Topics Digital technology

In China, wages paid in digital fiat may boost use cases

This post discusses the introduction of the digitial yuan as a means of wage payment in China.

Fintech’s role in exacerbating or reducing the wealth gap

This article synthesizes research about the long-term costs of debt inequality on communities of colour in the United States of America, adding an in-depth analysis of several new advances in banking and lending, and proposing several key principles for reducing…

From cash to digital wage payments: A win-win for enterprises and women workers in the Philippines

The ILO and Women’s World Banking, along with the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade hosted a webinar on digital wage payments given its potential to empower workers, particularly women workers, by increasing their control over their wages…

Digital wage payments: Challenges and opportunities

On 3 February, IOE, in collaboration with the International Labour Organization and the Better Than Cash Alliance, organised a digital conference on the opportunities and challenges in digital wage payments, as well as on lessons learned in the field.

Factory wage digitisation trend in RMG sector steps backward

This news item highlights the trend of reverting back to cash wages among factories in the readymade garment industry in Bangladesh and presents possible explanation based on recent research.

Factory wage digitization trends

This blog post describes the evolution of digital wage payments in factories spread across Bangladesh’s five main industrial areas (Chittagong, Dhaka City, Gazipur, Narayanganj, and Savar). The findings are based on monthly phone interviews conducted between April and October 2020…

Learning to navigate a new financial technology: Evidence from payroll accounts

How do inexperienced consumers learn to use a new financial technology? This paper presents results from a field experiment that introduced payroll accounts in a population of largely unbanked factory workers in Bangladesh. In the experiment, workers in a treatment…

Utilizing technology to increase women’s financial capability and ensure gender-inclusive digital finance in the global supply chain

This post discusses the use of tech learning tools to support workers, especially women, transition to digital wages and help them to access, use, and ultimately benefit from their new payroll accounts.

Evidence of digital financial services impacting women’s economic empowerment

This report develops a conceptual framework to explore the causal mechanisms linking women’s economic empowerment and digital financial services, reviews the empirical evidence for each of these mechanisms, identifies challenges observed in interpreting the evidence, and highlights a set of…

Towards inclusive digital finance in Indonesia

This report reviews existing evidence on the impact of digital financial services and associated policies on development outcomes, provides an overview of the Indonesian context, and identifies promising areas for future research and policy innovation.