For today’s class (I teach at a university) students were to view this very nice video produced by CGAP. It’s really good so do spend the time, if you can, to watch it.

I asked the class what they thought of the video. One student reported that he watched it with his wife (who knows zero about financial inclusion) and the first thing she said was, “why would you want to get those people into banks, what they are doing seems fine?” Another student, a Mexican, commented that the video did not allude to the 1994 Mexican banking crisis but memory of that crisis looms large today – yet another reason to not drive people into the banking system. The banks after all did fail.

Maybe commercial banks are not obvious partners for the poor. Note how credit creeps into the conversation and how the banker changes his tune.