This report focuses on the potential of linkages between formal financial services and savings groups to create change for the savings groups, banks, and households. One of the projects that is involved in this work in LINK Up, a project supported by CARE, Access Africa and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. LINK Up is a 3.5 year project working with savings groups in Tanzania and Kenya.
We use multiple datasets to explore trends over time that can answer the three guiding learning questions embedded in the LINK Up project.
(1) What is the impact of access to formal financial services on savings groups?
(2)What does the account performance look like for these groups and how does this affect the associated banks’ business models.
(3) What value do the people involved derive from gaining access to formal financial services?