Innovative Products and Adaptations for Rural Finance
This theme paper presents financial products and innovations which improve the management of these products. It details products designed to finance farmers and serve rural households in general and explores innovations in processes based on new technologies in loan analysis and design. It also discusses the characteristics of households, agricultural enterprises and financial institutions that serve them.
Based on experiences gained with innovations in different rural settings, the paper offers suggestions to donors, governments and to the providers of financial services on:
- How to decide which innovations to pursue;
- How to support the innovation process.
It also provides successful and failed examples from different country settings in Latin America and Bangladesh. The paper segregates the examples of innovations into four groups:
- Innovations in lending;
- Innovations in savings;
- Innovations in remittances;
- New technologies which affect several products.
The author concludes with a list of suggestions for institutional stakeholders interested in launching or promoting innovations, that is, financial institutions, donors and governments.
