FINCA Client Research Tools

Research drives FINCA’s commitment to generate increasingly innovative products in order to expand access to vital financial services to millions more of the world’s lowest income entrepreneurs and their families. In 2003, FINCA Founder Dr. John K. Hatch conceived of the FINCA Client Assessment Tool (FCAT) to measure internationally comparable variables of clients’ social well-being. The FCAT is implemented utilizing best practice surveying techniques and a rigorous methodology to collect valuable client information, including:

• Expenditures and Assets (e.g. home ownership, food expenditure and other household or social expenditure, expenditure on education, characteristics about dwelling, ownership of health insurance, and assets in terms of agricultural or household items).
  
  
• Business Activities (e.g. main business sector and number of other businesses clients are actively involved with, and the duration of their businesses).
  
  
• Access to Financial Services (e.g. loan use, credit constraints previously experienced, other sources of borrowing, other financial accounts, and details about any remittances clients receive).
  
  
• Satisfaction with FINCA (e.g. satisfaction with interest rate and loan structuring, ease of application and disbursement, the extent to which FINCA helped clients achieve their goals, and details about client retention).
  
  
• Household Demographics (e.g. details about household and head of household regarding their education levels, school attendance, literacy rates, occupation status, source of drinking water, sanitation facilities, and experience with illness).

 Now in its sixth year, the FCAT has been conducted with each of FINCA’s 21 Affiliates across 5 continents.

The FCAT is implemented with approximately half of FINCA’s network each year and thousands of detailed client interviews have been conducted by our Client Assessment Research Fellows. Providing a reliable profile of current and new clients, FCAT data presents a snapshot of FINCA’s outreach. Researchers interview clients and input responses directly into a handheld Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) device, allowing for quick data uploading and analysis at FINCA headquarters. See examples of social performance indicators collected through the FCAT here.

• Client Standard of Living: (e.g. daily expenditure per capita, number and value of assets, food security, health indicators, education of clients and their children, and number of jobs created by the businesses).
  
• Client Loyalty and Satisfaction: (e.g. satisfaction with FINCA product offerings and terms, as well as client preferences for current and new products such as health insurance).
  
• Client Retention: determines reasons why clients leave FINCA, whether a client is permanently leaving and why, or if they are simply beginning a resting period but plan to return to borrowing from FINCA in the future. The retention survey also determines whether product profiles are meeting client needs, or if there are other internal issues that need to be changed to improve client retention.

FCAT download

For more information about this tool, please contact Alexi Taylor-Grosman.