https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwvZxiil_X4
Access to financial services is often a powerful tool to lift people in need out of poverty.
If technology continues to drive financial inclusion through services such as mobile-money, 1.7 billion adults in the world still remain unbanked.
But the 2/3 of the unbanked, lack of money is the biggest constraint. Hence, if digital finance services can help billions of people in the world to engage in financial transactions, the poorest households remain financially excluded and 70% of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in emerging markets still lack access to credit.
“Brightlife is really interested in the intersection between access to finance and access to energy and how the two actually work together. We are trying to understand how we can build pathways to more impactful financial inclusion for unbanked or underbanked energy customers.” says Stefan Grundmann, President & CEO, Brightlife, a venture of FINCA International using PaygOps for its last-mile operations.
Universal access to energy remains one of the biggest barrier to economic development. Pairing energy access to financial services could help improve the daily lives of the one billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa still lacking access to clean and affordable electricity, taking one more step toward eradicating poverty in the world.
“Energy provides an important pathway to comprehensive financial inclusion and at the same time, financial inclusion helps low income customers climb the energy ladder. The interplay between access to finance and access to energy is in many ways reimagining what the bank of tomorrow may look like.” adds Stefan Grundmann.
Together, BrightLife, a venture of FINCA International and Solaris Offgrid are associating Digital Finance Services with inclusive solar Paygo technologies, to advance financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 66% of adults are still excluded from the formal financial system.
About:
Solaris Offgrid supports solar energy distributors to build strong customer traction and greater relations with investors through flexible and inclusive Paygo solutions, designed for last-mile operations. Adopting a bottom up approach in the design of its solutions and creating synergies with a strong network of partners to solve last-mile challenges, the company has already deployed Paygo solutions in nearly 20 countries through PaygOps, Solaris Offgrid in-house software solution built “In the Field, for the Field” and its proprietary hardware solutions. Leading reference in the off-grid solar market, PaygOps, is engineered to deliver modular and interoperable solutions to address off-grid energy access challenges and distribution complexity.
For more information on PaygOps, please contact enquiries@solarisoffgrid.com.