Financial Inclusion Strategies Conjoint

Slum dwellers continue to face exclusion from mainstream social, economic, and financial activities because of their lack of education and low income, leaving them vulnerable to income shocks and persistent poverty. The absence of empowerment compounds challenges and highlights the urgent need to address their financial inclusion. Designing an inclusive deposit product is imperative to ensure the financial inclusion of slum dwellers. We conducted a randomized conjoint experiment gathering 2500 choice responses from 250 respondents in slum households in Khulna, an industrial city in Bangladesh. Our study estimates the influence of each attribute on slum dwellers’ choice of deposit products, measures willingness to pay for the 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 policymakers when formulating comprehensive policies to ensure the financial inclusion of slum dwellers.

贫民窟居民因受教育程度不足与收入水平低下，持续被排斥于主流社会、经济与金融活动之外，使其极易遭受收入冲击与持续性贫困的影响。赋权缺失加剧了各类困境，凸显了解决其金融包容（financial inclusion）问题的迫切性。设计包容性储蓄产品，是保障贫民窟居民金融包容的必要之举。本研究在孟加拉国工业城市库尔纳的贫民窟家庭群体中开展了随机联合实验（randomized conjoint experiment），共收集到250名受访者的2500份选择反馈数据。本研究评估了各项属性对贫民窟居民储蓄产品选择的影响，测算其对拟议包容性储蓄产品的支付意愿（willingness to pay），识别其偏好的异质性特征，并检验了金融素养（financial literacy）对其偏好的作用机制。本研究提出的假设性金融包容产品，可为政策制定者制定保障贫民窟居民金融包容的综合性政策提供宝贵的参考依据。