Financial Inclusion Conjoint

Slum dwellers continue to face exclusion from mainstream social, economic and financial activities due to their lack of education and low income, leaving them vulnerable to income shocks and persistent poverty. The absence of empowerment compounds their challenges, highlighting the urgent need to address their financial inclusion. In this context, designing an inclusive deposit product is imperative to ensure financial inclusion for slum dwellers. We conducted a randomized conjoint experiment, gathering 2500 choice responses from 250 respondents in slum households in Khulna, an industrial city of Bangladesh. Our study estimates the influence of each attribute on slum dwellers’ choice of deposit product, measures willingness to pay for proposed inclusive deposit product, identifies heterogeneity in their preferences and examines the impact of financial literacy on their preferences. Our hypothetical financial inclusion product provides valuable insights for policy makers in formulating comprehensive policy to ensure financial inclusion of slum dwellers.