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Field
Trial Title
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Before
Connecting Rural Unserved Communities to Digital Finance
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Improving Access to Finance
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Abstract
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Before
Connecting rural unserved, virgin communities with latent demand for retail digital financial services (DFS) is an important first order policy and commercial question. Perhaps, more important and distinct is our ability to improve the new markets once communities are connected. This project addresses major gaps in research about connecting rural, unserved communities to markets for retail DFS with (i) original data collection — on household, community, and business outcomes — and (ii) a multi-year community-level field experiment testing a scalable approach to retail agent expansions, VSLAs-as-agents. We follow the success of our 2019/2020 detailed pilot work to launch a full RCT in rural Sierra Leone—a market environment that is poorly studied—to answer the following two research questions:
1) RQ1. What are the broader, general equilibrium impacts of connecting unserved, virgin communities with retail DFS?
2) RQ2. Once connected, could letting consumers evaluate their retailers improve the quality of services, consumer usage, and business outcomes, and if so, how?
In a unique collaboration with Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), Orange Money, GT Bank, and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) - Sierra Leone, we implement a large-scale community-level field experiment that encourage Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) to set up and operate as retail DF agents across rural unserved communities in Sierra Leone — a market environment that is poorly studied. Agents are established to offer both mobile money (via Orange Money) and bank services (via GT Bank) in 3 separate phases that span 2022-2024. This is an environment where the penetration of DFS is extremely low and retail agents are “non-existent” in these rural communities, but with latent demand and supply for DFS.
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After
Access to finance remains a crucial barrier for economic development, particularly in rural areas lacking formal financial institutions. In the absence of formal financial institutions, Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) have emerged to partially fill the void, providing limited, informal financial services to their few select members. How might we design and improve access to finance in these markets with latent demand for financial services? In a randomized experiment with the largest service providers in Sierra Leone, we (i) "upgrade" VSLAs to operate as providers of retail mobile money and bank agents across rural unserved, virgin communities. We cross-randomize this with a (ii) feedback mechanism, letting consumers "evaluate" their providers monthly. We then measure effects on broader access to finance, households, and business outcomes, including on consumer satisfaction, complementary effects (if any) on VSLAs, behavior of providers, and the relationship between providers and consumers.
Indeed, connecting rural unserved, virgin communities with latent demand for retail digital financial services (DFS) is an important first order policy and commercial question. Perhaps, more important and distinct is our ability to improve the new markets once communities are connected. This project addresses major gaps in research about improving access to finance with (i) original data collection — on household, community, and business outcomes — and (ii) a multi-year community-level field experiment testing a scalable approach to retail agent expansions, VSLAs-as-agents. We follow the success of our 2019/2020 detailed pilot work to launch a full RCT in rural Sierra Leone—a market environment that is poorly studied—to answer the following two research questions:
1) RQ1. What are the broader, general equilibrium impacts of connecting unserved, virgin communities with retail DFS?
2) RQ2. Once connected, could letting consumers evaluate their providers improve the quality of services, consumer usage and satisfaction, provider effort, provider-customer relationships, and business outcomes, and if so, how?
In a unique collaboration with Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), Orange Money, GT Bank, and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) - Sierra Leone, we implement a large-scale community-level field experiment that encourage Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) to set up and operate as retail DF agents across rural unserved communities in Sierra Leone. Agents or providers are established to offer both mobile money (via Orange Money) and bank services (via GT Bank) in 3 separate phases that span 2022-2024. This is an environment where the penetration of DFS is extremely low and retail agents or providers of formal finance are “non-existent” in these rural communities, but with latent demand and supply for DFS.
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Trial End Date
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June 30, 2024
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December 31, 2025
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Last Published
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Before
August 10, 2023 01:19 PM
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After
October 22, 2025 05:27 PM
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Intervention (Public)
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Before
The study will include two interventions meant to connect unserved communities to retail agents. First, to examine the broader impacts of retail agent expansions, we encourage and onboard existing VSLAs as agents (VSLAs-as- agents) in randomly selected communities (Treatment I). Second, to test improvements in quality of services and consumer usage of DFS, we additionally implement a simple, anonymized feedback mechanism that provides monthly consumer feedback—based on digitized new user reviews or evaluations—to retailers and the community in a random set of connected communities (Treatment II).
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After
The study will include two interventions meant to connect unserved communities to retail agents. First, to examine the broader impacts of providers of formal finance expansions, we encourage and onboard existing VSLAs as agents (VSLAs-as-agents) in randomly selected communities (Treatment I). Second, to test improvements in quality of services, consumer protection practices and consumer usage of DFS, we additionally implement a simple, anonymized feedback mechanism that provides monthly consumer feedback—based on digitized new user reviews or evaluations—to retailers and the community in a random set of connected communities (Treatment II). We implement monthly consumer evaluations and feedback loops to providers.
