Preliminary Research

We began by mapping stakeholders and understanding the current financial literacy landscape. This included desk research and initial in-depth interviews (IDIs) with young adults, university lecturers, and financial literacy influencers.

We also conducted preliminary workshops with stakeholders, such as the government agencies, universities, and Financial Service Providers (FSPs) to define the problem space and frame key hypotheses.

Qualitative Research

In the main fieldwork phase, we used two qualitative methods to gather rich contextual insights:

• Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with University Students
  We conducted FGDs with two groups of students: those who organize and manage financial literacy programs on campus, and those who participate in them. This allowed us to compare perspectives from both sides, capturing how programs are designed, delivered, and received.
• In-depth Interviews (IDIs)
  We spoke with a wide range of stakeholders, including financial institutions and service providers to explore program design, execution challenges, and unmet needs; university leadership and academics to understand how financial literacy is (or isn’t) embedded institutionally; and students from diverse genders, socioeconomic backgrounds, product usage, and living arrangements to gain deeper insight into their financial behaviors and challenges.
  

Synthesis & Co-creation

Insights from fieldwork revealed key behavioral patterns, unmet needs, and disconnects between existing financial literacy programs and youth realities.

The key findings are revealing gaps in the current program reach, format, content and outcome measurement.

• From exclusive to inclusive: Expanding access across campus
  Current programs in universities are centered around Faculties of Economics and Business, creating big gaps for students from other academic backgrounds.
• Format & content: From one-off seminars to continuous, learner-centered programs
  Continuous and practical knowledge in a program is rare as programs often push generic information or brand awareness.
• Measuring behavioral outcomes: From participation counts to behavior change
  Often evaluated using the number of participants reached or accounts opened, current programs are missing indicators to capture young adults behavioral change and skills development.

These findings became the foundation for co-creation workshops involving government agencies, financial regulators, FIs/FSPs, university representatives, and industry associations. Together, we developed possible interventions to close the gaps.

Desk Research and Initial Mapping

Unlike most of our projects, this study focused on mapping the landscape of onboarding programs for Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) going digital, rather than solving a single problem. We started with desk research, but found that online information was scarce and mostly surface-level, making it hard to identify deeper challenges.

Snowball Recruitment and Network Outreach

Because program makers were not always visible, we could not use standard recruitment channels. We used snowballing through our networks, direct outreach to program implementers, and connections via DFS Lab and the Gates Foundation network. It turns out many programs are not widely advertised online, as their focus is on delivering education rather than public promotion.

Adaptive and explorative Interviews

We prepared a discussion guide but soon found a rigid structure was not effective. Each organization had its own way of running programs, and the people we spoke with held different roles, from high-level planners and visionary leaders to program managers and facilitators, so one guide did not work for everyone. With shifting topics, we took an adaptive approach to the interviews. After each interview, we debriefed to reflect on what we learned and the research direction, and adjusted the next session’s focus. This kept the research highly exploratory and responsive to new insights.

Synthesis and Reporting

Findings were synthesized into frameworks and a research report outlining program types, MSE readiness stages, best practices, and systemic gaps. These will inform ecosystem players and support the creation of a toolkit for more user-centric program design.

Phase 1 Project Visioning & Landscaping

This phase started with detailing the project plan, teams visioning on outputs, outcomes, and methodology. Then, followed with developing partnership strategy and outreach with financial service providers, sampling strategy and framework, design of research tools, IRB approvals submission, and market recce.

Phase 2 Discovery

The phase is divided into 3 rounds of discoveries (field research). In each round, we did the analysis, synthesis, internal learnings workshop, country-wise socialization, feedback and iteration of the research approach.

Phase 3 Compiling Outputs and Dissemination

In the end phase of the project, we did analysis and sense making across all the three rounds of the discovery by country followed with compiling the global cross-country learnings. In parallel, we did country wise dissemination and is closed by global dissemination with relevant stakeholders.