Commitment Savings: Exploring the Market

This paper introduces the commitment savings supply in Latin America and the Caribbean, following a desk review of products offered by 1,350 institutions in 26 countries. It is the second in a series of four research notes on commitment savings, commissioned under the ProSavings Program framework. The paper identified 780 commitment savings products among the 460 entities offering this type of product. Other findings include:

• Colombia is by far the country that has the greatest number of entities offering commitment savings products, followed by Ecuador and Costa Rica;
• It is common for these savings products to be linked to concrete objectives and often product design and marketing are linked to the achievement of those objectives. The top three commitment savings products identified were open savings products (clients set their own objectives), Christmas savings, and savings for education/school;
• There is still room for innovation and improvement of these products in the region to make them attractive enough to compete with informal savings mechanisms.