All Publications
Empowering Small Giants: Inclusive Embedded Finance for Micro-Retailers
This report outlines various business models that incorporate last-mile retailers into digital ordering platforms, offering them convenience, transparency, and a wide range of products.
Banking on Women Who Trade Across Borders
Drawing from interviews across Africa and Latin America, this report explores the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs and proposes solutions.
Women and Equitable Growth in a Resource-Constrained World
This paper addresses the need to reform the international development finance architecture in ways that expand access to affordable credit for women entrepreneurs in the Global South, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
Leveraging Transactional Data for Micro and Small Enterprise Lending
This case study examines the data and experience of two fintechs in India that use different sets of transactional data for credit scoring.
An Introduction to the Small Firm Diaries
The Small Firm Diaries is a global research initiative to better understand small firms in low-income neighborhoods of developing countries, especially the barriers to growth such firms face, through high frequency quantitative and qualitative data collection (“financial diaries”).
How and Why We Finance SMEs
This paper tells the story of BII’s efforts to close the SME financing gap, tries to explain why the gap exists, and examines what the evidence has to say about the development impact of improving access to finance for SMEs.
Universal Trusted Credentials (UTC): Transforming Access to Finance for MSMEs and Beyond
This report outlines the transformative potential of Universal Trusted Credentials (UTCs) and describes the UTC framework, potential use cases, coordination structures, recommended policies, and modes of engagement that stakeholders can engage in.
The Digital Transformation of Small and Micro-Businesses in Bangladesh
This report provides an analysis of the second phase of the Build Back Better—Enhancing Recovery and Resilience of Small and Micro-Businesses (SMB) project in Bangladesh since 2020.
Women and Credit: Access to Credit for Micro and Small Female Entrepreneurs, Including Collective Enterprises in India
This report delves into micro and small women entrepreneurs’ credit journey exploring demand and supply-side factors and provides key recommendations to enhance access to credit for women entrepreneurs.