The MasterCard Foundation has announced a $9.6 million partnership with South African firm FinMark Trust and the nonprofit Centre for Financial Regulation and Inclusion (Cenfri) to launch a data facility designed to help financial service providers better understand the needs of their low-income customers.

Using client-centered data, the insight2impact (i2i) facility will help financial service providers glean insights from real-time data sets and incorporate those insights into their product design and business decisions. The facility also will assist in the development and dissemination of new approaches to measuring financial access and highlight the business case for financial service providers to take more deliberate client-centric approaches in serving economically disadvantaged clients.

"In most developing countries, limited insights on new consumer segments undermine the ability of the financial sector to best serve them," said Cenfri technical director Herman Smit. "We believe through this pioneering collaboration we can work with financial service providers to improve our understanding of how they can best serve these new consumer segments through the use of data.

"Banks and other financial service providers today, more than ever, need to be responsive to clients in order to differentiate themselves and remain relevant," said Ann Miles, director of programs for financial inclusion and youth livelihoods at the MasterCard Foundation. "i2i is an important, collaborative effort to help the industry improve not just the range and relevance of financial products and services, but also enhance clients' experiences and satisfaction with services being offered to them."