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Savings provides an important safety net, a source of investment capital, and a way to achieve important life goals. Additionally, recent research illustrates the importance of savings in transforming the lives of the poor. Sinapi Aba, a poverty-focused financial service provider, in Ghana, is finding innovative ways to help low-income customers , particularly women - realize their savings goals. Their strategy? Combining personal service with digital efficiency.

In addition to offering savings services to their "working poor" clients, Sinapi Aba is driven to mobilize deposits as a low-cost source of capital to support lending to microenterprise clients. In 2016, Sinapi Aba engaged Bankable Frontier Associates (BFA) to conduct a financial analysis of their savings services, and develop a tool to regularly compare the financial performance of different savings products and channels.

This webinar covered the specifics of Sinapi's dual savings-mobilization strategy, discussed what their customers like , and don't like , and saw how BFA's tool is helping Sinapi Aba to enhance financial sustainability of savings services.

The webinar was a joint presentation of:

Sinapi Aba Savings and Loans, Ghana , financial service provider

Opportunity International , technical advisor and action-learning partner

Bankable Frontier Associates , technical advisors, developers of the financial analysis tool

UNCDF MicroLead , action-learning facilitator and program funder

Speakers

Jeff Abrams, Senior Associate, Bankable Frontier Associates (BFA)

Jeff Abrams is a Senior Associate at BFA, and former Director of BFA's Business Insights team. Since joining in 2008, Jeff has focused on business model development and analysis, product development, and other analysis of market-based initiatives to extend the "bankable frontier" for effective savings and credit offerings, including a particular interest in affordable housing finance. Jeff has led numerous detailed profitability analyses of bank and other financial institutions, looking closely at both loan and especially savings products. Jeff is a licensed attorney, and also owns and manages GT Housing LLC, owner of 18 housing units around Greater Boston. The common thread between his housing interest at BFA and his GT Housing work is a core interest in affordable housing and in particular the economic and welfare benefits accruing to individuals and the economy from investing in housing improvements, and recognition that prudent investment analysis and understanding property rights are critical to optimize this dynamic.

Kwaku Acheampong, Corportate Planning Manager, Sinapi Aba Savings and Loans

Kwaku Acheampong is currently the Corporate Planning Manager of Sinapi Aba Savings and Loans. Over the past eight (8) years, he has served in several capacities at Sinapi Aba; one of the largest Savings and Loans Companies in Ghana with a core mandate to transform lives at the bottom of the pyramid through microfinance. In his current role, he serves as the direct intermediary between Sinapi Aba and several other stakeholders to deliver reports on operational indicators and financial ratios. Kwaku is an initiator with a proven record of designing and initiating key projects. He played a key role in the design and implementation of the IDPRS, Edify, and Opportunity International Deutschland Micro School Programs (an innovative intervention for rural private schools). Kwaku holds an MBA in Finance from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and a BSc. Planning Degree from the same university. He also holds a certificate Diploma in Financial Management from the Institute of Commercial Management U.K.

Moderator

Mary Pat McVay, Research and Knowledge Manager, Opportunity International

Mary Pat McVay has been engaged in microenterprise development for 30 years, with a focus on sustainable value chain development in rural and urban contexts. In Kenya in the 1980s and 1990s, she also collaborated with NGOs launching Grameen-style microfinance practices. For a decade, working as an independent consultant, Mary Pat supported the SEEP Network and the ILO to document and disseminate sustainable market development practices. Since 2015, she has been a Research and Knowledge Manager with Opportunity International, and leads research in digital finance, savings mobilization, agricultural finance and women's empowerment. Under a UNCDF project, she helped Sinapi Aba analyze and document the launch of their savings services and re-branding as they transitioned from an NGO-owned MFI to regulated savings and loans institution. Her most recent publications include briefs on client journey mapping, savings-client segmentation, partnerships in value chain finance, and a pilot women's empowerment initiative in AgFinance in Mozambique.