The Future is Now: Strategies to Improve Financial Health

“Change is a very difficult thing to do. Change is hard” – Evelyn Stark, MetLife Foundation

Financial institutions really trod a different path when they first extended microcredit and microfinance. But over time, their base of customers evolved. We moved into a world of hyper digitization. However, several financial institutions found it difficult, impossible even, to keep up with the changes.

We knew the day we started the OPTIX project that it would be a long and challenging road ahead, as we had ambitioned ourselves to work with financial institutions in four different countries- SAJIDA Foundation in Bangladesh, Banco W in Colombia, Acreimex in Mexico, and CEP in Vietnam. Little had we realized that the result would far exceed what we could have ever imagined and that we would be able to make a real difference to the financial health of their customers.

Three years hence, we have successfully helped these brick-and-mortar financial institutions to improve their financial product portfolios to serve their customer needs and also helped them to streamline their internal processes. After developing 20 pathways towards better financial health, 12 digital tools, 8 product combinations, 4 Fintech partnerships, 119 staff trainings and crunching over 220 gigabytes of data, together, we have been able to reach over 1 million people on low incomes in these four countries.

As these financial institutions continue their journey to meet the needs of their evolving customers, we hope that we have set them on the right path, and they continue to grow stronger. Watch this video to learn more about the OPTIX Project, co-designed by BFA, and MetLife Foundation.