At YouthSave’s first stakeholder meeting in Bogotà in early 2011, much of the discussion was about plans: for product design informed by market research, marketing messages, data collection for our learning agenda, and knowledge dissemination based on this work. Fast forward to the end of 2011 and our second stakeholder meeting in Nairobi, and the many new discussions demonstrated how much progress has been made in what seemed like relatively few and surprisingly fast months. As we begin the new year, I'd like to share some of YouthSave's milestones from 2011 and lessons emerging from our Nairobi meeting, as well as reflect on how much we still have left to do and learn as a project.
One of the most exciting things we heard about in Nairobi was how YouthSave’s partner banks have begun to open youth accounts and collect data on them through project-related pilots. Across the pilots in Ghana, Kenya, and Nepal, almost 600 accounts had been opened by the time we met in Nairobi, representing approximately 20 - 50% of partner financial institutions’ pilot targets after anywhere between 2 to 4 months (and in some branches, as little as a week) of piloting. The number of accounts opened has now increased to over 1200.
This milestone represents the result of an immense amount of not only sheer hard work but also creativity, flexibility, and tenacity on the part of the partner banks, YouthSave Consortium members, and research partners alike – and I for one would like to express my appreciation to everyone for making it happen. It was incredible to see young people actually opening accounts at the branches Postbank graciously arranged for us to visit – to watch them fill out the savings demand assessment (SDA) forms with the help of branch staff, and leave with a very smart set of product-related materials. Seeing that tangible outcome of the past two and a half years of joint work was for me truly one of the highlights of 2011.
It was also exciting to hear about the first empirical information flowing from YouthSave’s learning agenda. The descriptive analysis of the baseline survey results in Ghana represented an especially significant piece of work, and it was encouraging to see how it echoed and added depth to the findings of the market research on such questions as how much money youth had, and how and why they saved it. Equally fascinating was the analysis of some of the earliest SDA data, including transaction patterns and amounts, and gender and age distributions. Though currently on a small number of accounts, we look forward to seeing the analysis on much larger numbers of transactions soon!
The business case also provoked much discussion during the meeting: all four partner banks reported taking a long-term view on the business case for youth savings accounts, looking at them as an opportunity to develop “sticky” customer relationships and sell to others within the youths’ networks (indeed, this has already begun to happen during the pilots). Several challenges to the business case were also mentioned, including the likely low average balance per account and the cost of necessary incentives to customers and staff. While these costs challenge youth savings accounts’ (YSAs) stand-alone metrics, the banks agreed that YSAs’ contribution to institutional sustainability need to be measured in terms of customer, not product, profitability.
So where does all this leave us?
With rollouts imminent, in 2012 we are poised to dramatically scale up the number of youth we are reaching with both accounts and financial capability programming. The discussions in Nairobi also highlighted several priorities that we must focus on in order to achieve this next milestone. These include getting the products and delivery right: fine-tuning them through the pilots, extracting and acting on the lessons learned therein, making sure that bank staff internalize the purpose and processes for the products, and getting the products out to where youth really are. We also need to roll out the financial capability work in a way that not only complements the accounts but also delivers the data needed for the learning agenda. Doing so will allow us to not only tell if knowledge and attitudes are changing as a result of this programming, but also to see whether it actually affects behavior in the savings accounts – potentially helping to fill a significant knowledge gap in the field. In order to do this, we also need to continue to refine systems for data collection, so that this important information can be shared and analyzed in the most streamlined manner possible. And we need to articulate the business value of youth savings accounts for financial institutions, with a view to quantifying their contribution to lifetime customer value as data allows.
Finally, one of my core YouthSave New Year resolutions is to do more and better to share our learnings both with each other and with the rest of the field as effectively and quickly as we can. At 18 months into the project, we may be better equipped to do this now than when we set out on this venture. So, if you have ideas on how we can improve in this (or how you can contribute!), please do not hesitate to share them.
As YouthSave goes to scale in 2012, we look forward to scaling up our internal and external collaboration commensurately, in order to make the most of its rich and ambitious agenda. On behalf of the whole YouthSave team, here’s to a successful and satisfying 2012!
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Rani Deshpande