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Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
For RQ1, we will compare the various Treatments versus Control.
o Key outcomes:
(i) take-up (0/1 indicator for sustained presence of retail agent in community);
(ii) % of people that use financial/DF services (access);
(iii) % of people that engage in money management, such as savings, budgeting, and loan management (utilization and/or knowledge);
(iv) enterprise and VSLA groups sales revenue, number of customers, labor supply (operational hours), business income, assets, and business expenses (enterprise development);
(v) services/DFS quality;
(vi) women/adolescents’ empowerment and agency, including downstream outcomes;
(vii) household expenses/consumption; (viii) shocks mitigation;
(ix) poverty at the community level;
(x) local multiplier (and velocity of money)
For RQ2, we will compare Treatments 1 versus 2.
o Key outcomes:
(i) services/DFS quality (prices, transparency, reliability, customer service);
(ii) consumers usage of DFS/reported happiness/well-being/perceptions;
(iii) business income/outcomes.
These broader impacts allow us to measure general equilibrium effects: (i) direct effects (businesses /VSLAs) and (ii) indirect effects (households e.g., consumption expenditure, shocks mitigation; vs community e.g., poverty, local multiplier; vs commercial providers e.g., revenues).
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After
For RQ1, we will compare the various Treatments versus Control.
o Key outcomes:
(i) take-up (0/1 indicator for sustained presence of retail agent in community);
(ii) % of people that use financial/DF services (access);
(iii) % of people that engage in money management, such as savings, budgeting, and loan management (utilization and/or knowledge);
(iv) enterprise and VSLA groups sales revenue, number of customers, labor supply (operational hours), business income, assets, and business expenses (enterprise development);
(v) services/DFS quality;
(vi) women/adolescents’ empowerment and agency, including downstream outcomes;
(vii) household expenses/consumption; (viii) shocks mitigation;
(ix) poverty at the community level;
(x) local multiplier (and velocity of money);
(xi) similar outcomes under RQ2 below.
For RQ2, we will compare Treatments 1 versus 2.
o Key outcomes:
(i) services/DFS quality (prices, transparency, reliability, customer service);
(ii) consumers usage of DFS; reported happiness; well-being; perceptions/views;
(iii) business income/outcomes;
(iv) relationship between providers and consumer.
(v) similar outcomes under RQ1 above.
These broader impacts allow us to measure general equilibrium effects: (i) direct effects (businesses /VSLAs) and (ii) indirect effects (households e.g., consumption expenditure, shocks mitigation; vs community e.g., poverty, local multiplier; vs providers e.g., revenues).
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Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
We explore two experimental variations: (i) randomized entry of VSLAs-as-retail agents (Treatment I) and (ii) randomized entry of VSLAs-as-retail agents, combined with a consumer feedback mechanism (Treatment II).
*Control communities (Status Quo): No introduction of DF-retail agents or consumer feedback mechanism. (n=50 communities/VSLAs);
*Treatment I: To examine the broader impacts of retail agent expansions, we encourage existing VLSAs in select communities to enrol and operate as retail agents for both Orange Money and GT Bank only. (n=75 communities/VSLAs);
*Treatment II: To test improvements in quality of services and consumer usage in DFS, we additionally implement a simple, anonymized feedback mechanism that provides consumer feedback to enrolled retailers and connected communities. (n=75 communities/VSLAs).
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After
We explore two experimental variations:
(i) randomized entry of VSLAs-as-retail agents (Treatment I: i.e., upgrade VSLAs to operate as providers of formal finance) and
(ii) randomized entry of VSLAs-as-retail agents, combined with a consumer feedback mechanism (Treatment II).
*Control communities (Status Quo): No introduction of DF-retail agents or consumer feedback mechanism. (n=50 communities/VSLAs);
*Treatment I: To examine the broader impacts of retail agent expansions, we encourage existing VLSAs in select communities to enroll and operate as retail agents for both Orange Money and GT Bank only. (n=75 communities/VSLAs);
*Treatment II: To test improvements in quality of services and consumer usage in DFS, we additionally implement a simple, anonymized feedback mechanism that provides consumer feedback to enrolled retailers and connected communities. (n=75 communities/VSLAs).
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Planned Number of Observations
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Before
*200 communities x 15 households / community members (respondent: hh head or customer) = 3,000 hh surveys;
*200 communities x 1 VSLA (respondent: president or treasurer) = 200 businesses;
*Customer reviews surveys: 75 review communities x 30 DF customers each x 3 rounds = 6,750 review surveys;
*Administrative and/or transaction data from providers and CAFOD’s agent monitoring tools - 150 (treatment) communities
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After
*200 communities x 15 households / community members (respondent: hh head or customer) = 3,000 hh surveys;
*200 communities x 1 VSLA (respondents: agent and secretary) = 200 businesses;
*Customer reviews surveys: 75 review communities x 30 DF customers each x 3 rounds = 6,750 review surveys;
*Supplemental administrative data from partner commercial providers (Orange/GT Bank) and CAFOD’s agent monitoring tools - 150 (treatment) communities
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Additional Keyword(s)
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Before
Market Design, Retail DFS, Service Quality, VSLAs-as-Agents
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After
Market Design, Retail DFS, Service Quality, VSLAs-as-Agents, Consumer Evaluations
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