Fintech for the Water Sector : Advancing Financial Inclusion for More Equitable Access to Water
For many low-income households in the developing world, incomes are highly variable and uncertain. High up-front costs combined with irregular incomes result in unequal access to water, sanitation, and irrigation. Households typically can, and shou...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/387931552667416907/Fintech-for-the-Water-Sector-Advancing-Financial-Inclusion-for-More-Equitable-Access-to-Water http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31417 |
| Summary: | For many low-income households in the
developing world, incomes are highly variable and uncertain.
High up-front costs combined with irregular incomes result
in unequal access to water, sanitation, and irrigation.
Households typically can, and should, cover the costs of
accessing water resources, but they cannot do this without
help. Financial inclusion can help households access water
resources. Financial inclusion focuses on ensuring everyone
has access to useful and affordable financial products and
services, including transactions, payments, savings, credit,
and insurance. The emerging field of financial technology
(fintech) can help address barriers to financial inclusion
in the water sector while potentially reducing or
eliminating the need for subsidy. Fintech solutions already
address some of the needs of developing-nation
households—applications include payments and mobile money,
pay-as-you-go (PAYG) models, insurance technology
(insurtech), and virtual banks. This paper explores how
fintech can support expansion of market-based solutions for
water, sanitation, and irrigation, identifying several use
cases where fintech is already being used to address
financial inclusion and access to water. In addition to ways
that fintech can help households access water supply and
sanitation services, the paper also examines how fintech can
help water utilities serve low-income customers more
effectively and assist small-scale service providers in
growing their businesses. |
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