In a new paper for the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI), Mark Napier (the CSFI's first Citi DfiD Development Fellow and editor of a new book on financial innovation in Africa) suggests that innovation by mainstream banks and the mobile phone industry will play a greater role in the future in building financial inclusion rather than in traditional microfinance.

The paper focuses on Africa. Napier reminds us that, in a continent of 900m people, only 8m borrow from microfinance institutions. Just one bank in Kenya, Equity Bank, has over 5m accountholders, and serves more than half of the banked population in Kenya. South African banks successfully rolled out 6m basic bank accounts between 2004 and 2008: most of those opening these accounts had never had a bank account before.

Read the full paper Here