Our support to the #BeSciAfrica movement started with a vision of bringing frontier behavioural insights and tools to Africa's financial services sector and supporting a community that is passionate about enhancing the financial decision-making of society for the greater good.  


Our team at insight2impact welcomed financial service providers (FSPs) from all over Africa and behavioural science experts from Silicon Valley and Silicon Savannah to Cape Town between 18 and 20 June. During the week, we focused our energy on supporting FSPs to translate insights from behavioural science into the design and delivery of financial services, in collaboration with Irrational Labs.


After three days of intense training, nearly 20 FSPs that operate across multiple African countries presented behavioural solutions that they intend to take back into industry. We would like to congratulate all of these FSPs on their successes during the training course and would like to make special mention of Capitec Bank, People's Pension Trust Ghana and Safeboda for taking top prizes on their behaviourally informed solutions!


The week ended on a high note, with the community meet-up in Cape Town, where behavioural scientists from Irrational Labs and Busara Center for Behavioural Economics shared inspiring presentations on innovations and findings from their international work within the financial services sector.
 


What's next for the #BeSciAfrica movement?


The #BeSciAfrica community is a network of passionate individuals who aspire to elevate and bring forward the movement.  insight2impact, proudly funded by the MasterCard Foundation, will pursue a set of activities to support this community, including regular newsletters and webinars on the latest in behavioural science insights and applications. 


If you are interested in the activities of this community follow #BeSciAfrica on twitter or linkedin. If you’re interested in joining future Behavioural Science Academies, reach out to us on bs4fsp@i2ifacility.org. 

 

If you are unfamiliar with the range of behavioural interventions proven to affect people’s financial behaviour – specifically the take-up and usage of financial services – have a look at our database. Launched last year, we have recently added Homepagefive new interventions (bringing the total to 23). The update includes special insights relevant to remittances and insurance:

  • Remittance providers are looking for innovative ways to increase formal remittance flows. A new focus note refers to nine studies that tested four interventions on remittance behaviour. See the key findings Homepagehere. 
  • Insurance take-up in sub-Saharan Africa remains low. Fourteen (14) studies tested 10 interventions on insurance behaviour across eight countries. See which of the interventions have positively affected insurance uptake and usage. Read more Homepagehere.