Contact us: digitalwages@ilo.org
Contact us: digitalwages@ilo.org
This article analyses the earned wage access market, assesses the likelihood that it will displace payday lending, and reveals some of the dangers lurking beneath the low-cost surface of these transactions. It argues that earned wage access products have the…
This research brief outlines key findings on the impact of mobile money on poverty. It shares evidence from a range of studies about the effects of mobile money on individuals and households and about the user experience of payment transfers…
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…
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…
This report summarizes the discussion of a virtual conference on the opportunities and challenges created by digital wage payments, organized on 3 February 2021 by the International Organisation of Employers, in collaboration with the International Labour Organization and the Better…
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…
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…
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.
Why does the payday still exist? This article studies various explanations—economic, historical, behavioral, and legal. It concludes that the payday owes its existence to legacy legal architecture and suggests a path for legal reform.
This report shares five lessons and insights on the scaling of digital financial services from a partnership between BSR’s HERproject and the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. The partnership aims to leverage the HERfinance Digital Wages program to scale up…