The MasterCard Foundation has announced a six-year, $17.6 million initiative to increase the range of financial services available to poor, rural populations in Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia.

The Savings at the Frontier project, a partnership with Oxford Policy Management, aims to connect two hundred and fifty thousand people to the formal banking system through new financial products tailored for informal savings groups. Such groups have existed for centuries in many parts of the world, in part due to the low incomes of rural populations, the distance required to travel to bank branches, and a lack of trust and/or familiarity with banks. Such groups — which typically have ten to thirty members, often exclusively women — pool small savings at regular meetings, with the funds collected then used to issue loans to group members who repay them at an interest rate determined by the group.

According to the MasterCard Foundation, some nine million people are excluded from the formal banking system and find value in savings groups or clubs. "The Global Findex noted that making the connection between these informal savings groups and the formal banking system is one of the three most promising opportunities for financial inclusion and could bring an additional seventy million people in Africa into the formal financial system," said Ann Miles, director of financial inclusion and youth livelihoods at the foundation. "We want to help forge this connection with 'Savings at the Frontier'."