.

The purpose of this paper is to show the importance and effectiveness of a change management program to underpin the launch of savings products for unbanked low-income customers, and to draw lessons from the experience of a particular institution.