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Featured Resource: Applying Behavioral Economics to Improve Microsavings Outcomes

This webinar in the “Behavioral Approaches for Financial Product Design” series introduced participants to design concepts and principles to use when constructing savings products.

Two common behavioral challenges in savings are that people are not saving, and that people are not saving enough to achieve these goals. Why do these occur?

This session explored these challenges through a behavioral science lense, exploring drivers and bottlenecks in clients' decisions to save. In addition to presenting new ways to understand and overcome these challenges, the presenters shared the practical experience of Swisscontact's savings programming for cocoa farmers in Indonesia.

This session also provided a strong basis from which participants can start thinking about how behavioral design applies to their customers and the savings products they use.

This webinar was organized by SEEP and delivered by ideas42, with the support of MetLife Foundation, as a part of the "Behavioral Approaches for Financial Product Design" webinar series.

Speakers

Marina Dimova

Marina Dimova is a Vice President at ideas42. She designs, tests and scales behaviorally-informed products and programs in consumer finance, international development and financial inclusion. Her work spans projects with U.S. financial institutions aimed at improving financial management behaviors and loan repayment outcomes, as well as the scale-up of a heuristics-based financial management training for microentrepreneurs in developing countries. She also works on the design of pro-poor social programs. Prior to ideas42, Marina was an Associate Director at Ikatu International where she led the strategic research on the design of a youth employment and skills training program in West Africa. She has also worked on agricultural value chains and private sector development with the World Bank, as well as finance and healthcare consulting. Marina holds a BA in Economics and Government from Franklin & Marshall College, and an MPA degree in International Development from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She enjoys road trips, dance, mountains and good conversations.

Dirk Lebe, Swisscontact

Dirk Lebe has a cooperative banking, regional development banking, and microfinance background and has been working 20+ years in the financial sector in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Currently he is Deputy Program Director of the Sustainable Cocoa Production Program (SCPP) in Indonesia and as Financial Services Specialist implementing the Agribusiness Financing Facility (AFF), promoting responsible Access to Finance (A2F) for cocoa farmers. It is an illusion that every single farmer is eligible for loans, therefore the program focusses on savings as most important financial service for farmers. Dirk holds a PhD in economics.