Behavioural Interventions That Advance Financial Inclusion

Financial service providers (FSPs) are continually looking for innovative ways in which they can design and deliver financial services to reduce cost and increase the overall value of these services to customers. In this context, FSPs are increasingly translating new insights from behavioral science – particularly on financial decision-making – into practical and implementable interventions. Such interventions have proven to effectively reduce the cost of acquiring new customers, improve the retention of existing customers and reduce the occurrence of customers that use financial services but that increase the cost of providing those services (e.g. through inactive bank accounts or low savings balances).

A recent study identified 18 unique behavioral interventions that FSPs can implement to influence the savings, credit, payment and insurance decisions of individuals. These interventions can be implemented with customers across several typical promotion, sales and servicing interaction points. In this brief, the interventions have been grouped into four broad areas:

1. Client choice architecture;
2. Commitment features;
3. Pricing and financial benefits;
4. Client communication.