Financial Access Initiative
| Founded | 2006 |
|---|---|
| Focus | Financial Access, Poverty Alleviation, Microfinance |
| Location |
|
|
Area served
|
Global |
|
Key people
|
Dean Karlan, Director, Lead Researcher Jonathan Morduch, Managing Director, Lead Researcher Sendhil Mullainathan, Director, Lead Researcher |
| Website | www |
The Financial Access Initiative (FAI) is an American consortium, established in 2006, of researchers at New York University (NYU), Yale University, Harvard University and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) focused on finding answers to how financial sectors can better meet the needs of poor households.
The Initiative was launched with core funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU. Led by Managing Director Jonathan Morduch (NYU), Dean Karlan (Yale), Sendhil Mullainathan (Harvard), the Initiative seeks to provide rigorous research on the impacts of financial access and on innovative ways to improve access. FAI’s website states that financial access holds the promise to help low-income individuals in developing countries manage their economic lives and build wealth.
The Financial Access Initiative involves three main activities:
Funded by a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, FAI’s research aims to assess existing research on global financial access, generate new evidence through field work, and inform regulatory policy.
Field research is coordinated by Innovations for Poverty Action, an organization based in New Haven, Connecticut, and headed by Dean Karlan. Current research is taking place in Bolivia, Indonesia, South Africa, Mexico, Peru, India, Ghana, and the Philippines. Randomized control trials are used to focus on three central research initiatives: demand for financial services, impact of financial services and the role of regulatory policy.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
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